You Are Witnessing What Greatness Is All About

In 1964, Braves outfielder Rico Carty, who made a career of putting up Amazing numbers against the Mets, hit .509 against them, with eight home runs and 27 RBI.

Albert Pujols didn't quite take his game to that astronomical level, but hius 2009 season against the Mets was a near duplicate of that of the man he figures to rreplace as the greatest Cardinal of all-time.

Check this out:

Stan Musial vs 1962 Mets- .468 BA, 4 HR, 15 RBI, 2 K, 11 BB

Albert Pujols vs 2009 Mets- . 469 BA, 4 HR, 14 RBI, 2 K, 7 BB

What's particularly impressive from a Pujols perspective is that he put up those numbers in 9 games.

Musial did his damage in 17 games.

Stan the Man does have one accomplishment on his resume that Pujols doesn't, at least not yet.

Musial hit three home runs in a game against the Mets on July 8, 1962. Pujols has five multi-homer games against the Mets, but has yet to hit three against them in one contest.

Most Multi-HR Games vs Mets

8- Willie McCovey
6- Willie Mays
5- Albert Pujols
5- Chipper Jones
5- Dave Kingman
5- Dick Allen

After watching what he did in this series, you'd hope he never gets the chance to do so.

True Metjols know...It took the Mets nine years before they hit Albert Pujols with a pitch in regular-season play. That's a step up from the 14 years it took before the Mets hit Chipper Jones with a pitch for the first time.

Comments

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 ...

The 'Duca of Earl (and walk-offs)

If I told you that the Mets had just obtained a guy who is a career .316 hitter with runners in scoring position? How about if I told you that the Mets just traded for a hitter who has consistently ranked among the toughest in baseball to strike out? Or if I mentioned that the Mets just dealt for a player who was selected to the NL All-Star team the last three seasons, with the last honor coming via a vote by his peers? So, although he's on the down side age wise, his throwing arm isn't as good as it used to be, and he doesn't provide much power, there are a lot of good things that Paul Lo Duca brings to the New York Mets. For example: He'll sacrifice his body for the good of the team The Dodgers and Braves squared off on August 23, 2002 and Lo Duca made an impact both on the start and finish of this game. Three pitches after being dusted by Greg Maddux, Lo Duca made him pay with a first-inning home run. The Braves rallied to tie the game, 3-3 in the ninth, but their bu...

Been There, Won That

The Dodgers had 19 hits in their loss to the Mets on Thursday night in a game that, no offense (pardon the ironic pun), was excruciating to watch for many, many reasons, none of which I feel like getting into at this hour. Willie Randolph summed it up in his press conference afterwards, saying simply "It's not fun!" I wonder if Tom Hanks, Alyssa Milano, Ray Romano and Kareeem Abdul-Jabaar (all in attendance) stuck around for the finish? I do wish to note briefly, again with the aid of Baseball-Reference, that the last time the Dodgers had 19 hits and lost a game, it was to the Mets. The difference between that game and this one was that this contest, of May 24, 1973, lasted an interminable 19 innings., with the Mets winning, 7-3. Rusty Staub's fifth hit of the game drove in the go-ahead run. Ken Boswell added an RBI single and Ed Kranepool salted the game away with a two-run double. Some other noteworthy anecdotes from a quick box score gleaning: * Like Thursday's...

Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Search This Blog