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Sometimes One Piece of Minutiae Sums It All Up

After Friday night's game: In 9th innings this season Mets 30 runs Opponents 7 runs You probably heard on SNY: The Mets have had nine innings this season in which they've scored 5+ runs. But also worth noting: 7 of those 9 instances have taken place in the 8th or 9th inning. True Metrologists know... The Mets scored a total of 38 runs in the 9th inning for ALL of last season.

Zum Ollie Ollie

One of the few things I picked up from the three years that was Hebrew School at Temple Shaaray Tefila was a rather catchy song paying tribute to the formation of Israel, one that went like this. Zum gali gali gali, Zum gali gali, Zum gali gali gali,Zum gali gali. He-chalutz le'maan avodah, Avodah le'maan he-chalutz. He-chalutz le'maan avodah, Avodah le'maan he-chalutz. The beauty of this tune is that the first two lines are just rhythmic words, meaning that they can mean whatever I like. So in my Mets oriented world, I would define them as such The man throws fast And then he skips over the white line If Oliver Perez keeps beating the Braves the way that he has this season, perhaps a lyricist will come along with something more appropriate. But in the meantime, the kind of performances Perez had last night are music to my ears. And now for the minutiae (thank you, Baseball-Reference.com )... * Oliver Perez has 3 wins against the Braves this season. It's the fifth s...

Best Games I Know: Cubs

Better late than never, right? For the rest of the series, click here #10 ( March 30, 2000 ) Benny And The Mets The Mets were perilously close to starting the season off in Japan with a pair of losses when Benny Agbayani, on the roster only because the two teams were allowed to carry a couple extra players for the start of the season, came to the rescue. With two outs and nobody on in the 11th inning of a 1-1 tie, a single by Todd Zeile and back-to-back walks for Rey Ordonez and Melvin Mora, loaded the bases. Pinch-hitting for Dennis Cook, who had escaped bases-loaded trouble in the 10th inning, Agbayani crushed a grand slam to put the Mets ahead for good. Though we and he didn't know it at the time, it served as a nice foreshadowing for the happy Hawaiian's ability to come through in big spots later in the season. True Metophiles know...Three Mets have hit extra-inning pinch-hit grand slams: Agbayani, Todd Hundley (1995) and Tim Teufel (1986) #9 ( June 2, 1988 ) The Zen Of Zim...

Clippard and Save

Two out of three ain't bad, though it would have been nice to have been a little more formidable in Sunday's loss to the Yankees. Before anyone goes gaga over Tyler Clippard though, we should heed the story of George Gerberman. Gerberman had the distinction of making his major league debut for the Cubs, against the Mets, on September 23, 1962. It was believed that this would be the final home date for the Polo Grounds, as the new Flushing ballpark would supposedly be ready in time for opening 1963, though this turned out not to be the case. The fine commentary of Robert Lipsyte, who penned the game story that day for the New York Times tells of a pre-game softball encounter between some local radio personalities and "a team of tasty pastries from various Broadway shows" but fails to mention much of Gerberman, whose line of 5 1/3 innings, one run, and three hits was similar to Clippard's, except that Gerberman didn't get a win for his efforts. Nor did Bob Mil...

Quick Getaway

I had been stewing for a couple of days regarding the text for an upcoming "Best Games I Know" essay about the Mets-Cubs rivalry and had been planning to post the results by mid-afternoon Thursday. I'm usually pretty good with deadlines, but this is one I'm glad I didn't meet. I got caught up trying to write and watch at the same time, keeping an eye on the clock with the knowledge that a 25-minute drive to get to work by 4pm meant I needed a quick game to be able to view the entirety. When the 9th inning started at approximately 3:25, I sent an IM to my father saying "If they get 5 here, I need them to do it in 10 minutes." It took 16 minutes and by the time of the hits by Msrs Wright and Delgado, I was already in my vehicle and about 2.5 miles from home. The perspective provided by Howie Rose was somewhere between " We've got a brand new shiny one!" and "Matteau, Matteau, Matteau!" and the moment was treated with the proper reve...

