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Pitching in a Lynch

While doing research for my Mets Walk-off Hall of Fame post, I came upon a rather odd discovery. I'm not sure of the significance at the moment and it will take some work to determine whether this piece of information is really noteworthy, but at least for now, I think that it is.

Ed Lynch had a Mets walk-off record of 5-0. That means he had five walk-off wins and no walk-off losses. That strikes me as pretty good.

If anything, it gives me something new to remember Lynch by. Prior to that, my association with Lynch came from reading a game program story about him during my childhood. It told the story of how Lynch nearly chopped off his fingers in a childhood accident.

Perhaps those victories, all attained in the 1984 season, were the baseball gods way of rewarding Lynch for his stellar performance during a period of Mets mediocrity. Lynch went 19-24 for the Mets during the gloom-and-doom years of 1980-83, then 19-16 with them over the next two seasons. He had the misfortune to be traded to the Cubs after making only one appearance with the 1986 squad.

The last of those five contests has another piece of importance in Mets and baseball history. On September 25, 1984, the Mets trailed the Phillies 4-2 in the last of the 9th inning, but mustered a nice rally. Tug McGraw tried to close out the Mets but was unsuccessful, allowing a double to Hubie Brooks and a run-scoring triple to Mookie Wilson.

Larry Anderson relieved McGraw and struck out George Foster, but Ron Hodges followed with a game-tying single. Up next was Rafael Santana but Davey Johnson pulled him back, in favor of pinch-hitter Rusty Staub. On a 2-0 pitch, Staub cranked a shot over the right field fence for a game-winning two-run home run.

That made Staub only the second player to homer as both a teenager and a 40-year-old, joining Ty Cobb. Knowing that bit of minutiae once earned me a prize in a trivia contest at the New York Public Library, more than I can say I got for knowing that Lynch, who won that day, went 5-0 in Mets walk-off appearances.

True Metsch know...Of the top five pitchers on the Mets all-time wins list (Seaver, Koosman, Gooden, Darling, Fernandez), only Ron Darling (99 Mets wins) never was the winning pitcher in a Mets walk-off win. He started the game (relieved by Lynch) referenced above.

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