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   No. 66 to 70 can be found  here   No. 61 to 65 can be found here 60. Todd Hundley hits No. 41  (Sep...

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 75. Darryl Strawberry’s debut goes bonkers!  (May 6, 1983 vs Reds) Darryl Strawberry’s Mets debut was a HUGE deal. I can remember the Daily News begging him to ...

* Mets Walk-Off Win #354 is the Mets 6th walk-off win of the season, their first since June 11. * That is the first walk-off home run for David Wright in his baseball career, at any level (thanks to Ethan in the Mets PR office for procuring this note for us earlier in the season). * That was Wright's seventh career walk-off RBI, tied for second in Mets history with Rusty Staub. Kevin McReynolds is the all-time Mets leader with 8. It was Wright's second walk-off RBI this season, with both coming in games in which the bullpen blew a win for Johan Santana. * It was the 8th time that the Mets have beaten the Padres with a walk-off home run, the last being by Chris Woodward on July 19, 2005. That one was also a 2-run home run. * 5-3 is an extraordinarily unusual walk-off final score for the Mets. They've had 3 walk-off wins end with a 5-3 score, and all have occurred since the beginnings of this blog. They beat the Angels 5-3 on Cliff Floyd's walk-off home run on June 11, 20...

So apparently the Mike Myers film festival did David Wright some good, eh? * David Wright's 11th career multi-homer game was the 306th multi-homer game in Mets history. Wright is now halfway to Darryl Strawberry's club record for multi-homer games. Most Multi-HR Games Mets History 22-Darryl Strawberry 17-Mike Piazza 16-Dave Kingman 11-David Wright 11-Carlos Beltran 10-Kevin McReynolds 10-Bobby Bonilla * It was also the 9th time that David Wright had a multi-homer game at Shea Stadium. He's closing in on Darryl Strawberry's Shea record Most Multi-HR Games For Mets at Shea Stadium 11-Darryl Strawberry 9-David Wright 6-Gary Carter 5-Mike Piazza 5-Todd Hundley 5-Dave Kingman 5-Bobby Bonilla Truly Multimet fans know... Willie McCovey has the mark for most multi-homer games against the Mets, with 8. Most Multi-HR Games vs Mets 8-Willie McCovey 6-Willie Mays 5-Dave Kingman 5-Chipper Jones 5-Dick Allen

So David Wright is scheduled to get the evening off, for the first time all season. Hopefully David had a little fun today. My hope is that he went to see The Love Guru and yes, I'm aware that it's the most critically ripped movie, perhaps of this decade. But there's a reason David should be at the cinema today. He loves Mike Myers. David Wright is 2-for-2 in his career against Mike Myers and both of his hits were home runs. After watching that movie (perhaps he should rent Wayne's World or Austin Powers instead), perhaps Wright should go to the Shea film room and pull out some video, maybe even consult with his favorite guru, Howard Johnson, who went through plenty of funks in his Mets career. Maybe he'll see that he's pressing, that he's trying to hit his first career walk-off home run, every time he's at-bat. Wright started off the season like gangbusters, hitting .359 with 10 doubles and 19 RBI in the Mets first 17 games. Since then, he's hittin...

Let's just pretend Thursday's game didn't happen... Things I Learned While Trying to Put David Wright's .465 batting average with the bases loaded into proper perspective He's Positively Tablerian Pat Tabler hit .282 in a major league career that spanned 12 seasons and more than 1,200 games. But his biggest value was what he did when the bases were loaded. He was 43-for-88, and even if you factor in his nine sacrifice flies (which batting average doesn't), his numbers are still off-the-charts good. David Wright's .465 is in the Tabler stratosphere (Tabler-Rosa?) and that's pretty impressive. Of course, Wright will never be able to match Tabler's 2-for-2 performance with the bases loaded as a 17-game Met. That's perfection. He's Not The Best In The Majors, But He's Close Enough So Taguchi is a .500 hitter with the bases loaded (20-for-40). Jose Lopez is a .484 hitter with the bases-loaded (15-for-31) Ichiro is a .473 hitter with the bases ...

