Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Tom Glavine is having trouble getting to 300 wins. The Mets, as a franchise, can sympathize, although as an inanimate object, I don't know that they're capable of such emotion. It took the Mets seven tries to get from their 299th win to their 300th win all-time, something they finally did on August 1, 1967 when Don Shaw's five scoreless innings of relief nabbed the club a 5-1 victory over the Astros. But that's not the story. The chase for 300 is much more interesting, particularly the Mets first attempt at getting their 300th win as a team. Harken back with us to July 27, 1967 with this blog post and then take our Tom Glavine-themed trivia quiz (question assistance provided by Baseball-Reference.com ) By the way: If you like Mets trivia, it's worth trying to find the book Amazing Mets Trivia (published in 2004) online (as I did a week ago). You'll find the questions to be of a similar nature and as enjoyable as those found here. Tom Glavine trivia, with answers...

Thanks to reader Daniel Altman for the tip on this... Well, at least the Mets didn't lose the way that their Double-A Binghamton squad did in Game 2 of its doubleheader against the Reading Phillies on Wednesday night. The B-Mets dropped a game in a manner I've never heard of before for any game at any level: walk-off catchers interference. The details are a little sketchy at this point, but I'll try to find out some more. The B-Mets press release (put out by occasional reader/contributor Robert Ford) simply states "The score remained tied until the bottom of the seventh, the last scheduled inning. Spidale led off with a single before Jesus Merchan bunted him to second. After (Robert) Paulk (2-1) intentionally walked Mike Costanzo, Randy Ruiz reached on a fielder’s choice that moved Spidale to third. Once Jacobs was intentionally walked to load the bases, (Jason) Hill reached on catcher’s interference by Mike Nickeas, bringing home Spidale with the winning run." Th...

You may think that this month is among the worst in Mets history, but I don't know that you'd do that if you were familiar with August, 1966. The Mets were actually midly respectable at 47-55 through the first 4 months of that season and we say that relatively speaking because the previous four campaigns were disastrous. There weren't any delusions of a pennant chase, with the team being 12 1/2 games out but there was the hope of at least avoiding the loveable losers tag. This was a team that was good enough to avoid losing by walk-off at any point during the season. Then came August. It wasn't so much that the Mets went 11-21 that month that was bothersome. It was how they managed to salvage so many defeats from victory that had to really bug manager Wes Westrum, a man best known for saying after defeats "Oh my gosh, ain't that awful?" On the first day of the month, the Mets blew a 2-0 lead and lost to the Giants, 4-2. That set the tone. Of the 21 games t...

Regular blog reader Ron Rohn chimes in with the following contribution. Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments section. "Lately I've been thinking about Shea not being there in a few years. I'm sure next year there will be many remembrances, as for most Met Fans it is the only home we have ever known. Once Shea is gone, a parking lot will take it's place. In Philly they painted home plate and the bases were at the old Vet. In my opinion they should paint those, plus the foul - lines, and where the dugouts were etc, so Met fans can always walk and view where some of their favorite memories happened. I started thinking, if they were going to place a marker ( like a pole with a small plaque or something ) at spots on the field where "special" things happened, what would you put in your Top Ten???? Most would have to be defensive, since offensive plays don't happen in the field per se. But you could pick anything. Here's my shot at a list to s...

The Mets are the team that made Johan Santana three years ago. Would getting a walk-off win in return for that be too much to ask? Let me offer a better explanation and that requires flashing back to June 9, 2004, when Santana was just an ordinary pitcher. Yes, he was coming off a 12-3 campaign the year before, but he entered his start against the Mets having dropped four starts in a row, allowing 19 runs in 22 1/3 innings in that stretch. So ordinary seems an apt choice of word considering he was 2-4 with a 5.50 ERA. I have a vague recollection of the game that night and the New York Times story barely acknowledges how good Santana was, because much of the focus was on the hangover from the day before, a 2-1 walk-off loss, and the game most people remember from this series was the next day's, a 15-inning defeat best recalled for Matt Lecroy's "mad dash" to score the tying run . Santana allowed one run in seven innings, struck out 10, and won 5-3. It's a sign of...

