Skip to main content

More Opening Day Minutiae

Thanks, in large part, to the new, Baseball-Reference.com PI tool, you can stump your friends with the following trivia...

* Six Mets have had 4 hits in an Opening Day game, but none has ever had more.
The 6 are

Richie Hebner, 1979
Kevin McReynolds, 1988
Darryl Strawberry, 1988
Jeff Kent, 1994
Todd Hundley, 1995
Xavier Nady, 2006

* Two Mets have scored 3 runs in an Opening Day game, but none has ever scored more. The 2 are

Jerry Grote, 1969
Brett Butler, 1995
(interestingly, the Mets lost both games)

* Two Mets have stolen 2 bases in an Opening Day game, but none has ever had more. The 2 are

Mookie Wilson, 1985
Darryl Strawberry, 1989

* Five Mets have homered twice in an Opening Day game, but none has ever had more. The 5 are

Cleon Jones, 1973
Darryl Strawberry, 1988
Kevin McReynolds, 1988
Bobby Bonilla, 1992
Robin Ventura, 2001

* Four Mets have had at least 4 RBI in an Opening Day game, but none has ever had more. The 4 are

Ron Swoboda, 1968
Richie Hebner, 1979
Todd Hundley, 1995
Robin Ventura, 2001

* The only Mets pitcher to throw a shutout on Opening Day is Dwight Gooden, circa 1993

* The only Mets pitcher to strike out 10 or more on Opening Day is Pedro Martinez, circa 2005 (12)

* Seven Mets relievers have recorded an Opening Day win. They are

Ron Taylor, 1970
Doug Sisk, 1983
Tom Gordon, 1985
Jeff Innis, 1992
Jerry Dipoto, 1996
Turk Wendell, 1998
Dennis Cook, 2001

* Two Mets pitchers have induced at least 3 GIDPs in an Opening Day game. They are

Mike Hampton, 2000 (4)
Bob Ojeda, 1989 (3)

* Three Mets pitchers have recorded a pickoff in an Opening Day game (yes, we're getting that obscure). They are

Tom Seaver, 1971
Tom Seaver, 1977
Tom Hausman, 1981
Tom Glavine, 2003
(yes, amazingly, they all share the same first name)

Back on Sunday, hopefully with something a little more creative.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Been There, Won That

The Dodgers had 19 hits in their loss to the Mets on Thursday night in a game that, no offense (pardon the ironic pun), was excruciating to watch for many, many reasons, none of which I feel like getting into at this hour. Willie Randolph summed it up in his press conference afterwards, saying simply "It's not fun!" I wonder if Tom Hanks, Alyssa Milano, Ray Romano and Kareeem Abdul-Jabaar (all in attendance) stuck around for the finish? I do wish to note briefly, again with the aid of Baseball-Reference, that the last time the Dodgers had 19 hits and lost a game, it was to the Mets. The difference between that game and this one was that this contest, of May 24, 1973, lasted an interminable 19 innings., with the Mets winning, 7-3. Rusty Staub's fifth hit of the game drove in the go-ahead run. Ken Boswell added an RBI single and Ed Kranepool salted the game away with a two-run double. Some other noteworthy anecdotes from a quick box score gleaning: * Like Thursday's...
9 comments
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

They Don't Make Em Like The Mook Any More

"There are certain things that stay with you, your whole life in sports. Mookie flying is one of those things." -- Blogger's father, 1:10pm on Feb 9. During the 1987 season, Mookie Wilson was on first base in seven instances in which the batter at the plate hit a double. How many times do you think Mookie scored? I'll give you a hint: Every time. According to some recent reading I've done, The average runner scores from first base on a double around 40-45 percent of the time. Mookie's career percentage: 65 percent (45 of 69) The average runner goes first to third on about 27 percent of singles hit. Mookie's percentage: 50 percent (120 of 240) The average runner scores from second base on about 58 percent of singles hit. Mookie's percentage: 75 percent (162 of 215) How good was Mookie Wilson? Let me put it to you this way. The guy turns 54 years old today (and got an early present by being re-hired by the Mets as a minor league instructor). I'd take...
8 comments
Read more