Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Randy Johnson is on the brink of history, in more ways than one... After losing Saturday, Johnson is now 6-7 career against the Mets, so we ask... Who are the 3 pitchers with 300 wins, who have losing records against the Mets for their careers? Answer in the comments section. True Methans know... Johan Santana allowed 6 runs, the most he's ever allowed in a win in his career. Santana is now 1-10 with 3 no-decisions when allowing 6+ runs in a game. He's the first Mets pitcher to win a game in which he allowed at least six runs and 11 hits since Rick Reed beat the Rockies, 8-7 on August 7, 1998.

It seems repetitive and too easy to give a fistbump to David Wright, so we'll give one to Omir "President" Santos, the first player in Mets history with a 3-strikeout, 2-sacrifice fly game, and only the second player with such a game in the last 55 years (the other was Giants first baseman J.T. Snow in 2001). For the record, fistbumps will be a regular thing here now for walk-offs, walk-ups, and road wins coming in the 9th inning or later. * Friday's win marked the 135th time in Mets history that they won a road game in which the winning run was scored in the 9th inning. It's the first such road win since Thursday :) * This is the 4th time in Mets history that they won a road game in the 9th inning by scoring the go-ahead run on a pitcher's error. Friday's miscue by Brian Wilson was the first 9th-inning pitcher error to bring in the deciding run in a Mets win since a Jose Santiago throwing error helped the Mets to a 10-7 win over the Phillies on September ...

Fistbumps aplenty for the Mets third baseman, who drove the Giants batty with not just his hitting, but by stealing more bases in a game than Mookie Wilson or Jose Reyes ever did for the Mets. You can bet it will be all over the New York papers Friday how David Wright seems to have found his stroke with runners in scoring position. Wright is 20-for-48 in May (.417 BA) with 12 RBI in 13 games. * For the record, that's the 134th time the Mets have won a road game by scoring the go-ahead run(s) in the ninth inning, the first time they've done so this season. * It's the second time in Mets history that they've won a road game in San Francisco on a David Wright ninth-inning hit. He also had a game-winner against Armando Benitez on May 9, 2007. * Wright tied the club record for steals with 4, and now shares the mark with Vince Coleman and Roger Cedeno. Since 1962, 17 players have stolen 5 bases in a game (Eric Young and Alex Cole did it twice) but none are Mets. * From 1962 t...

A few thoughts, as I ponder J.J. Putz's fastball issues, David Wright's baserunning struggles, and the Mets inevitable foibles in the opener of a San Francisco road trip before I share the nuggets from the walk-off win behind the punny headline. * Is it just me or did Wednesday's game remind you of April 7, 2002? That one was a little more low-scoring, a 5-2 14-inning final, but it ended in a similar manner, with a light-hitting Brave hitting a home run off a new Japanese Mets pitcher (Marcus Giles vs Satoru Komiayama). Gary Sheffield had an impact in each game (RBI single for the Braves, hit by pitch in 14th inning in 2002). * Mr. Wilpon, Tear Down That Wall! Jose Reyes' double off the left field wall is the third homer that the Mets have lost due to the height of the outfield fences recently (Msrs. Beltran and Delgado as well). The fence height also kills the chance of any Endy Chavez-style home run-robbing catches, which I think are about as cool as any walk-off home...

Fistbumps (sans t-shirt) for winning pitcher Francisco Rodriguez, whose yeomen effort (two-innings in a regular-season game for the first time since 2007) earned him his first walk-off win as a Met. The notes are brief, and maybe a few more to come in the morning. * Walk-off win #358 was the second of the season, the first since the 5-4 win against the Brewers on April 17. * It came on the 47th anniversary of the first Mets walk-off win, also against the Braves, in Game 1 of a doubleheader in which Hobie Landrith hit a walk-off home run against Warren Spahn (Landrith drew the first Mets walk-off walk on May 15, 1962). The Mets had a second walk-off win on May 12, 1962 (Gil Hodges HR) and also had walk-off wins on that date in 1972 and 1986. * It was the Mets first walk-off walk since Carlos Delgado drew one against the Cubs on May 14, 2007 and the first extra-inning walk-off walk since Mike Piazza drew one in the 11th inning against the Brewers in 2005 . * It was the 17th walk-off walk...

