Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

In 2009, I did a project for my website, Mets Walk-Offs and Other Minutiae, celebrating the best home runs in Mets history. I selected the top 60 regular season home runs and the top 15 postseason home runs. The reason I picked 60 was because it represented the top 1% of home runs in Mets history (and 15 just felt right for postseason). This was fun to do, but it was imperfect. I had one egregious omission. I tended to favor oddities. It’s time to give that project an update. And why not do it as a top 100? The Mets have hit 7,671 regular season home runs. The top 80 represent about the top 1%. And the top 20 postseason home runs get us to an even 100 to celebrate. Come along for the ride. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the reminiscing. Hopefully you’ll find it Amazin’. No. 76 to 80 can be found  here No. 71 to 75 can be found here 70. The Jersey-Ripping Game  (August 30, 1992 vs Reds) This one is pretty cool. It was Sunday Night Baseball, the finale ...

Well, you don't see that one every day, as far as victories go. Nor do you see a 7-foot Mets fan, or folks wearing jerseys or t-shirts saluting Todd Zeile, Ty Wigginton, a Pena (maybe Alejandro?), a Taylor (guessing not Sammy, maybe Billy?), Tom Glavine (almost as disturbing as the four Yankee-attire clad fans who graced the seats in front of us for 2 innings), and Jay Payton, but all figured into my Saturday viewing experience at Shea. It was one in which I uttered "Carlos Beltran has 4 home runs in May...awful!" and "Fernando Tatis can't get around on 97 miles-per-hour" in a successful reverse-jinxing effort. I had the chance to meet Metstradamus (sporting the Zeile attire) for the first time, and we debated which one of us was more "honored" to be in the presence of the other (he is to Photoshop what I am to Minutiae), chatted about obscure jerseys (Eric Gunderson vs Doug Simons) with his game guest (Greg from Faith and Fear ), talked trivia (19...

Put me down as pro-Willie, but Fred Pryor is conducting a seminar in my hotel. It's called "How to Communicate With Tact and Professionalism." Mr. Randolph might do well to attend. For the time I spent in my car (nearly 5 hours round trip), the Ty Cobb Museum (a room-and-a-half in a doctor's office) wasn't worth the trip. And at this rate, neither are the Mets. Yeah, the homemade ice cream shop about a half mile from the museum was pretty good, and the "Which fan looks like a Seinfeld character?" bit during the game was funny (Keith Hernandez as himself), but there weren't many other highlights. A lowlight was seeing the commercial for the Braves version of the "Buy a Brick" program, which CitiField has as well. The sample brick shown during the commercial: "Glad to be back. The Glavine Family." More fuel for the "spy" fodder. Two of my fanhood principles were significantly tested during this game. Early in the contest, ...

And then there are some perfectly good pitchers whose asses the Mets have thoroughly kicked. They are the anti-Hong-Chih Kuo's of the world... Like Brad Penny 5-12 against the Mets 88-57 against others Like Steve Carlton 30-36 against the Mets 299-208 against others Like Rick Reuschel 14-25 against the Mets 200-166 against others Like Nelson Briles 5-16 against the Mets 124-96 against others Like Ken Holtzman 5-11 against the Mets (though he beat the Mets twice in the 1973 WS) 169-139 against others Like Roger Clemens 3-6 against the Mets (with a 4.89 ERA) 351-178 against others Those who will truly save a penny on tickets at Citifield know... Hong Chih-Kuo has the same number of wins against the Mets as Roger Clemens.

All you need to know about this game Only two pitchers in Dodgers history have thrown 3+ hitless innings, with 8 or more strikeouts against the Mets. Hong Chih Kuo did it on Tuesday. Sandy Koufax did it, in his no-hitter against the 1962 Mets. Hong-Chih Kuo, 3-0 vs Mets in regular season (0-1 in playoffs) Hong Chih Kuo, 1-11 vs all other teams Let's move on to something else, shall we?

