Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

We've already discussed Roger Clemens checkered past, but now for him to endorse cheating just adds more fuel to our fire. In regards to a question about Carlos Gomez's nifty catch at the wall on Friday, Clemens told the media "I'm wondering where that fan is that leans over and catches balls (a clear reference to Jeffrey Maier). We need one of them young fans again." Next time, breaking baseball's rules might be the way to go. Consider that in Clemens' 11 regular-season appearances against the Mets, his team is just 3-8. His 3-6 record against the Mets is the same as Steve Trachsel's. That's not good. True Metmens know... The Mets have one regular-season walk-off win in a game Clemens pitched. It was a 1-0 victory on April 13, 2005, with the game-winning hit coming from Jose Reyes, whose performance on Friday, by the way, was greatly reminiscent of Game 6 of the 2006 NLCS.

Had a few minutes to have some fun with Baseball-Reference and came up with these doozies. Enjoy! Answers can be found here: http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/06/our-special-bonds-yankees-answers.html 1) Mariano Rivera's first career strikeout came against someone who played for the Mets at one point in his career. This person also made the final out of a World Series, facing someone who went on to pitch for the Mets. Name him. 2) Derek Jeter is 0-for-13 (his worst 0-for) against a former Mets pitcher, one whose last name could easily be his first name. Name him. 3) Mike Mussina twice struck out 15 batters in a game. In one of those instances, former Mets Manny Alexander and Bernard Gilkey were pinch-runners, and Carl Everett was a pinch-hitter. Another former Met started at first base that day for the Red Sox and struck out twice. Name him. 4) Joe Torre hit more home runs (8) against this Hall of Fame pitcher, who spent nearly his entire career in the NL West, than any other.

It's pretty amazing that I've been doing this for two years now and have yet to write about July 10, 1999. If you were going to rank the Mets best wins over the Yankees, and we promise that someday we will, this game would have to rank No. 1 on the list. I have some regrets about this game, mainly because its lasting 3 hours and 47 minutes and an obligation I had to broadcast a summer league baseball game caused me to miss the viewing of its conclusion. Some unusual things happened in this game. Consider that: * The Yankees homered 6 times. The Mets homered once. The Mets still won. In the last 50 years, the Yankees have hit 6+ HR 13 times. They are 12-1 in those games. In fact, the Baseball-Reference PI tool tells us that in the last 50 years, teams hitting 6+ HR are 214-15. * A guy named Beltran (Rigo) pitched for the Mets (he allowed a home run to Chuck Knoblauch) The Mets were 10-23 in 1999 when Rigo Beltran pitched * Derek Jeter was held hitless Derek Jeter has started 56

Happy anniversaries to Steve Henderson (though you've probably read this one since I've posted it a billion times) ( http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/06/hendu-can-do.html ) and the New York Rangers (1994 Stanley Cup Game 7) Like the Mets, I am in need of a nap and my stomach is barking. So at the moment, I have nothing else to blog, not that there's much good to discuss. Perhaps I'll be back later with another trivia quiz or something...

Ok, so I'm really bored today, and I got to looking at the list of pitchers to homer against the Mets (thanks Baseball-Reference PI, which I really can't recommend enough). I noticed that there were a good number of former Mets on the list. Figured that it would make for a good trivia challenge. I've kept the clues brief, because I want this to be thought of as difficult. You can go to this link for the answers. http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/06/our-special-bonds-pitcher-hr-answers.html Good luck, and let me know how you did. Homered Against the Mets as a Pitcher, also played for Mets Pitcher #1 and 2: The two winningest pitchers on this list overall and thus probably the easiest ones to get. One won 4 games for the Mets but won a lot more for other teams. The other won a lot more, both for the Mets, and elsewhere. I'll give Mets win totals for everyone else I ask, but not this guy. Pitcher #3: Former lefthanded 20-game winner for whom the Mets were his final maj

So I'm sitting here wondering whether we've been duped, or whether I should be masochistingly (is that a word) satisfied in the notion that my season theme of "Ya Gotta Get Worse" seems to have fully taken shape. And I'm sure someone has asked this, but isn't the SI cover jinx supposed to occur after a team is on the cover, and not before? It's little comfort when you look things up on Baseball-Reference like how the Mets are 10-63 in games in which the opposing pitcher homers (should've turned it off right then...at least it wasn't at home, where the Mets are 2-38 when the 'impossible' happens). But perhaps it makes you feel better to know that the 1973 Mets went through these kinds of stretches too. In fact, one of them involved a trip to LA, where after a 19-inning win (which we'll write up some other time), the club went through a 4-14 skid (including the tail end of a 3-9 road trip), which included one of the worst games known to M