I really thought, off the swing, that David Wright had hit his first career walk-off home run. It wouldn't have been the first walk-off home run of Wright's major league career. It wouldn't have been the first walk-off home run of Wright's professional career. It would have been the first walk-off home run that David Wright had ever hit in his life. I know this because, in the bizarrest of coincidences, my quest to find out whether David Wright had ever hit a walk-off home run ended about 10 hours earlier when a Mets PR person replied to a request I had made a few days before. I'm told that Wright pondered the query for a couple minutes before answering that he had never hit one. Never as in never ever. My reply to the Mets official was: "Thank you. I look forward to his first." So you can imagine my reaction when the ball left the bat, and of course, I'm at work and sitting in a part of our offices in which ones rooting interest should not get in th...

I'm glad that David Wright broke his career worst 0-for string on Saturday, because the matchup on Sunday, while fascinating, is a bit troubling. John Smoltz pitches for the Braves on Sunday and he's essentially the kryptonite to David Wright's Superman status. Smoltz has struck Wright out 19 times in 52 meetings (plate appearances) in holding him to a .233 batting average. Why is that significant? Take a look at this list. Most K By David Wright vs Pitchers John Smoltz 19 Brett Myers 7 Dontrelle Willis 7 Jason Bergmann 6 Randy Johnson 6 Mike Mussina 6 (in 8 plate appearances, 7 AB!) Among active players, there's no one who Smoltz, who just passed 3,000 career strikeouts, has whiffed more than David Wright. That's particularly amazin' considering that Wright has only played the equivalent of 3.5 major league seasons. Not only has Wright struck out 19 times. He's gone to a 2-strike count against Smoltz 34 times (well more than half their meetings), going 4-fo...

"You don't even know what a Wright-off is, do you?" -- Jerry Seinfeld to Kramer in an episode discussing some bit of minutiae I do!! I do!! It's what we'll call Sunday's game-winning hit against the Marlins by the man with the Magic Number. I've provided advertisements for David Wright's MVP candidacy in this space before, but after Sunday's victory, I feel the need to supplement some of that information. I think the appropriate definition of an MVP is someone who raises his game to another level when it matters most. How has David Wright done that? * From Opening Day through August 31, David Wright hit .319, with a .413 on-base percentage and a .534 slugging percentage. In September, he's increased himself across the board by hitting at a rate of .333/.424/.654. * From Opening Day through August 31, David Wright had 87 RBI, a pace that would have given him approximately 106 for the season. In September, Wright has 18 RBI in 20 games, a pace th...

Yes, I know that everyone may be talking about the Most Valuable Pedro today and that's fine, as I'm sure I'll have something to say about that in the near future. Today I'd rather talk about the Mets best chance at winning Most Valuable Player. I hadn't really bought into the David Wright for MVP talk until the last week or so, but a few things (victories) have happened to change my mind. I took a closer look at the numbers and it got me to thinking that the Mets have a really good chance to have their first MVP winner. The last two days, David Wright has hit go-ahead home runs and that prompted me to take a closer look at his 26 homers this season. What I found is that all 26 could be considered meaningful. 11 of the 26 snapped ties. Add the one he hit on Monday against Aaron Harang and you have 12 home runs that have given the Mets the lead. The other New York third baseman doesn't have that many go-ahead dingers and he's got a lot more to work with. Wrig...

Listened to a little Billy Joel on the drive home, which explains the title of this entry. It's late and I'm tired, so for now we just simply present the facts. * Walk-off # 346 is the Mets fifth walk-off win of the season (against no walk-off defeats). This is the fourth time in club history and the first time since 1988 that the Mets started a season reaching the five walk-off win mark before suffering their first walk-off defeat. The others are 1966 and 1985. They've never gotten to six walk-off wins before their first walk-off defeat. * It is the 4th walk-off hit and 5th walk-off RBI of David Wright's career, his first since last May 29, when he beat the Diamondbacks with a walk-off single. It is his 2nd career walk-off double Editorial comment: If Wright gets credit for a double on that hit, Jose Reyes should have been credited for a triple on the ball on which Glavine failed to score on Friday night. Reyes was at third when Glavine was tagged out. Wright, was not ...