Since it seems like the only way the Mets are going to win for Johan Santana these days, it struck me as worthy to compile a "1-0 Wins Database." A few interesting discoveries from the early goings of my research. * The Mets Didn't Score For A Lot of People Mike Vaccaro has a nice piece today on the Mets lack of run support for Tom Seaver . You might be surprised to learn that Seaver isn't the Mets all-time leader in 1-0 wins. Most 1-0 Wins Mets History 8- Jerry Koosman 7- Jon Matlack 7- Tom Seaver 6- Bobby Jones * The Most Impressive 1-0 Feat You might figure I'd pick the 1969 1-0 doubleheader sweep of the Pirates in which the Mets pitchers drove in the winning run in each game. Instead, I'll choose to honor Jim McAndrew, who beat Hall of Famers Steve Carlton and Ferguson Jenkins, each 1-0 in a 17-day span in 1968. * Whoa Nellie Poor Pirates starter Nelson Briles pitched three games against the Mets in 1972. Briles allowed 3 runs in 27 1/3 innings. He lost al...

It's the sequel to the ever-popular " Who has more triples?" game. I call it "Who Has More Stolen Bases?" in honor of Jose Reyes reaching the 300 mark on Sunday. Answers in the comments section. 1) Who has more stolen bases...Jose Reyes or Willie Mays? Jose Reyes is the Mets all-time stolen bases leader Most Stolen Bases Mets History 300- Jose Reyes 281- Mookie Wilson 202- Howard Johnson 191- Darryl Strawberry 152- Lee Mazzilli 2) Who has more stolen bases...Jose Reyes or Jimmy Rollins? Jose Reyes has 38 stolen bases against the Phillies, his most against any team. 3) Who has more stolen bases...Jose Reyes or Ryne Sandberg? Three players with 500+ career stolen bases have played for the Mets: Rickey Henderson (1,406), Vince Coleman (752), and Brett Butler (558). 4) Who has more stolen bases...Jose Reyes or Jose Cruz? Neither of these men have the record for most stolen bases by a Jose. Former Met Jose Cardenal does, with 329. 5) Who has more stolen bases...Jose...

What you witnessed on Saturday was a baseball rarity, in a number of regards. It wasn't just that Paul Maholm, who entered with 1 career extra-base hit in 227 plate appearances, homered against the Mets in the Mets ballpark. It was that Maholm homered in the Mets ballpark, and the Mets WON THE GAME. I put that in all caps because it's very unusual. I mentioned this briefly last year when Felix Hernandez hit a grand slam against the Mets and it bears another reference now. There have been now 43 games in which the opposing pitcher has homered in the Mets ballpark. The Mets record in those 43 games is now 3-40! What's funny is that I've been to 2 of those 3 games. What's even funnier is that the last occurrence also took place the Saturday before Mother's Day, May 11, 2002. It was a game in which Todd Zeile hit cleanup for the visitors and Benny Agbayani hit sixth, but the batsman who made the most noise was Mike Hampton, who homered against Al Leiter, to put the ...

Fistbumps in order again, particularly for Msrs. Niese, Takahashi and Parnell, as wearing this Gary, Keith and Ron t-shirt has netted both a walk-off win and a walk-up win, the latter being the first of the season for the 2009 Mets. For those who forget, a "walk-up win" is a Mets win in which the go-ahead runs are scored in the bottom of the 8th inning (term coined by Greg Prince, Faith and Fear in Flushing ) * It's walk-up win # 169 for the Mets, who had 4 walk-up wins in 2008. * It is walk-up win # 16 against the Pirates, the first since July 4, 2006, a 7-6 victory in which a Xavier Nady (former Pirate) single plated the winning run. * It is Carlos Beltran's first walk-up RBI as a Met. * It's the 17th walk-up win in which the margin of victory was at least four runs (five-run walk ups are rarer...only 8 have been by 5+). The last was a 7-3 walk-up against the Braves on August 19, 2008. * Carlos Delgado's home run did indeed give him more RBI than Mickey Man...

