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Tom Terrific Comeback

As he approaches 300 wins, Mets pitcher Tom Glavine should be thankful for a handful of instances in which his team really helped him out. Of Glavine's 292 victories, four came in games in which his team won via walk-off and twice, his teams turned a potential Glavine defeat into victory in that final turn.

The first of those instances was on May 7, 1994, against the Expos, a contest in which Glavine carried a two-hit shutout into the ninth inning. The problem was that as well as Glavine pitched, Jeff Fassero was just as good and he matched Glavine's zeroes into the 9th inning.

With two outs and nobody on in the Montreal ninth, Glavine finally ran into trouble from which he could not escape successfully. A double by Larry Walker preceded an intentional walk to Moises Alou and an unintentional pass to Randy Milligan (aka the scout who signed David Wright). With the bases loaded and two outs, Glavine got ahead of Lenny Webster, 1-2, but Webster reached on an infield single. Walker scored and the Braves trailed 1-0. Glavine got Wil Cordero out to end the inning, but his team still trailed by a run.

Turnabout turned out to be fair play though. The first two hitters in the Braves ninth went down, but then Fassero walked David Justice. The next hitter, Mark Lemke, bailed Glavine out in a big way. On a 1-0 pitch, he homered over the left field fence, giving the Braves and Glavine a 2-1 victory.

Glavine was the beneficiary of an even bigger Braves rally against the Pirates on April 28, 1999. In this contest, he allowed four runs in the second inning, but in a manner typical of the Braves, they came through for him in a big way. Atlanta cut the Pittsburgh lead to 4-2 and Glavine was left in to pitch all nine frames, as he was looking for his first victory of the season. The Braves provided it with a nice rally. In the last of the ninth, the Pirates coughed up the game. Chipper Jones tied the score with a one-out double and Andruw Jones won it with a two-out single.

True Metvines know...Tom Glavine has not earned a win in a walk-off won by the Mets.

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