Though still seething over the events of Wednesday evening, there was a rather pleasant recover on Thursday afternoon, and the train ride/drive home from Shea allowed me to gather my thoughts and convey them here. * On Wednesday, Jose Reyes became the 9th Met to hit for the cycle. He became the first to do so in a Mets loss. * Reyes is the first Met to hit for the cycle at home since John Olerud (September 11, 1997 vs Expos). He is the 4th Met to hit for the cycle at home (Jim Hickman, Tommie Agee and John Olerud). The Mets have never had a walk-off win and cycle in the same game. Interesting to note that the only visitor to hit for the cycle at Shea is Wes Parker (May 7, vs Dodgers) and he drove in the go-ahead runs that day with a 10th inning triple. * Reyes became the 2nd Mets shortstop to hit for the cycle, joining Mike Phillips (June 25, 1976 at Cubs). He became the 4th leadoff Met to hit for the cycle (Jim Hickman, August 7, 1963 vs Cardinals, Tommie Agee, July 6, 1970 vs Cardina...

In the interest of preventing guilt feelings, apparently I'm not the only Mets blogger to title his post in this way. See Metstradamus for another such perspective. So we substitute die-hard Mets fan Julia Stiles (it says so in her IMDB.com bio) and her eephus-ball first-pitch for another Hollywood actress, Alyssa Milano and we get another walk-off win. Here's hoping Julia stuck around through the rain drops as my sister did to witness walk-off win #337. * It was the 4th walk-off RBI for David Wright this season (2 singles, a double and a sac fly). He's one shy of the Mets record of 5, set by George Foster in 1983 (CORRECTED VIA METS TELECAST ON 5/30). We can call him Mr. Walk-Off (or perhaps NY Post writer, Phil Mushnick, not a fan of the term, would prefer "Mr. Game-Ender). We can also call Paul Lo Duca "Mr. Memorial Day" as he's 13-for-18 for his career on that holiday. * Wright is now halfway to Kevin McReynolds Mets record of 8 career walk-off ...

"There's never a better feeling than to get a game-winning hit and be able to round the bases and see those guys walking off while our team is running on. No better feeling." -- David Wright to media, sometime after midnight on what was technically, May 6, 2006. While you're contemplating whether the Victor Zambrano injury is a devastating loss or a blessing in disguise, ponder these tidbits as well. * Friday's 14-inning win over the Braves was only the second in which a Mets player had 5 hits and the team had a walk-off win. The only other such occurrence took place in an 11-inning win over the Phillies on September 20, 1975. Rusty Staub went 5-for-6 and the Mets won 9-7 on a 2-run home run by Ron Hodges. * This was the 27th Mets walk-off win lasting at least 14 innings. The last Mets walk-off win in a game lasting at least 14 innings was Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS. The last regular season game was a 4-3, 14 inning win over the Blue Jays on June 9, 1999, in which th...

"When you know something, say what you know. When you don't know something, say that you don't know. That is knowledge." -- Confucius (used as a Stuyvesant High School yearbook quote by my friend, David Cooper) By my count (using Baseball-Reference.com at this late hour), the Mets have played 3,537 regular season and postseason home games to a decision (ties not included). Friday's 14-inning victory, for which I was in attendance, gave them an unofficial count of 334 walk-off wins. That equates to 9.44 percent of all home games being walk-off victories. I don't know how many of them included a Met getting 5 hits. I don't know how many of them included the Mets tying the game in an extra-inning, than winning the game in another extra inning. I don't know if 19 is a Mets walk-off record for men left on base. I do know that David Wright has two walk-off RBI this season I do know that getting three walk-off wins in a week is a pretty impressive feat. I do ...

Combing the internet for nuggets about prior David Wright walk-offs proved to be an unsuccessful journey through the information superhighway, but I did make a nice detour on the information Subway. I think the reason that Willie Randolph likes Wright so much is not because of Wright's penchant for superb play, but rather his affinity for a certain deli treat. Years ago, Wright was asked for his pre-game meal preference and he indicated his choice would be a turkey sandwich from his favorite fast-food chain, Subway. Move over Jared the weight-loss wiz and Joe Torre. I think it's time for someone to sign an endorsement deal. That restaurant would be wise to sign Wright while the price is still affordable. They're already in tight with the Mets, as evidenced by the advertisements on the back of this years ticket stubs. It seems likely that Sunday's win provided the first of many walk-off moments for Wright, who in the opening week of the season lived up to the billing of...