Cubs Spout

I kid you not, the song just finishing up on the radio as I pulled in my driveway at evening's conclusion was "Walk-Away Renee." How appropriate. * Documented walk-off #343 in Mets history was the team's 2nd walk-off win of the year and first since Endy Chavez's drag bunt walk-off hit on April 24th. * It is the 16th walk-off walk in Mets history and first since Mike Piazza's against the Brewers on August 2nd, 2005. * The win comes nearly 45 years to the day of the Mets first walk-off walk, which came against the Cubs on May 15, 1962 (hello, AFLAC trivia question writers!). That walk was drawn by Hobie Landrith, the same Hobie Landrith who had the first walk-off home run in Mets history, on May 12, 1962. This one and that one are the only 2 Mets walk-off walks to come against the Cubs. In Landrith's case, his walk was the 15th Mets walk of the game (hello GEICO sponsorship!). Carlos Delgado's was the 7th. (here's the Landrith walk story, written a y...

Something Old, Something New...

The something old is a welcome back for Cubs outfielder Cliff Floyd and isn't it funny how you return as your replacement in left field heads for the disabled list. Some may choose to dwell on Floyd's last AB as a Met, but while I've voiced my dismay at one of the batters in the 9th inning of Game 7 of the NLCS, I had no issue with Floyd's turn. The Mets did the right thing, in my opinion, by not bunting in that spot, going for something bigger and better because Floyd had previously proven that he could deliver in such situations. The one I'm referring to is that which took place on June 11, 2005, an amazing conclusion to the Mets-Angels game that night, in which Floyd capped the evening with a three-run walk-off home run to beat the Angels. The game took place during the first week of this blogs existence, and I heartily recommend you reading my recap as an appropriate tribute to Floyd. http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/06/cliff-notes.html The something new is...

Milwaukee's Finest

In the history of the Metropolitan franchise only one player has suited up for the team who was born in Milwaukee. That would be sprite-sized (as described by the New York Times) second baseman Jason Hardtke. The name was pronounced "Hard-Key" and that was the key to his game, playing hard, because otherwise, he wasn't going to play much at all. He's listed at 5-10, 175, but my guess is that sprite-sized players aren't quite that big, so that may be an exaggeration. By my recollection, Hardtke was a middle-class man's Kelvin Chapman, though Chapman's 172 games with the Amazins' dwarf Hardtke's 49. He was a decent player, who tried hard and deserved to be on the team, but since he wasn't flashy and didn't excel at any particular trait, the team decided he wasn't worth as much of a shot as someone else. I found a Virginian Pilot story from 1996 referencing how Hardtke grew up in San Jose (he moved from Wisconsin at a young age). He and ...

Loaded for Bare

So my alma mater and the Mets share the common bond of coming through with the bases loaded. You know about the latter (David Wright now 17-for-34 in his career with the bags full), so I shall briefly inform you about the former. For the second straight season, The College of New Jersey baseball team won its league (New Jersey Athletic Conference, Division III) tournament in walk-off fashion. Last year's triumph came via a walk-off grand slam. This year's came via a walk-off walk. So I send belated congratulations to them on their accomplishment from earlier this week. We also send sympathies to Kean, the team the alma mater beat. We know what its like to lose a championship on a walk-off walk and we share in your pain. For those curious, the Mets have had 5 walk-off grand slams and 15 walk-off walks. True Metscuts know... I don't know how many bald Mets have ever had a walk-off RBI and don't have the time to take a guess (working on some projects for next week). But I ...

The Best Games I Know: Giants

The fourth installment of our series, "The Best Games I Know," celebrating the greatest wins in Mets history. This one covers the Giants. I cheated a little bit here, in order to fit more games on the list, by grouping selected games together under a common theme. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section #10 (April 23 , 24 , 25 , 1965) Hope Springs Eternal The good feelings that came with the start of the 1965 baseball season lasted two weeks longer than any Mets season previous. In other words, they lasted for two weeks. The reason for that was the way the Mets performed in winning three of four games against a San Francisco squad that feel just short of the pennant. The manner in which they won- triumphs of 9-8, 7-6 and 4-3 rivaled anything that the club has already done in its extraordinary early 2007 triumphs. The 9-8 victory required a comeback from 6 runs down against future Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry, including a 4-run rally in the 9th. The 7-6 win re...

