Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

News item: Mets claim lefthanded pitcher Patrick Misch on waivers from the Giants. "I'll always be a winner, and you'll always be a loser," This is the second time I've quoted the same line of the Seinfeld episode, "The Revenge." and its appropriate here with the news that the Mets added Misch to their major-league roster. Mishmash is more like it. Patrick Misch sports a win-loss record of which only Charlie Brown could be proud. If Misch never pitches in the majors again, he'd be one of 15 pitchers since the advent of the major leagues to sport a record of no wins, and at least seven losses. That's a fun list of pitchers to look through. It's one that includes the likes of Tommy McCarthy , who has no relation to the former Met broadcaster (not that I know, anyway), but is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. McCarthy wasn't much for moundsmanship, going 0-7 for the 1884 Boston Reds of the Union Association, but was quite an able bats...

Larry Jones now has 40 career regular-season home runs against the Mets. Thanks to the variety of research tools at Baseball-Reference.com and BaseballMusings.com, we can tell you... * He's the 6th player with 40+ career home runs against the Mets Most Career HR vs Mets 60-Willie Stargell 49- Mike Schmidt 48- Willie McCovey 45- Hank Aaron 42- Pat Burrell 40- Larry Jones * The Mets are now 9-26 in regular-season games in which Larry Jones homers against them. * The Mets are 6-13 in regular-season games in Atlanta in which Larry Jones homers against them. They went 3-13 in regular-season games at Shea Stadium in which Larry Jones homered against them. * Larry Jones has 5 multi-homer games against the Mets. The Mets are 0-5 in those games. * Larry's 40 home runs are his second-most against any team. He has 42 against the Phillies. * Larry's 40 regular-season home runs against the Mets have come against 27 different pitchers. Bobby Jones and Steve Trachsel have each allowed the...

Those who know what "The Penske File" is will appreciate our take on Jerry Manuel's comment after Thursday's Mets win: "I really feel like we're about to take off..." What we think he's going to say, probably sometime in the next 24 hours is... "I'm sorry I gave you the wrong impression. What is was going to say was I really feel like we're about to take off...for the rest of the winter. We expended so much energy getting through the first 145 games, we had nothing left for the last 17. You saw the last of what was left on Thursday. Oh, and our board of directors ..."

Russell: "We like to look at the show as if it were an EKG. You have your highs and your lows and it goes up and down." George: "The show will be like a heart attack!" Jerry: "Just a huge massive coronary." Jerry and George pitching their sitcom pilot in Seinfeld, Season 4, Episode 4, "The Ticket" These are your Mets. I think Seinfeld would have appreciated this script. ------ Game-winning, late-inning grand slams are in Mets history are rare. Here's a brief history. * This marked the third time that the Mets won a game, with the game-winning hit being a grand slam in the top of the 9th. Mets Win In Top of 9th Winning Hit is Grand Slam 2008- Carlos Beltran (at Marlins) 1999- Edgardo Alfonzo (NLDS Game 1) 1988- Kevin McReynolds (at Cubs...same day as Gary Carter's 300th HR) * The Mets have had two extra-inning road wins in which the game-winning hit was a grand slam Mets Win On Road In Extra Innings Winning Hit is Grand Slam 2000- Benny Ag...

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 th...

George: Is there a pinkish hue? Jerry: A pinkish hue? George: Yes, a rosy glow. Jerry: There's a hue. Seinfeld, "The Fix-Up" (original airdate February 5, 1992) Go figure that the Mets are heading into the All-Star Break playing a brand of baseball unprecedented in modern times (this 3 hits or fewer in five straight games thing). The Mets got "fixed-up" albeit in a different manner from George Costanza. And for all those bloggers that put together First Half Report Cards, those can be ripped up right about now. In that same episode, Jerry made this notation in the opening monologue. I tell ya, I never really understood the importance of the conductor. I mean between you and me, what the hell is this guy doing? Well, apparently ours is doing something right these days. Enough to give me both a rosy glow and a pinkish hue when thinking about the team for which I root. On to the minutiae about Saturday's game (our next post will come after the All-Star Break)....

Inspired by the noticing that Rickey Henderson never had a triple for the Mets. An Agent Zero (named after a fictitious movie reference in Seinfeld) is a player who never had a (fill in the blank) for the Mets. For the purposes of these lists, I did include pitchers within the tally. Agent Zeroes Mets History Most Plate Appearances, No Singles 47- Randy Tate 34- Brian Daubach 23- Andy Hassler 22- Sandy Alomar Sr. 21- Mike Remlinger >> Next position player: Ross Jones, 13 Most Plate Appearances, No Doubles 252- Pat Zachry 183- Jeff Duncan 179- Nolan Ryan 162- Roger Craig 118- Glendon Rusch >> Next position player: Dick Stuart, 96 Most Plate Appearances, No Home Runs 798- Alex Trevino 657- Chris Cannizzaro 541- Jon Matlack 457- Al Leiter 455- David Cone 355- Tom Glavine 340- Phil Linz Most Plate Appearances, No RBI 78- Eric Hillman 73- Doug Saunders 63- Ray Burris 62- Anthony Young 58- Charlie Puleo 57- Neil Allen >> Next position player: Harry Chiti, 43 Most Plate Appe...

"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...

