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A Lot, To a Lot

Wednesday's game got me to thinking: What's the highest scoring walk-off win in Mets history?

The Mets have never had a walk-off win in which the final score was double-digits to double-digits.

They've had three 10-9's (most recently against the Yankees in 2004), a 10-8 (1990 vs Cardinals), and a pair of 10-7's (1980 and 1998).

But the only walk-off win in which the Mets and their opponents combined for 20 or more runs took place on June 22, 1997, against the Pirates.

This was a game in which the Mets had leads of 4-0, 5-4, and 9-6, and couldn't hold on, on an 87 degree rainy day at Shea. That fit right in with how the rest of this series went.

The Mets had already won three games from the Pirates, albeit each by a single run. In the opener, the Mets beat Ricardo Rincon on Jason Hardtke's hit, after John Franco blew a save by allowing a three-run home run to Dale Sveum with two outs in the ninth.

Bobby Jones pitched the kind of gem we'd all be thankful for three years later, a 1-0 win in the second game. Edgardo Alfonzo bailed the Mets out with a two-run home run to win the third contest.

Lance Johnson was 4-6 in the finale and John Olerud was 2-5 with three RBI, as part of a lineup in which every starting position player had a hit. But the Mets, by newspaper accounts, didn't play the best of games, making mistakes both physical and mental. John Franco blew this save with two outs in the ninth, allowing a two-run double to Joe Randa, to tie the score, 9-9.

Carl Everett, known to some for lapses of his own, turned out to be the night's star of stars. Yes, he made an error, but that was offset by three singles, and his final turn at bat, in which he hit a hanging curve from Chris Peters over the left field fence for a game-winning three-run home run. Final score: Mets 12, Pirates 9.

True Metple Digit fans know... Wednesday marked the first time in Mets history that they played a game in which the final score was 13-10.

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