Julio Metchado

It's been nearly five years since the last time that Julio Franco both hit a home run and stole a base in the same game (June 24, 2002 against the Mets), so what he did in Friday's win over the Diamondbacks was a good while coming. But it's been more than 18 years since Franco last had a walk-off home run and a stolen base in the same game. In fact, in the career of a man who can say he's older than (Shea Stadium) dirt, such an instance has only happened once. The magic moments took place on April 28, 1989 when Franco, in a past life, was a member of the Rangers, facing the Red Sox. The stolen base was the easy part. That came in the first inning, against future Met catcher Rick Cerone. The home run was a little tougher in that it required the Rangers rallying from a 3-run deficit in the 8th inning against Bob Stanley and Lee Smith. Then, it needed for the game to get rather lengthy, which it did, stretching into the bottom of the 12th inning before Franco clubbed a 2...

Diamond In The Rough

Last night's game would make a good addition to this list, compiled this past winter. In case you missed it, it's a summary of the best Mets wins against the Diamondbacks. http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/11/best-games-i-know-mets-vs-diamondbacks.html Working on a new version for another team this weekend...

The Walk-Off That Was

Regular readers may recall this tale, of "The Walk-Off That Wasn't," http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/06/walk-off-that-wasnt.html but today, I'm here to tell you the story of "The Walk-Off That Was." The anniversary of this is pertinent, since it took place on May 3, 1971, a game between the Mets and Cubs at Shea Stadium, which turned into a fine pitching duel between Ken Holtzman and Gary Gentry. It was a walk-off made possible by the events which took place in the top half of the 9th inning. The score was even to that point because the Cubs were able to tie it on a home run by Billy Williams off Gentry in the 8th inning, but unable to take the lead after subsequently loading the bases later in the frame. The last opportunity for the visitors in regulation commenced in the most frustrating of manners, with Gentry walking Holtzman before being pulled for Tug McGraw. Don Kessinger bunted but the Mets were unable to record an out, as second baseman Tim Fo...

Odds and Endys

Wanted to share a few discoveries from a couple days worth of studying. With the help of Baseball-Reference.com , I compiled a list of all the times the Mets had gotten a game-tying RBI (but not a game-winner), down to their final out in either regulation or extra innings (regardless of home/road location). It's something that's already happened twice this season, so I figured it was worth looking into. * Julio Franco's hit in Washington on Saturday marked the 74th time in club history that it got a game-tying RBI with 2 outs in the 9th inning. It happened twice last season (Xavier Nady in an eventual loss to the Brewers on May 14th and Carlos Delgado in a win over the Marlins in Florida on September 13th). It's something that has happened as often as four times a season in Mets history (most recently in the very forgettable 2004 season), and last happened at home on May 18, 2004 against the Cardinals (Kaz Matsui tied it with a hit and then Cliff Floyd followed with a w...

Hang The Bunting Over There

Ok, so here's what I've got... I can now tell you, on "pretty good" certainty that Bill Spiers and Endy Chavez are the only two players in Mets history to win a game with a bunt hit. I say this because I ran a series of checks through the notes in my database. In doing so, I made the following presumptions. * The Mets have never had a walk-off win via bunt double, triple, or home run. * The Mets have never won a game in which a bunt hit brought in two runs. Presuming those to be true left me with a list of games that the Mets won via one-RBI singles. I've had the good fortune to write about a significant number of those already and the good fortune to watch a good number of those games within my lifetime. Eliminating them left me with about 75 games as possibilities though some seemed highly illogical (I had serious doubts that Dave Kingman ever bunted to win a game). For those games, I ran a check of Retrosheet play-by-play data and doing so allowed me to elimina...

