Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

* Walk-Off loss #368, 3rd of the season * First time the Mets have lost 2 games in a series via walk-off since dropping a pair to the Twins June 8 and 10, 2004 * First time they've suffered 2 walk-off losses in a series against the Phillies since September 4 and 7, 2003 * Fourth time the Mets have scored 10+ in a walk-off loss. The last was July 23, 1996, when the Rockies beat them, 11-10, on Eric Young's walk-off single. * The other two such games were May 26, 1994, against the Pirates (11-10) and May 6, 1995 against the Reds (13-11). The common thread that those share with Thursday's loss is that in both of those games, the Mets had a 9th-inning lead. Do you really need to know any more?

Oh, and add Paul Lo Duca to the list of those who need to be defensively replaced at the end of games. * Walk-off loss #367 was the 2nd this season, with both coming on home runs. The other was by Brewers outfielder Geoff Jenkins on July 31. * It's the 38th of those walk-off losses to come against the Phillies, with the last coming on May 9, 2006 on Aaron Heilman's throwing error. * It's the 15th time that the Phillies have beaten the Mets on a walk-off home run. Phillies Walk-Off HR vs Mets Last 25 Years Bo Diaz 1983 Luis Aguayo 1987 Dickie Thon 1989 Von Hayes 1989 Kim Batiste 1993 Bobby Abreu 2004 Ryan Howard 2007 * The Mets are now 7-2 in games decided by walk-off this season. Do you really need to know any more?

I've been wanting to write an ode to the stolen base for the last week or so, since the Mets have been thefting with such regularity recently, and today seems like a good time to do so. (Cap-tip, as per usual, to Baseball-Reference.com ). The Mets had a franchise-record tying stolen base streak snapped at 11 games with Monday's loss to the Phillies. Those who have read my previous tributes to the walk , the double , the slow Met , and to the ball which you can't tell is fair or foul ("chalk-off"), will hopefully garner an appreciation from some of these nuggets. * Jose Reyes holds the Mets record for steals in a season with 71 (and counting). Mookie Wilson's club record of 281 figures to go down next season. * The most steals by a Met in a season without getting caught is 21, by Kevin McReynolds in 1988. Manny Alexander's 11 in 1997 rank second. In fact, Manny holds the Mets career mark for steals without getting caught, with 11. * Vince Coleman and Roger ...

Boy, if Moises Alou had just pushed the ball a little bit more to the left of second base, we'd have had a walk-off for the ages, or at least one that would have matched that of the comeback against the Cardinals a year and a day prior (Carlos Beltran's walk-off HR off Jason Isringhausen, for those who forget). It got me thinking about "Almosts." When I reference an "almost," I'm thinking back to a game most probably forgotten by most, by now, but one that would have made for a heck of a memory had the Mets pulled out the victory. I don't have a lot of time and this is certainly a subject on which we could pontificate for an extended period (let's save our lamenting about Kevin McReynolds/Orel Hershiser in Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS for another time, shall we?). I'll toss out one of prominence to me and those who wish to add can do so in the comments section. For some reason, September 7, 1987 comes to mind first, and I don't know why that i...

More to come when I wake up... * Walk-off win #348 was the Mets 7th of the 2007 season and the first since June 25. The Mets are 7-1 in walk-offs in 2007. * It was the Mets 20th walk-off win against the Padres, the first since Chris Woodward's 2-run HR, July 19, 2005. * It was the 6th career walk-off RBI for Luis Castillo, 5 of which have been walk-off singles. The one that wasn't was a walk-off walk, against none other than Jesse Orosco and the Orioles, June 8, 1999. * It was Trevor Hoffman's 4th career walk-off loss against the Mets, his first since Mike Piazza beat him with a two-run HR on April 28, 1999. * The win came nearly a year to the day of another 9th-inning comeback walk-off win, the one against the Cardinals on August 22, 2006, in which Carlos Beltran hit a walk-off HR against Jason Isringhausen. * August 21 is a popular day for Mets walk-off wins. They've gotten them in 1962, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1995, and 2007. * Luis Castillo is the first Luis in Mets histo...

Don't know if you've seen this " Actober " contest that FOX has been promoting all season, inviting fans to recreate famous moments in baseball history. Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Orlando Hudson joined in the fun, staging his version of Kirk Gibson's limp-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. The Mets could stage their own version given that they now have three integral parts from one of the most infamous moments in postseason history. The connection between Luis Castillo and Moises Alou regarding the "Bartman ball" from the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS has been well-documented, but oft forgotten among baseball historians is that it was new Met Jeff Conine who hit the sacrifice fly that gave the Marlins a 4-3 lead in an eventual victory. It was also Conine, then the Marlins left fielder, who made the throw to cut J.T. Snow down at the plate to end the 2003 NLDS in dramatic fashion. This is a guy with a knack for the big moment. He...