I can recall, at an NBA playoff game I attended a decade or so ago, that I was so frustrated by the performance of the Knicks that I took a moment in the third quarter for a "protest possession" in which I chose not to watch, or react to, the action on the court, during one Knicks trip. John Starks scored. The Knicks came back to win the game. I think, inspired by some reading I did over at Faith and Fear that I shall take a symbolic "protest possession" for today and not blog. Besides, do you really want to read about the minutiae of the worst 15-game Mets streaks of all time?

We've already discussed Roger Clemens checkered past, but now for him to endorse cheating just adds more fuel to our fire. In regards to a question about Carlos Gomez's nifty catch at the wall on Friday, Clemens told the media "I'm wondering where that fan is that leans over and catches balls (a clear reference to Jeffrey Maier). We need one of them young fans again." Next time, breaking baseball's rules might be the way to go. Consider that in Clemens' 11 regular-season appearances against the Mets, his team is just 3-8. His 3-6 record against the Mets is the same as Steve Trachsel's. That's not good. True Metmens know... The Mets have one regular-season walk-off win in a game Clemens pitched. It was a 1-0 victory on April 13, 2005, with the game-winning hit coming from Jose Reyes, whose performance on Friday, by the way, was greatly reminiscent of Game 6 of the 2006 NLCS.

Had a few minutes to have some fun with Baseball-Reference and came up with these doozies. Enjoy! Answers can be found here: http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/06/our-special-bonds-yankees-answers.html 1) Mariano Rivera's first career strikeout came against someone who played for the Mets at one point in his career. This person also made the final out of a World Series, facing someone who went on to pitch for the Mets. Name him. 2) Derek Jeter is 0-for-13 (his worst 0-for) against a former Mets pitcher, one whose last name could easily be his first name. Name him. 3) Mike Mussina twice struck out 15 batters in a game. In one of those instances, former Mets Manny Alexander and Bernard Gilkey were pinch-runners, and Carl Everett was a pinch-hitter. Another former Met started at first base that day for the Red Sox and struck out twice. Name him. 4) Joe Torre hit more home runs (8) against this Hall of Fame pitcher, who spent nearly his entire career in the NL West, than any other. ...

It's pretty amazing that I've been doing this for two years now and have yet to write about July 10, 1999. If you were going to rank the Mets best wins over the Yankees, and we promise that someday we will, this game would have to rank No. 1 on the list. I have some regrets about this game, mainly because its lasting 3 hours and 47 minutes and an obligation I had to broadcast a summer league baseball game caused me to miss the viewing of its conclusion. Some unusual things happened in this game. Consider that: * The Yankees homered 6 times. The Mets homered once. The Mets still won. In the last 50 years, the Yankees have hit 6+ HR 13 times. They are 12-1 in those games. In fact, the Baseball-Reference PI tool tells us that in the last 50 years, teams hitting 6+ HR are 214-15. * A guy named Beltran (Rigo) pitched for the Mets (he allowed a home run to Chuck Knoblauch) The Mets were 10-23 in 1999 when Rigo Beltran pitched * Derek Jeter was held hitless Derek Jeter has started 56...

Happy anniversaries to Steve Henderson (though you've probably read this one since I've posted it a billion times) ( http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/06/hendu-can-do.html ) and the New York Rangers (1994 Stanley Cup Game 7) Like the Mets, I am in need of a nap and my stomach is barking. So at the moment, I have nothing else to blog, not that there's much good to discuss. Perhaps I'll be back later with another trivia quiz or something...

Ok, so I'm really bored today, and I got to looking at the list of pitchers to homer against the Mets (thanks Baseball-Reference PI, which I really can't recommend enough). I noticed that there were a good number of former Mets on the list. Figured that it would make for a good trivia challenge. I've kept the clues brief, because I want this to be thought of as difficult. You can go to this link for the answers. http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/06/our-special-bonds-pitcher-hr-answers.html Good luck, and let me know how you did. Homered Against the Mets as a Pitcher, also played for Mets Pitcher #1 and 2: The two winningest pitchers on this list overall and thus probably the easiest ones to get. One won 4 games for the Mets but won a lot more for other teams. The other won a lot more, both for the Mets, and elsewhere. I'll give Mets win totals for everyone else I ask, but not this guy. Pitcher #3: Former lefthanded 20-game winner for whom the Mets were his final maj...

