Skip to main content

Drive a Suzuki

The most prolific batsman of the 21st century is coming to Shea Stadium with a flaw in his game, and it's one that he won't be able to fix in the next couple of days.

Ichiro Suzuki, he of nearly 1,700 career major-league hits, has not had a walk-off hit since coming to the United States.

Every active major leaguer with at least as many hits as Ichiro has had a walk-off hit at some point in his career.

Breaking this down further via Baseball-Reference.com, I took a look at every walk-off chance that Ichiro has had in his career.

* He's had 19 career regular season plate appearances in the bottom of the 9th inning, with the score tied.

In those 19, he is 4-for-13, but more notably, he has 6 intentional walks. That's an indication that opponents are so fearful of his capabilities, that they won't give him a chance to get a walk-off hit.

* He had 33 plate appearances in the bottom of extra innings with the score tied.

In those 33, he is 13-for-27 with 3 walks and 3 sacrifice bunts. That's a .481 batting average. And yet, on none of those 13 hits did the winning run score. The problem with those hits...only 1 came with a runner in scoring position, thus making a walk-off scenario much more difficult.

I should note, one of Ichiro's walks was a walk-off (against the Rangers and former Met, Rich Rodriguez). I didn't say he had zero walk-off RBI. He's just never had a walk-off hit.

* He's had 2 plate appearances, with his team trailing in extra innings, in which he could have brought in the winning run.

He was 0-for-2.

* He's had 18 plate appearances with his team trailing in the bottom of the 9th, in which he could have brought in the winning run.

In those 18, he's 5-for-15, with 2 walks and a sacrifice bunt. However, he hasn't had a hit in such a scenario since 2002 (0-7, 2 walks from 2003 to 2008).

In fairness to Ichiro, it does appear rather difficult to get a walk-off hit from the leadoff spot, and the guy does enough other things well to offset this weakness. Current Mets leadoff man Jose Reyes has only one. The Mets most frequent leadoff hitter, Mookie Wilson, had two walk-off hits in his Mets career, but both were home runs.

True Metzukis know...

Some other Mariners walk-off trivia, thanks to MikeMav.com

* On June 6, 1978, the Mariners beat the Yankees by walk-off, with the winning run scoring on an error by future Mets manager Willie Randolph.

* On July 13, 1985, the Mariners beat the Red Sox by walk-off, with the winning run scoring on an error by none other than Bill Buckner.

* 5 players have had a walk-off hit for the Mets and Mariners.

Walk-Off Hit for Mets and Mariners
All-Time

Mike Cameron
John Olerud
Carl Everett
Butch Huskey
Kevin Mitchell

* The Mariners are one of 6 current teams that the Mets have never beaten by walk-off. The others are the Rangers, Rays, Indians, Twins, and White Sox

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Best Games I Know: Phillies (Updated)

  The best wins against the Phillies in Mets history …   May 5, 2022 – Mets 8, Phillies 7 The Mets score 7 runs in the 9 th inning to overcome a 7-1 deficit and win in Philadelphia.   April 29, 2022 – Mets 3, Phillies 0 Tylor Megill and 4 Mets relievers combine on the second no-hitter in franchise history.   September 22, 2016 – Mets 9, Phillies 8 (11) The Mets tie it in the 9 th on a Jose Reyes home run and win it in the 11 th on a 3-run home run by Asdrubal Cabrera.   July 17, 2016 - Mets 5, Phillies 0 Jacob deGrom pitches a one-hitter. Only hit is a single by Zach Eflin in the 5 th inning.   August 24, 2015 – Mets 16, Phillies 7 David Wright homers in his first at-bat in more than 4 months. The Mets hit a team-record 8 home runs.   July 5, 2012 – Mets 6, Phillies 5 The Mets score 2 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9 th to beat Jonathan Papelbon. The winning run scores on David Wright’s bloop down the right field line.   August 13

The best Mets ejections I know

When you think of the Mets and famous ejections, I'm guessing you first think of the famous Bobby Valentine mustache game, when after Valentine got tossed, he returned to the dugout in disguise. You know it. You love it. I remember being amused when I asked Bobby V about it while we were working on Baseball Tonight, how he simply said "It worked. We won the game." (true) But the Bobby V mustache game of June 9, 1999 is one of many, many memorable Mets ejection stories. And now thanks to Retrosheet and the magic of Newspapers.com , we have a convenient means for being able to share them. Ever since Retrosheet's David Smith recently announced that the Retrosheet ejection database was posted online , I've been a kid in a candy store. I've organized the data and done some lookups of media coverage around the games that interested me post. Those newspaper accounts fill in a lot of blanks. Without further ado (and with more work to do), here are some of my findings

Walk-Offs in Movies, TV, and Other Places

Note: I'm leaving this post up through the end of the week, a) because I don't have time to pump out something new and b)because I was hoping to build a really good list of entertainment industry walk-offs...so if you're looking for something new, check back on Monday or so... Of course, if there's a major trade or move, I'll adjust and try to post something... In the meantime, click on the "Table of Contents" link as well. It has been updated. SPOILER ALERT: Read at your own risk Caught the ending of "A League of Their Own" on one of the movie channels the other day and it got me to thinking that it would be fun to compile a list of walk-offs from movies, television, and other forms of entertainment. Here's the start, and only the start, as I spent about 30 minutes or so thinking it over Help me fill in the blanks by filling out the comments section. "A League of Their Own"-- Racine beats Rockford for the All-American Girls Profess