Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

After Friday night's game: In 9th innings this season Mets 30 runs Opponents 7 runs You probably heard on SNY: The Mets have had nine innings this season in which they've scored 5+ runs. But also worth noting: 7 of those 9 instances have taken place in the 8th or 9th inning. True Metrologists know... The Mets scored a total of 38 runs in the 9th inning for ALL of last season.

One of the few things I picked up from the three years that was Hebrew School at Temple Shaaray Tefila was a rather catchy song paying tribute to the formation of Israel, one that went like this. Zum gali gali gali, Zum gali gali, Zum gali gali gali,Zum gali gali. He-chalutz le'maan avodah, Avodah le'maan he-chalutz. He-chalutz le'maan avodah, Avodah le'maan he-chalutz. The beauty of this tune is that the first two lines are just rhythmic words, meaning that they can mean whatever I like. So in my Mets oriented world, I would define them as such The man throws fast And then he skips over the white line If Oliver Perez keeps beating the Braves the way that he has this season, perhaps a lyricist will come along with something more appropriate. But in the meantime, the kind of performances Perez had last night are music to my ears. And now for the minutiae (thank you, Baseball-Reference.com )... * Oliver Perez has 3 wins against the Braves this season. It's the fifth s...

Better late than never, right? For the rest of the series, click here #10 ( March 30, 2000 ) Benny And The Mets The Mets were perilously close to starting the season off in Japan with a pair of losses when Benny Agbayani, on the roster only because the two teams were allowed to carry a couple extra players for the start of the season, came to the rescue. With two outs and nobody on in the 11th inning of a 1-1 tie, a single by Todd Zeile and back-to-back walks for Rey Ordonez and Melvin Mora, loaded the bases. Pinch-hitting for Dennis Cook, who had escaped bases-loaded trouble in the 10th inning, Agbayani crushed a grand slam to put the Mets ahead for good. Though we and he didn't know it at the time, it served as a nice foreshadowing for the happy Hawaiian's ability to come through in big spots later in the season. True Metophiles know...Three Mets have hit extra-inning pinch-hit grand slams: Agbayani, Todd Hundley (1995) and Tim Teufel (1986) #9 ( June 2, 1988 ) The Zen Of Zim...

Two out of three ain't bad, though it would have been nice to have been a little more formidable in Sunday's loss to the Yankees. Before anyone goes gaga over Tyler Clippard though, we should heed the story of George Gerberman. Gerberman had the distinction of making his major league debut for the Cubs, against the Mets, on September 23, 1962. It was believed that this would be the final home date for the Polo Grounds, as the new Flushing ballpark would supposedly be ready in time for opening 1963, though this turned out not to be the case. The fine commentary of Robert Lipsyte, who penned the game story that day for the New York Times tells of a pre-game softball encounter between some local radio personalities and "a team of tasty pastries from various Broadway shows" but fails to mention much of Gerberman, whose line of 5 1/3 innings, one run, and three hits was similar to Clippard's, except that Gerberman didn't get a win for his efforts. Nor did Bob Mil...