Skip to main content

One For The Record Books

Much like Msrs. Rodriguez and Bonds, I was feeling the pressure of approaching a milestone and it took me a few days to get comfortable again. Behold our 500th post...

Congratulations to Tom Glavine on win number 300, which I presume will go down as the second-best day he's had as a big league pitcher so far in his career (No. 1 being winning the clinching game of the World Series in 1995).

I would presume it would also go down as the second-best day he's had as a big league hitter, since he had a key RBI and a nice sacrifice to help the offensive cause on Sunday.

I'm guessing his number one day as a major-league hitter came on August 10, 1995, the anniversary of which is forthcoming. That would be the day that Glavine hit his only major-league home run. That day, the Braves were playing the Cincinnati Reds in what turned out to be a playoff preview and a matchup of the two best teams in the National League.

If you'd watched the first inning, you'd have wondered how Glavine survived this contest, since the game began with three walks, sandwiched around a Chipper Jones error, leading to a Reds run. But thanks to a 1-2-3 double play from Bret Boone, Glavine would escape and that run would be the lone Reds tally of the game.

The opposing moundsman that day was fellow lefty John Smiley, who some might call Glavine-esque, and for the first five innings, he was solid, allowing just one hit. He faced Glavine, who was hitless in his last 10 at-bats, leading off the sixth inning, and perhaps he got a little careless because Glavine took the first pitch out of the park, hitting it to the opposite field to even the score, 1-1.

This was one of those days where Glavine did all the work, not just at the plate, but on the mound. He got through the next two innings, but if his hope was for a victory for himself, it went for naught. Perhaps the Braves would have been wise to let Glavine hit for himself in the eighth inning, with the score still even, and a runner on second with one out, since he had the hot bat (though at 125 pitches, his day was done). Instead, Bobby Cox went to Mike Mordecai, and two flyballs later, Glavine was saddled with a no-decision.

That thus deprived Glavine of getting his 300th win at Shea Stadium. Instead, the Braves (and Mark Wohlers) went on to win in their typical Brave way, stringing together three straight singles against Hector Carrasco with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The last came from Javy Lopez, handing Atlanta a 2-1 walk-off victory.

True Metvines know...Tom Glavine's teams are 60-11 in games in which he gets an RBI, and that includes a 34-4 mark in road games in which he gets an RBI.

Comments

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

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