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'Shea'ing Alive

As per usual, thanks to Baseball-Reference.com for the ability to dig out some of these nuggets

* Walk-off win #356 was the Mets 8th walk-off win of the season, their first since a 5-4 win over the Braves on August 21.

* It was the Mets first walk-off win against the Cubs since last May 17 when Carlos Delgado capped a 5-run rally with a 2-run single in a 6-5 win.

* Carlos Beltran got his 4th Mets walk-off hit, the first that wasn't a home run. Beltran's last walk-off single came April 13, 2000 for the Royals against the Orioles.

* The win came 4 years to the day of another Mets walk-off win against the Cubs. On September 25, 2004, with the Cubs fighting for a playoff spot, Victor Diaz hit a game-tying three-run home run with two outs in the ninth, and Craig Brazell hit a walk-off home run in the 11th to hand the Cubs a crushing, 4-3 loss.

* The Mets also had walk-off wins on September 25, 1971 (Bob Aspromonte 15th-inning single), September 25 1984 (Rusty Staub home run), September 25, 1995 (the appropriate for the weather 6-inning "rain-off" win on Tim Pugh's wild pitch)

* Ramon Martinez's 8th-inning single gave him 2 career hits for the Mets. That broke him out of a tie with (among many others) the much-heralded (in this space) Ross Jones for 562nd on the Mets all-time hit list.

Martinez is now tied for 528th on the Mets all-time hit list with, among others, Yogi Berra, Dock Ellis, Larry Bowa, and Brian Stokes.

* Robinson Cancel's game-tying RBI single (we'll let it slide, pardon the pun, that he hit the ball too hard) gave him 12 career hits as a Met. That's one more hit than Johan Santana, and moved Cancel into a tie for 365th on the Mets all-time hit list with, among others, Pat Tabler, Mike Howard, and John Maine.

* Micah Hoffpauir became the second player with a 5-hit, 5-RBI game against the Mets. The only other player to do that did so nearly 34 years to the day- Pirates centerfielder Al Oliver on September 26, 1974. He also hit two home runs in that game, an 11-5 Pirates win at Shea.

* The last player to get 5 hits in a walk-off loss against the Mets was (amazingly) Terry Pendleton, for the Braves, on September 14, 1996. The Mets won in 12 innings on Lance Johnson's RBI single. Pendleton had two 5-hit games against the Mets, yet both came in losses!

The last before him was Vada Pinson, for the Reds, on August 4, 1962. The Mets won that game on Frank Thomas' 14th-inning home run. So Hoffpauir, Pendleton, and Pinson are the only three.

* The Mets now have 336 walk-off wins at Shea Stadium, with three scheduled regular-season games remaining

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