The post counter on my blogger page tells me that this is post #411 and I'll go with that, even though some of them consist of me merely saying "No post today, back tomorrow." With that in mind, my goal today is to be as informative as I was in post #410, which I'd have to rank among my all-time favorites (maybe at 500, we'll do a "best of"). So today, rather than pay tribute to Mets killers, I'm going to borrow an idea from Jerry Seinfeld and do the opposite. It's my little tribute to his tv show (and George's gym teacher, Mr. Heyman) that I'm going to refer to the players I write about today as "Metskilledya." Again, following the Q and A format, with mucho kudos to the Play Index section at Baseball-Reference.com Who holds the record for longest "hitless" streak against the Mets? Well, in order to do this, we have to adjust our criteria to suit what Baseball-Reference can handle, and as a result, there are several a...

I feel a little like Mulva/Gipple/Bovary/Dolores from Seinfeld right about now, but am greatly appreciative of Gary Cohen's on-air mention on Tuesday night. Yes, he erred ever so slightly on the blog name, but judging from the reaction of friends and family, it was a pretty thrilling mention nonetheless. Speaking of forgotten names, I've got a neat one from past Metsdom for you: Hal Reniff. Remember him? Probably not. He lasted two months with the Mets in 1967 and though the overall numbers aren't particularly memorable, his pitching performance in his first three weeks is unrivaled in team history. Reniff was claimed off waivers by the Mets from the Yankees on June 28 of that season. He toiled for the Bronx Bombers for parts of seven seasons and closed for them regularly in 1963, before the save was considered fashionable or statistical. He was an average pitcher for the most part, and apparently in 1967, when mediocrity reigned in the Bronx, he was deemed no longer useful...

Elaine: Kramer! Kramer: Oh, hey. Elaine: What are you doing? Kramer: Oh, well, I-I-I'm dominating. Elaine: You never said you were fighting children. Kramer: Well, it's not the size of the opponent, Elaine, it's, uh, the ferocity. Seinfeld episode, original airdate, September 19, 1996. A scene in which Elaine visits Kramer's karate class. The most dangerous team for a pennant contender is a last-place team because it can spoil many a hard-earned victory with a couple of cheap triumphs. We've referenced in print previously how the bottom-feeding Mets have served as super spoilers in seasons in which the end result has been less than impressive. We've seen some pretty good seasons (see 1998) wrecked by the actions of basement-dwellers. One of the nice things about the first eight games for the Mets was their dominance over the teams they should beat, i.e. the "children" of the National League East. Gary Cohen said it on SNY after one of the first few gam...

Warning: This story may gross you out at the conclusion. Consider yourself warned. My vomit streak may not rival that of Jerry Seinfeld's, but I mark the last day I upchucked as a significant one in my history as a football fan. On December 29, 2002 the Jets were in the final week of a multi-team AFC playoff mishmash involving the Patriots, Dolphins and Cleveland Browns, one caused by an awful loss against the Bears a few weeks earlier. The Jets were facing the Packers at the Meadowlands at 4pm but needed the right combination of results at 1pm to set up a scenario by which beating Green Bay would mean a postseason spot. It had been an exciting, up-and-down season, one in which Chad Pennington made his first impact on the New York sports scene, taking over as the team's starting quarterback early in the season and leading them to several impressive wins. My dad and I had gone to the Meadowlands a couple of times that season and he suggested we make another trip. I resisted, par...

To borrow a little humor from the Shakespearian work, Seinfeld , I find the asterisk (aka "*") to be the pinky toe of symbols. It's one of those things that doesn't really have a significant use, but should be appreciated for its existence.   The role of the asterisk has been of value to some, so say the folks at Wikipedia . I have put it to use as a substitute for inappropriate language within my writing ("f**k" reads better than "bleep.") but it also has other uses in linguistics, mathematics, as well as the sport of cricket.   Baseball's usage of the "*" is an old-wives tale, one greatly exaggerated over time. When Roger Maris pursued Babe Ruth's home run record in 1961, than commissioner Ford Frick ruled that unless the record were broken within 154 games (as baseball formerly played a 154-game schedule), it should be listed separately within record books. Historians have noted that it is a myth that Frick requested that M...

I can remember a game from my disastrous final season of Little League in which we trailed by 10 runs or so in the final inning. With two outs, I was on deck,with a runner on third and two outs. The opposing pitcher threw one that was slightly askew, but our baserunner wasn't quick enough scampering down the line, and was thrown out at the plate to end the game. It wasn't a smart play at the time, but our team wasn't exactly known for it's baseball intellect. It isn't so much the ridiculousness of the play I remember, but the reaction on the face of the batter to what happened. "Man," he said to his mom and dad. "They didn't even give me a chance to hit." It would be about a dozen years later that I'd see that look again, only this time, it came from a New York Met. There was no doubt that the Mets were going to win the 162nd game of the 1999 season to either win the wild card, or set up a one game playoff against the Cincinnati Reds. Wel...

"You can't win. You can't beat me. That's why I'm here and you're there. Because I'm a winner. I'll always be a winner and you'll always be a loser." I harken back to television again, since it's Emmy weekend and reference a line from an episode of the best written television show of all-time, Seinfeld (aptly titled "The Revenge"), because it was one of the first things I thought of after the Braves swept the Mets out of Atlanta, effectively ending the Summer of False Hope. Watching some of the camera shots of the Braves in the ninth and 10th inning of the series finale, you almost got the impression that some of the players were mocking the Mets, laughing like George Costanza's boss, Mr. Levitan when George tried to slip back into work after quitting in anger a week before. It was pretty evident that the 1995 season wasn't going to be worth the wait for the New York Mets, particularly the way Opening Day ended, with Dante...