Carlos Beltran had never homered against Jamie Moyer, despite having previously faced him 66 times. Jose Reyes had never homered against Jamie Moyer despite having previously faced him 45 times. So today seems like a good day to check out the list of bugaboos for selected Mets. We'll define a bugaboo as the active pitchers whom five prominent Mets have faced the Mets without hitting a homer, and separately, without getting a base hit. Carlos Beltran HR bugaboos: CC Sabathia (41 PA, 0 HR), Barry Zito (40 PA) Hit bugaboos: John Lackey (12 PA, 0 H), Danys Baez (9 PA) Carlos Delgado HR bugaboo: Scott Schoeneweis (37 PA, 0 HR), Randy Wolf (33 PA, 0 HR) Hit bugaboo: Mark Hendrickson (16 PA, 0 H), Ron Mahay (14 PA, 0 H), Bob Howry and Paul Maholm (12 PA, 0 H) Jose Reyes: HR bugaboo: John Smoltz (64 PA, 0 HR), Dontrelle Willis (55 PA, 0 HR) Hit bugaboo: A.J. Burnett (17 PA, 0 H), Joe Blanton, Shawn Hill and Chan Ho Park (11 PA, 0 H) David Wright HR bugaboo: Randy Wolf (26 PA, 0 HR), Jason ...

One run and two hits is the minimum required for the Mets to win a baseball game. The Mets have never won a baseball game with no runs. And they've never won a baseball game in which they had one hit. Wednesday marked the seventh time the Mets won a game with what we'll call "The 1-2 Punch." The other 6: June 14, 1965: Mets 1, Reds 0 (11) This is the game in which 20-game winner Jim Maloney no-hit the Mets for 10 innings, and finished with 18 strikeouts, but lost. Johnny Lewis led off the top of the 11th with a home run and the Mets would manage one other hit in the inning, by future skipper Roy McMillan, and prevail against a Cincinnati lineup that included Pete Rose and Frank Robinson. True Metophiles know... The Mets hit .181 in the 31 times they faced Jim Maloney, but somehow beat him eight times (and lost to him 19 times). Maloney, if he lost, was often a hard-luck victim. The Reds scored eight runs in those eight Maloney losses. June 21, 1965: Mets 1, Dodgers 0 ...

What we witnessed on Tuesday night was a baseball rarity. Let me explain: On 7 occasions prior to Tuesday, Larry Jones has come to the plate with the circumstances as follows * Mets beating Braves * 2 outs in the 9th inning * If the Mets get Larry Jones out, the game is over. Of those 7 instances prior to Tuesday, you know how many times the Mets got Larry Jones out? One! It didn't matter if Larry was a rookie or a grizzled vet; if the Braves were down one run, or down 10 runs. The bottom line is that Larry almost never ends games at the plate (though he did end one game on the bases , but I don't remember it, so it's almost as if it didn't happen). In potential ninth-inning "Get Larry out and the game is over" scenarios, Larry reached base on 6 out of 7 occasions (including one intentional walk). That's ridiculous. That's even better than noting that entering Tuesday, Larry's career "ninth-inning batting average" against the Mets was .38...

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...

It figures that we're going to need to know a lot about triples this year. So I figured I'd "knowledge-up" and share my findings in this space. The format is similar to the " Best Games I Know " blog posts, which require the Mets to win the game discussed in order for it to be listed. The First (April 23, 1962) The first Mets triple came in the first Mets win, a romp of the Pirates. Appropriately, the inaugural three-base hit came from a three-word named player, Bobby Gene Smith, a two-RBI shot to centerfield in the eighth inning that capped the scoring in a 9-1 victory. True Metophiles know...Boby Gene Smith had a total of three hits (and three walks) for the Mets. His affinity for that number also comes through in the number of teams he played for in 1962, three (Cubs, Cardinals were the others). His Mets claim to fame is that he was the first player to wear the No. 16. The Latest (April 28, 1982) There have been few things in Mets history as fun as watchi...

* Mets Walk-Off Loss #382 is the second walk-off loss of the 2009 season. * It was the 17th walk-off walk in Mets history, the second such walk-off against the Phillies. It was the first time the Mets lost via walk-off walk against the Phillies since June 25, 1982 (Bill Robinson vs Pete Falcone). * It's the 42nd walk-off win for the Phillies against the Mets. They have 5 walk-off win against the Mets since the start of the 2007 season. * It's the second walk-off loss the Mets have suffered on a May 2, the first since 1978 when Biff Pocoroba of the Braves beat the Mets, 5-4, with a walk-off single. * Ken Takahashi becomes the oldest Met to make his MLB debut (age 40), displacing Dae-Sung Koo (age 36).

