Skip to main content

The Last Straw

It seems reasonably safe to say that the Atlanta Braves will not be winning the NL East this season and their remarkable run of consecutive seasons with division titles will conclude, perhaps by the weekend.

It has been 16 years since the phrase "The Braves have been eliminated from winning their division" was uttered and chances are that in 1990, it wasn't, as Atlanta was a rather insignificant speck of dust on the baseball universe back then, finishing the campaign in last place in the NL West.

It pleased me to know that on the particular day in early September, I happened to be in the stands with my dad at Shea Stadium, for a game between the Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, which had significant ramifactions in the battle for the NL East lead.

This was one of those games in which you were glad to be the team that batted last, particularly considering that the pitching matchup pitted neophyte Julio Valera against Ken Hill. Todd Zeile's second-inning home run gave the Cardinals a 1-0 edge, but the Mets bettered that in their half of the inning, scoring twice on a double by catcher Charlie O'Brien.

Zeile's fourth-inning double tied the game, but the lower third of the Mets order drove in three runs in the bottom of the frame, with contributions from both O'Brien and Valera.

Bud Harrelson pulled Valera, after a leadoff hit in the 6th, with the Mets up 5-2, and the results were not good. Bob Ojeda allowed Valera's run, then was charged with three of his own, those coming with two outs and putting the Cardinals briefly ahead, 6-5.

The best thing about this game (other than its ending) was that every time the Cardinals scored, the Mets struck back. Kevin McReynolds homered in the bottom of the 6th to tie the score at 6, and then the Mets took the lead with single runs in the 7th and 8th on an RBI double by Tommy Herr and a sacrifice fly from Mackey Sasser.

Ron Darling's two innings of scoreless relief put the Mets in position to close this one out, as John Franco came in with the score 8-6 in the top of the 9th inning. My recollections are of a frustrating, exasperating 9th inning, and those seem to be well-founded. Three straight hits and an RBI groundout from Pedro Guerrero tied the score at 8-8 and I'm pretty sure that Franco was significantly booed as the teams prepped for the last of the 9th.

Lee Smith came on to pitch for the Cardinals and immediately put himself into a tough spot by walking Herr. That put Dave Magadan in the rather awkward position of trying to bunt, something at which he was respectable (24 sacrifices in his MLB career), but not particularly good. There was significant dismay within the crowd of 25,126 when Magadan popped to catcher for the first out.

About a year ago, I wrote a piece on walk-off predictions and referenced what happened next. The gentleman sitting behind us assured us not to be mad at Magadan, because the next batter was going to hit a home run.

That batter happened to be Darryl Strawberry and amazingly enough, he came through. He took one of those majestic swings for which he was so well known and banged the first pitch off the back wall of the right field bullpen for a game-winning two-run home run. The win put the Mets within 3 1/2 games of the first-place Pittsburgh Pirates, who did eventually hold on to win the NL East.

Also of great significance that Tuesday was a 5-3 victory by the Cincinnati Reds over the Astros, concluding at roughly the same time as the Mets game. It pushed the last-place Braves 22 1/2 games off the lead in the NL West, mathematically eliminating them from winning the division title. Atlanta finished the season 65-97 and 26 games from the top of the division, numbers that are good to remember at this particular hour.

Those who have never Met know... The Mets contributed to the Braves efforts in 1990 by winning 8 of the 12 meetings between the two teams. Among them was a walk-off win on April 24. The winning pitcher that day was Julio Machado and the winning run was driven in by Mike Marshall.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Walk-Offs in Movies, TV, and Other Places

Note: I'm leaving this post up through the end of the week, a) because I don't have time to pump out something new and b)because I was hoping to build a really good list of entertainment industry walk-offs...so if you're looking for something new, check back on Monday or so... Of course, if there's a major trade or move, I'll adjust and try to post something... In the meantime, click on the "Table of Contents" link as well. It has been updated. SPOILER ALERT: Read at your own risk Caught the ending of "A League of Their Own" on one of the movie channels the other day and it got me to thinking that it would be fun to compile a list of walk-offs from movies, television, and other forms of entertainment. Here's the start, and only the start, as I spent about 30 minutes or so thinking it over Help me fill in the blanks by filling out the comments section. "A League of Their Own"-- Racine beats Rockford for the All-American Girls Profess

The best Mets ejections I know

When you think of the Mets and famous ejections, I'm guessing you first think of the famous Bobby Valentine mustache game, when after Valentine got tossed, he returned to the dugout in disguise. You know it. You love it. I remember being amused when I asked Bobby V about it while we were working on Baseball Tonight, how he simply said "It worked. We won the game." (true) But the Bobby V mustache game of June 9, 1999 is one of many, many memorable Mets ejection stories. And now thanks to Retrosheet and the magic of Newspapers.com , we have a convenient means for being able to share them. Ever since Retrosheet's David Smith recently announced that the Retrosheet ejection database was posted online , I've been a kid in a candy store. I've organized the data and done some lookups of media coverage around the games that interested me post. Those newspaper accounts fill in a lot of blanks. Without further ado (and with more work to do), here are some of my findings

The 'Duca of Earl (and walk-offs)

If I told you that the Mets had just obtained a guy who is a career .316 hitter with runners in scoring position? How about if I told you that the Mets just traded for a hitter who has consistently ranked among the toughest in baseball to strike out? Or if I mentioned that the Mets just dealt for a player who was selected to the NL All-Star team the last three seasons, with the last honor coming via a vote by his peers? So, although he's on the down side age wise, his throwing arm isn't as good as it used to be, and he doesn't provide much power, there are a lot of good things that Paul Lo Duca brings to the New York Mets. For example: He'll sacrifice his body for the good of the team The Dodgers and Braves squared off on August 23, 2002 and Lo Duca made an impact both on the start and finish of this game. Three pitches after being dusted by Greg Maddux, Lo Duca made him pay with a first-inning home run. The Braves rallied to tie the game, 3-3 in the ninth, but their bu