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The 'Man'zere

Baseball-Reference has pitch data dating back approximately 20 years.

They have no other instances of a one-pitch save in Mets history besides the one recorded on Tuesday night. That makes sense. Very little in Mets history is angst-free.

The Mets last two one-pitch wins have been of the walk-off variety. Remember Jorge Sosa? He got a one-pitch win against the Phillies on April 10 (Angel Pagan walk-off hit). Aaron Heilman got the last one prior to that, on May 14, 2007, when the Mets beat the Cubs on Carlos Delgado's walk-off walk.

There are three other one-pitch wins in their logs. The only other one at Shea Stadium was of the walk-up variety. But we'll give Josias Manzanillo a little more credit for that one.

It was July 19, 1994, not too long before the season ended early due to a labor dispute. The Mets and Dodgers clashed at Shea on a day where Todd Hundley hit second and Joe Orsulak batted fifth. Perhaps it should have been the other way around.

The Mets trailed 4-2 in the visitors eighth and the Dodgers loaded the bases against Roger Mason. Manzanillo replaced Mason with a dangerous hitter up- Mike Piazza. The matchup was short and sweet. Piazza grounded into a force play on the first pitch.

That swung the momentum back to the Mets and in the home eighth, they had an offensive explosion. The key hits were by Kevin McReynolds (two-run game-tying single), and Ryan Thompson (three-run go-ahead double against former Met Roger McDowell).

John Franco, incapable of an easy save in those days, required 18 pitches and a little angst to get the job done. He put two men on base before getting Eric Karros and Carlos Hernandez out on ground balls to end the game. Franco got a save, albeit a rather cheap one. In this case, the win, and the save, probably should have gone to Manzanillo.

True Metzanillos know...Recent call-up Dan Murphy, quickly becoming a Metswalkoffs favorite, has a walk-off home run this year. Binghamton play-by-play voice Rob Ford tells us that Murphy hit one in the 14th inning to beat the Connecticut Defenders on July 18, the first of three walk-off home runs hit by Binghamton that month.

Comments

Anonymous said…
My very first online crusade in May of '94 was to replace John Franco as closer with Josias Manzanillo. I stand by my position.

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