I can't believe that I've never written about the Mets walk-off win of July 9, 1973. But after multiple unsuccessful searches, I've come to the conclusion that I have not written about the game played the day that Tug McGraw first uttered "Ya Gotta Believe!" during a pre-game team meeting with chairman Donald Grant. Perhaps I have, in which case you're treated to a blogging rerun, but it's not checked off in the "written" column of my database, which seems like an odd oversight on my part. McGraw's yelp is much more remembered than the game, which sounds like it would have been a good fit for an instant classic. Pitchers Tom Seaver and Don Wilson were in charge for six innings before Lee May homered for a 1-0 Houston lead in the seventh. The score stood that way until the home ninth, and the Mets survived being down to both their last out and their last strike before Jim Beauchamp tied the game with a two-on, two-out single to left center. T...

Maybe this hitting triples thing isn't the best of ideas. The Mets have now tripled in four consecutive games. They've lost three of those games. The club record for consecutive games with a triple is 5, set in 1969. I'm going to reminisce about the first of those games, because I think we all need something fun to read right about now. The 1969 Mets started slow. They were 2-5, 7-10, 10-13, and then 15-18 heading into their May 16 matchup with the Reds. This one is interesting for a number of reasons, first for its pitching matchup as the Mets went with usual reliever Tug McGraw against ex-Met Jack Fisher. Both got jostled a bit: McGraw charhed for five runs in five innings, Fisher for two runs and six hits in 1 1/3 innings on what was a soggy day. Tempers flared a bit, with Ed Kranepool and the Reds first base coach getting into what the papers described as a wrestling match, though none were ejected. The Mets left six on base through six (sound familiar) but led 4-3 head...

It was a good night for the old guys- Gary Sheffield and Sergei Fedorov- and a lousy night for all others concerned with the outcomes of the Mets and Rangers games. Sheffield's triple had me checking out a list of the oldest Mets to triple, and while I could certainly see Willie Mays, Moises Alou, and even Orlando Hernandez tripling at some point, I was left puzzled to see one other name on the 40-year-old Mets to triple list. Frank Tanana. The New York Times devoted its game story for the contest of August 18, 1993 to Tanana's feat, though it doesn't explain how in the world he managed to hit one. Newsday does though, sharing that in the sixth inning, Tanana pulled a hanging slider down the first base line, and made it all the way to third base when rightfielder Tim Costo struggled to retrieve the ball. Newsday provided this quote: "I watched it the whole way," Tanana said. "I was hoping he would come up with it so I didn't have to go to third. When I ...

I've fallen a bit behind, something not uncommon for both the Mets and Rangers of late. I missed the chance to commemorate the Mets 7,500th game but I won't miss the opportunity to pay tribute to Omir "President" Santos, whom you may have heard Monday became the third Met whose first career home run was a grand slam (Jack Hamilton and Jose Reyes the others). We'll do that by reminiscing about the first grand slam hit at Shea Stadium. The honor went to Jim Hickman, and it accounted for all the Mets scoring in a 4-2 triumph over the Pirates, providing the home team with a rare 4-game win streak. Like Santos, Hickman went to left field, though this was described in the papers as a towering blast, one that cleared the distance marker that stood 371 feet from home plate (those used to exist to measure home runs). The New York Times game story and a little research fills in a few other blanks in a rather nifty manner: * The slam came against Vern Law, who had beaten ...

My last post actually reminded me of something. The link below takes you to a list of Mets promotional dates for the 2009 season. http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/schedule/promotions.jsp?c_id=nym Notice something odd? There is not one promotion related to the 40th anniversary of the 1969 team. There have been a lot of complaints in the media and by fellow bloggers about the Mets failure to honor their history. I haven't seen any of them mention this. Just for the heck of it, I looked up 3 teams celebrating anniversaries this year. The Athletics (1989), Tigers (1984) and Dodgers (1959) all have promotions related to celebrating past championships. Heck, the Pirates have a day in which they are commemorating the 100th anniversary of a championship, by giving away "1909 Honus Wagner" figurines. The games of June 23, August 2 and August 22 are all listed as generic "Promotion" dates. Here's a few ideas for the Mets on what they could do for those dates, beyond the ba...