Skip to main content

Houston, Me Have A Problem

I noticed an odd quirk in my database for which I don't really have a logical explanation and it pertains to the team the Mets are facing this weekend.

If you go back to the teams that existed when the Mets came into being in 1962, the team against whom they've struggled most at getting walk-off wins against is the Astros.

Consider this chart

Mets Walk-Off Wins vs Opponent
All-Time (including postseason)

Dodgers 29 (266 home games played)
Astros 19 (266 home games played)

and this one

Mets Walk-Off Wins vs Opponent
All-Time (includes postseason)

Astros 19 (266 home games played)
Padres 19 (203 home games played)

Does that make any sense to you?

What I find even odder is that the Mets have 35 walk-off losses against the Astros (in 268 road games). If you break it down even further, you could look at this chart

Mets vs Astros
Walk-Off Wins Compared

Mets 19 walk-off wins out of 139 home wins (1 out of every 7.3 wins is a walk-off)
Astros 36 walk-off wins out of 165 home wins (1 out of every 4.6 wins is a walk-off)

I don't really have any answers for the disparities and that's bothering me at the moment as I ponder the possibilities behind this.

Maybe this is what I get for seeing the thriller 1408 yesterday, a film in which the main character always has an explanation for the unexplainable, until he stays in a particularly frightening haunted hotel. I was planning on seeing Sicko in the next 24 hours. Perhaps Michael Moore has some sort of solution to fix the Mets injury woes.

True Metstronauts know...That there's another series of charts that strikes me as rather odd.

Mets Walk-Off Wins vs Opponents
All-Time, includes postseason

Diamondbacks 4 (out of 39 home games played, 20 Mets wins)
Rockies 4 (out of 63 home games played, 43 Mets wins)

Comments

Unknown said…
Wow. 1 out of every 4.7 Astros win is a walkoff? Unreal.
metswalkoffs said…
In fact, I forgot to include a walk-off loss when the team was known as Colt 45s, so it's 1 every 4.6 (yes, that's just me being anal).

It is a very bizarre phenomenon though.

In my database, I have the Mets with an all-time walk-off record of 347-365, but if you take out the Astros, it's basically .500 at 328-329. Go figure.
Anonymous said…
Picture the Astrodome. Picture Minute Maid Park/Astros Field/Enron Field. Picture a line drive just fair. Picture a hapless reliever trudging off. Picture (with your ears) way too much noise. Picture a jubilant congregation of anonymous Astros at home plate.

I don't have a problem picturing any of this. It seems the norm. Thus, the numbers make perfect, sad sense to me.

(Bless you Game Six.)

Popular posts from this blog

Best Games I Know: Phillies (Updated)

  The best wins against the Phillies in Mets history …   May 5, 2022 – Mets 8, Phillies 7 The Mets score 7 runs in the 9 th inning to overcome a 7-1 deficit and win in Philadelphia.   April 29, 2022 – Mets 3, Phillies 0 Tylor Megill and 4 Mets relievers combine on the second no-hitter in franchise history.   September 22, 2016 – Mets 9, Phillies 8 (11) The Mets tie it in the 9 th on a Jose Reyes home run and win it in the 11 th on a 3-run home run by Asdrubal Cabrera.   July 17, 2016 - Mets 5, Phillies 0 Jacob deGrom pitches a one-hitter. Only hit is a single by Zach Eflin in the 5 th inning.   August 24, 2015 – Mets 16, Phillies 7 David Wright homers in his first at-bat in more than 4 months. The Mets hit a team-record 8 home runs.   July 5, 2012 – Mets 6, Phillies 5 The Mets score 2 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9 th to beat Jonathan Papelbon. The winning run scores on David Wright’s bloop down the right field line.   August 13

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

Trip(le) Through Time

In their illustrious history, the Mets have had one 'Triple Crown Winner,' so to speak and I'm not talking about the typical meaning of the term. I've gotten some queries recently as to whether a walk-off triple is even possible and I'm here to tell you that it is. There has been one, and only one, in Mets history, though I don't have the full explanation of circumstances that I would like. It took place against the Phillies on September 10, 1970. This was a marathon game that would have fit in perfectly with those having taken place so far this season and allowed the Mets to maintain a temporary hold on first place in an NL East race oft forgotten in team history. It went 14 innings, with a tinge of controversy in a negated Ken Boswell home run, a thrilling play by Bud Harrelson, who stole home in the third inning, and some stellar relief pitching, in the form of five scoreless innings from Danny Frisella, aided by Tim McCarver getting thrown out in a rundown b