So I'm sitting here wondering whether we've been duped, or whether I should be masochistingly (is that a word) satisfied in the notion that my season theme of "Ya Gotta Get Worse" seems to have fully taken shape. And I'm sure someone has asked this, but isn't the SI cover jinx supposed to occur after a team is on the cover, and not before? It's little comfort when you look things up on Baseball-Reference like how the Mets are 10-63 in games in which the opposing pitcher homers (should've turned it off right then...at least it wasn't at home, where the Mets are 2-38 when the 'impossible' happens). But perhaps it makes you feel better to know that the 1973 Mets went through these kinds of stretches too. In fact, one of them involved a trip to LA, where after a 19-inning win (which we'll write up some other time), the club went through a 4-14 skid (including the tail end of a 3-9 road trip), which included one of the worst games known to M...

June 9 (Saturday) marks the second anniversary of our first blog posting. It also marks the anniversary of three Mets walk-off wins and while you're bowing your head in shame after the events of the past three days, I figured I'd share the story of one of the two that I haven't written about in my previous 448 posts. Some people have told me that my blog is unappreciated by the masses (recent day tallies include fewer than two dozen visitors)and that's okay, because I've got a hit counter of 61,000+ that keeps me pretty happy. But to appease those folks, I thought I'd draw the parallel with a Met for whom June 9, 1964 is a day of significance. Well, maybe not really, but I find it so. On that date, Larry Bearnarth set a Mets record that has yet to be broken. In fact, in the last 30 years, no one has come close to approaching it. In the first game of a doubleheader against the Cubs, Bearnarth labored through 10 innings- as a RELIEVER.. In this day and age clubs c...

About a week ago we added a "YankeeMet" blog called Eephus to our linkslist and on the day we did so, the blogger, a former Village Voice sportswriter cleverly wrote of the "horrible, no good, very bad day" in describing a Yankees defeat. That's what today feels like if you're a Mets fan. I've used this phrase before and I'm guessing I'll use it again. Yesterday's loss wasn't a walk-off, but it might as well have been. I have maintained an optimistic viewpoint for much of the last six weeks, but that game, as well as my dad's jinxlike comment on Tuesday that "this is DEFINITELY a playoff team" have sapped some of my mental strength. With my fingernails shredded from the chewing that was Tuesday's game, I'm left to pick at scabs, and since I don't have any at the moment, it becomes the kind of day where I gripe about things like how of Paul Lo Duca's last 17 hits, 15 have been singles. I made a reference in t...

Among the sightings at Shea Stadium on Tuesday were a fan in a Joe McEwing jersey, what I'm guessing was the father of two children wearing a t-shirt that read "I love my (balls)," a teen sporting a "Please hold this beer while I f*** your girlfriend" t-shirt, and a brawl between a mother-daughter combo more fit for Jerry Springer than the returning No. 7 train. Other than the McEwing jersey, I found the other sites rather discomforting, particularly that of baseball clearing fence in the 11th inning. Tuesday was the first time all season that the Mets were tied entering the 9th inning and failed to win, basically meaning that it was the first time they'd had an opportunity for a walk-off in which they failed to convert. It was an odd night, one in which I'm embarassed to admit that I got stumped by a between-innings trivia question for which I should have known the answer, and I'll post it here as a public service to those who may also be uninformed...

Jamie Moyer is pitching for the Phillies tonight. He's an old fellow at more than 44 1/2 years old. But regardless of what happens this evening, he will not be the oldest pitcher to lose a game to the Mets. That distinction belongs to Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm and the circumstances for such are as follows. It was September 28, 1970 and the Mets had just been knocked out of the NL East race by the Pirates, so spirits were a little dampened on this particular date. It didn't help that upon getting his first major league hit, outfielder Leroy Stanton (soon to be traded with Nolan Ryan) got conked in the head by a relay throw to third base, and had to be removed from the game. He would turn out to be alright. By the ninth inning, the Mets found themselves in a 3-1 hole, with fine-twirling southpaw Ken Holtzman dominating them. Both Rod Gaspar and Wayne Garrett fanned to start the frame, so the home club was down to its last out. Improbably though, they rallied. Cleon Jones singled...