Parallelogram

"You and your historic parallels..." a friend of mine IM'd me the other day after I shared a few interesting walk-off nuggets with him. Yesterday was one of those days with historic parallels all over the place... * Jake Peavy struck out 16 and his team lost via walk-off. The Mets were once struck out 15 times by Expos starter Mike Wegener on September 10, 1969 (in 11 innings), but won on a walk-off hit by Ken Boswell. (we'll convienently ignore the time El Sid whiffed 16 Braves but lost on a Lonnie Smith HR) http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/09/boswell-that-ends-well.html * The Braves had a 3-0 lead in the 9th against the Marlins and lost on a walk-off passed ball The Mets have never won via walk-off passed ball, but have won 10 games via walk-off wild pitch, including a rather famous occurrence against the Pirates on Oct. 3, 1999 http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/09/i-want-my-turn-at-bat.html * It took 16 innings to get a walk-off winner in the Astros-Pirate...

In-Spiers-Rational

Well, kudos to commenter JB from Long Island. He remembered that Bill Spiers once won a game with a walk-off bunt, one of a slightly more daring variety, on August 18, 1995. The scenario was that the Mets and Dodgers were tied, 2-2, in the bottom of the ninth inning, with Ryan Thompson on third base and one out. The manager, Dallas Green, was a slightly more daring skipper than Willie Randolph and elected to gamble to try to win the game. It was a particularly fitting maneuver that he planned to execute considering that the Mets had just traded their best bunter, Brett Butler, who was in the Dodgers lineup that day. Green sent up Spiers, who was in a David Wright-esque 0-15 slump but an ideal candidate for a suicide squeeze. With Thompson charging from third base on the first pitch, Spiers bunted past Dodgers moundsman Mark Guthrie, and Thompson scored the winning run. "Finessed to perfection" as New York Times writer George Willis described it and I think that description a...

Kind of a Drag

updated April 25 at 11:50am with another Mets walk-off bunt (thank you, JB), and a list of pitchers whose first MLB win was a Mets walk-off. The one walk-off scenario that I've been dreading was the kind the Mets got on Tuesday night, a bunt single to beat the Rockies, giving the team its first walk-off victory of the season. I must admit to being unprepared to answer the following question. Have the Mets ever won a game on a walk-off bunt? Fairly early on in the history of this blog, a reader asked that very question, and my answer was "I don't believe so," but I never did the legwork (and there's a lot that needs to be done) to check it. I did go through This Date in New York Mets History and found no references to any, but that's as far as my research has taken me. So I put the call out to you, loyal readers, to assist me. If you know that there's been one, please reference it in the comments section and cite source material. Otherwise, I've got a ...

Deja Vu All Over

Monday's win provided me the inspiration to look up a pair of things that intrigued me over the course of this contest. As the AP game story so eloquently noted, last July, John Maine beat Taylor Buchholz, as supported by a home run and four RBI from Jose Valentin. Monday, John Maine beat Taylor Buchholz, as supported by a home run and four RBI from Jose Valentin. So it got me to wondering: Has the same hitter ever beaten the same pitcher, in the same fashion for a Mets walk-off victory in consecutive seasons? The answer is no, though there are a couple that we could note as "close calls." In 2000, Jay Payton hit a walk-off HR versus Brewers reliever Juan Acevedo. The next season, Payton beat Acevedo, who had moved on to the Marlins, again. Only this time, he did so with a double, instead of a home run. In 1982, Hubie Brooks beat Pirates reliever Kent Tekulve with a walk-off fielders choice. In 1983 he beat him again, only this time more cleanly, with an RBI single. That...

Fun With Date Calculators

I'm a little worried that we're not gonna get a walk-off this month. The Rockies come to town and the Mets don't exactly have the best walk-off history against Colorado. The Mets last walk-off win against the Rockies came 3,626 days ago on May 19, 1997, and we wrote about it here. http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/12/rud-awakening.html The only lengthier wait than this one is for another walk-off win against the Red Sox. The Mets last walk-off win against the Red Sox was October 25, 1986 (7,485 days ago). We've written about that one, a lot :) Good things come to Mets who wait, who know... The longest span between Mets walk-off wins against one opponent is 10,480 days (nearly 29 years). The Mets had a walk-off win against the Orioles on October 15, 1969 (World Series) and didn't have another one against them until June 25, 1998.