Ranking the 29 players to get 6+ RBI in a game against the Mets (one did it twice)...from worst to best 1- Augie Ojeda, 2008 2- Dave Kingman, 1980 3- Adolfo Phillips, 1967 (7) 4- Tony Batista, 2004 5- Cody Ross, 2006 (7) 6- Tom Pagnozzi, 1991 7- Jim Morrison, 1984 8- Joe Randa, 2005 9- Bob Bailey, 1973 10- Felipe Lopez, 2008 11- Corey Patterson, 2003 (7) 12- Lee Stevens, 2001 13- Jerry Morales, 1974 14- Willie Montanez, 1976 15- Ron Gant, 1990 16- Brandon Phillips, 2007 17- Bobby Higginson, 1997 (7) 18- Von Hayes, 1985 19- Tom Herr, 1987 20- Deron Johnson, 1971 21- Tim Wallach, 1994 22- Jimmy Wynn, 1967 23- Dick Allen, 1968 (7) 24- Billy Williams, 1968 25- Albert Pujols, 2006 (7) 26- Alex Rodriguez, 2006 (7) 27- Mike Schmidt, 1980 28- Willie McCovey, 1962 (7), 1970 29- Hank Aaron, 1966 True Metjedas know... Albert Pujols had 7 RBI in a game in a Mets walk-off win, on August 22, 2006. Tom Herr had 6 RBI, including a walk-off grand slam against the Mets on April 18, 1987.

Ok, so on Friday's SNY broadcast, Gary Cohen told you of Harry Danning, the last player nailed trying for an inside-the-park home run with a cycle at stake...What they didn't tell you, besides Danning's status as the greatest Jewish catcher of all-time (so says his Baseball-Reference.com page ), was... * That Jose Reyes became the first player in Mets history with a single, a double, and two triples in a game. While that had never been done by the Mets, it had been done against them. I could give you 800 guesses at the former Met who put forth that kind of game and you wouldn't get the name. Only 829 players have played for the Mets (so says Ultimate Mets Database ), but I bet it would take until guess 801 to come up with this guy... Junior Noboa. Two great notes from that game of June 5, 1990 1) Mets broadcaster Ron Darling allowed the double, and the second triple to Noboa. 2) Despite Noboa's unbelievable effort, his team didn't win. The Mets did...in walk-off...

For those linked directly to this page, might I also interest you in what I wrote yesterday? http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2008/04/darryl-strawberry-your-time-has-come.html As well as something I wrote on Billy Wagner's hitless innings streak http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-no-hitters-but-many-minis.html How's this for synergy? About 2 minutes after I win a Brian Bannister bobblehead doll on E-Bay, Johan Santana became the first Mets pitcher with two doubles in a game since ... Brian Bannister tore his hamstring doing so, against the Giants on April 26, 2006. It's an eclectic group of pitchers that have twice doubled in a game for the Mets: Johan Santana (2008) Brian Bannister (2006) Bobby Jones (1997) Sid Fernandez (1986) Mike Scott (1982) Tom Seaver (1967) Gerry Arrigo (1966) For the record, the only pitcher to lose a game in which he doubled twice for the Mets was Seaver, who got beat that 1967 day on a walk-off home run by Joe Torre. For those curious abo...

I quote from the pilot episode of Cheers in this blog entry, hoping that walk-off win #349 will serve as the pilot episode for a better season ahead. For those curious, the quote originates from Diane taking a phone message for Sam. When she gets done, Sam asks for the message. Diane replies with the line I used in the title. Sam's punchline is "Thanks. What's the message?" From what I understand, you're supposed to keep things simple when writing a pilot episode, so we'll do so with these notes. * It only took the Mets 8 games (3 at home) to ensure that they'd have at least one walk-off win for the 47th straight season. It was their first walk-off win since August 21, 2007, when Luis Castillo singled in the winning run. * It's the first walk-off win against the Phillies since Carlos Beltran beat them with a 16th inning home run on May 23, 2006. It is the 34th walk-off win for the Mets against the Phillies, and only the second to last 12 innings. The ...

The new guy gets the ball on Monday, and I'm obviously psyched for the debut of Johan Santana as a Met, but at the same time, I'm a little cautious. The Mets are 1-5 (with an asterisk) on Opening Days in which they give the new guy the ball. The last time we gave the new guy the ball was in 2005, and while that opener started well, it didn't end in a positive fashion. Pedro Martinez struck out a dozen in six innings, and fellow new guys Manny Aybar and Dae Sung Koo looked pretty stellar for an inning apiece. But then the holdover came in and screwed everything up by allowing back-to-back homers, including the walk-off to Joe Randa. The new guy got the ball in 2003 and that game isn't worthy of more than a sentence. Suffice it to say, Tom Glavine set the tone for his entire tenure with the stinkeroo that was a 15-2 loss to the Cubs. They gave the new guy the ball to kick off 2000, and he couldn't throw it over the plate. Mike Hampton walked nine in five innings, ...