So after the nice reaction I got to my Barry Bonds trivia quiz, it struck me that I should make this a quasi-regular blog feature in the mold of "Best Games I Know" and "Didja Ever Notice?" With that in mind, I went looking for a topic that I could make both educational and enjoyable. I found it in the subject of "Ownership." I'm not talking about the kind that involves the Paysons or Wilpons. My subject is more related to something I wrote about not long ago- the idea of "Metskilledya" as it relates to the individual player. Metskilledya- Of or relating to the idea of one being dominated by the Mets. Origin of the word: Latvian Orthodox. Derived from the Seinfeldian "Cantstandya." Alternate pronunciations: None, though you can give it an extra-nasal inflection, if you like. Use in a sentence: "Darold Knowles, he of 1973 World Series heroics, came down with a case of Metskilledya later in his career, blowing saves in 4 consecu...

Let's take a look at Billy Wagner, shall we, and let's harken back to August 2, 2006. I pick that as the starting point because on August 1, Wagner did something he hasn't done in a long time. He blew a save. He lost the game too, allowing a 2-run walk-off home run to Marlins outfielder Josh Willingham. There would be full-circle payback in that Willingham was the final out of the division-clinching game. It appears as well that Wagner received a kryptonite-protecting shield, ensuring he would not be blowing any ball games in the near future. Since that defeat, Mr. Wagner's regular-season (and yes, we're going to convienently ignore one game from the NLCS) statistics are as follows. 46 appearances 0 wins 0 losses 31 saves 0 blown saves 1.53 ERA 47 innings 41 hits 9 runs allowed 8 earned runs allowed 62 strikeouts 9 walks Wagner has converted the tough saves. He's converted the easy ones. And most importantly, he's been angst-free. In those 31 save chances, h...

Continuing from Tuesday... * The Mets are now 4-0 in walk-off games this season. So I went back and looked. When's the last time that the Mets started 4-0 or better in walk-offs? Mets 4-0 or Better In Walk-Off Games To Start Season 1966 5-0 1985 5-0 1988 5-0 1962 4-0 (!) 1972 4-0 1998 4-0 2007 4-0 * The last 3 Mets walk-off RBI this season have come from Carlos Delgado. It's the first time in Mets history that a player has had the walk-off RBI in a string of 3 consecutive walk-off wins, in a single season. Bobby Bonilla once had 3 straight walk-off walk-off RBI for the Mets, but they were spaced out over 2 seasons (1992-93) * By my count, it was the 110th walk-off HR in Mets history (including postseason). The last 4 have been hit by Mets named Carlos (Beltran and Delgado, 2 each). They're the only Carlos's in Mets history to hit a walk-off HR, so they're waiting for help from Carlos Gomez to make this list: Most Common First Name To Hit Walk-Off HR Mets History Tom...

Let's get this out of the way first, because I know someone will ask. The Mets have never won a game on a walk-off balk. And they still haven't, though I suppose that the balk(s) were more significant than anything else that happened in the 12th inning on Tuesday. But if you want to read an amazing coincidence involving balks, Bob's and walk-offs, make sure you read this whole posting. * Documented walk-off win #345 was the Mets 4th walk-off win of the season and their first since the 5-run 9th inning against the Cubs on May 17. * It was the Mets first walk-off home run since Carlos Beltran's against the Cardinals on August 22, 2006. It was Delgado's 3rd walk-off RBI (and 2nd walk-off hit) of the season and 4th walk-off RBI of his Mets career. The last 3 Mets walk-off wins have all ended with a Delgado walk-off RBI. * It was Carlos Delgado's 5th career walk-off HR, his 2nd as a Met (the other was a HR against the Pirates on May 3, 2006). It was his 9th career wa...