Sorry I didn't get to post in Washington D.C. Here are a few quick-hitter leftovers from the trip. * Got to the Air-and-Space Museum, the Natural History Museum (both Smithsonians), the National Archives, and the Lincoln Memorial. Much to my chagrin, the American History museum was closed for renovation, the FBI no longer gives tours, and the Supreme Court was closed on the weekend. Wasn't the best weekend as far as sightseeing went, but I was able to make a Mets tie-in or two along the way. When my sister lamented how we left the Natural History Museum before seeing the dinosaurs, I told her she got to see the next best thing- Tom Glavine and Moises Alou. * They gave out Abraham Lincoln bobblehead dolls on Saturday and the craftsmanship is far better than those used in Mets bobbleheads. I wouldn't trade my Lincoln for any of the current David Wright incarnations, none of which have been very impressive. * Final tally from the 6 games I saw: 43 runs, 71 hits, and one blogge...

Forgive me for skipping the post-game (Styx) concert and fireworks show on my final night in Pittsburgh, but I was in an "unfun" kind of mood. Now it's on to Washington D.C. and I make no guarantees that the travelogue will continue, because I'll be "with people" on this part of my expedition, but I'll try to sneak in the necessary postings. * Thursday was a game that was for the birds, literally, because it made the highlight of my day the National Aviary, America's only independent indoor non-profit bird zoo. I didn't expect to enjoy it, but it proved to be a good way to kill a couple hours (30 minute walk from the ballpark, an hour's worth of entertainment). My favorite bird was one named "Franklin" after Benjamin, the inventor of the spectacles. Franklin had a 'stare-of-death' for those who walked past him, akin to the one I had as I walked out of PNC Park on Thursday evening. * Speaking of which, Guillermo Mota has t...

So I spent nearly four hours Wednesday, prior to the ballgame, at the John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh's version of the Smithsonian Institution, combined with the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum. While there, I learned about, among other things, Lewis & Clark, the history of ketchup, and the story of former light-heavyweight champion/Pittsburgh sports hero Billy "The Pittsburgh Kid" Conn. Conn's story is a tale of woe, one in which he got the opportunity to fight then-heavyweight champ Joe Louis, and had the bout won, until he got greedy, went for the knockout punch, and got staggered by Louis to the point of crushing defeat. That could have been the tale of Wednesday's Mets game (thank you Aaron Sele/where the hell are you, Pedro Feliciano?), one of the weirder games I've witnessed this season. From this game, I'll sing praises for Moises Alou and Jorge Sosa, laud the good fortune the Mets got on a ninth-inning error that led to the night'...

OK, since there's no possibility of a walk-off win during my trip to Pittsburgh and I'm not much of a hotel bar kind of guy (they look at me funny when I order orange juice), I figure I'll entertain myself in the late hours by doing a travelogue of sorts. Let's see if I can be satisfactorily entertaining. * My flight to Pittsburgh was similar to the way in which Orlando Hernandez pitched Tuesday night. It didn't show up early, but it still got the job done. First plane out at 11 a.m. was canceled (mechanical issues, like the kind that cause you not to throw first-pitch strikes) but my 1 p.m. rescheduling arrived, departed and landed without incident. * One of these days I'm gonna have to pen a "Didja Ever Notice?" about the various ways in which the 1986 Red Sox won games, as chronicled well by Dan Shaughnessy in the rarely-seen tome "One Strike Away" (not to be confused with the outstanding "One Pitch Away" by Mike Sowell), which m...

So I'm headed to Pittsburgh for the Mets 3-game series with the Pirates this week and their 328th game in that city will be my first, unless you count my unpleasant one-inning venture into last year's All-Star Game. Because I wanted to be properly armed minutiae-wise for my travels, I did some studying on Baseball-Reference.com and BaseballMusings on previous Mets voyages to The Steel City, and here's what I've gleaned. * The Mets are 316-350 all-time against the Pirates, with 146 of their victories coming in Pittsburgh. The all-time record is slightly misleading, because if you subtract the first five seasons in Mets history, the club is 295-281 against Pittsburgh. That's pretty good considering they started 1-10, 2-20, 5-30, and 8-40 against the Pirates. * Only two players have had a .400 or better batting average for the Mets against the Pirates (minimum 50 plate appearances). If you guessed that the pair were Rico Brogna (.414) and Dave Gallagher (.409), you...

It's been quite some time since Mike DiFelice had that big of an impact on a Mets game. It's been just over 10 years to be exact. DiFelice was a Cardinal back on August 5, 1997, a semi-regular on a mediocre 73-89 team, which seems to be befitting a player who entered Sunday with a .235 average and four hits in 42 Mets at-bats. He started that day, batting seventh, and catching Matt Morris (whom I'll get to see in action on my trip to Pittsburgh this week), who was opposed on this rainy night by Mets starter Pete Harnisch, making his first start in four months after being activated from the 60-day DL while battling depression. This was a game in which the Mets built a 3-0 lead through four innings and appeared to be in command until Juan Acevedo made like the Guillermo Mota and Aaron Heilman we saw on Friday and Saturday night. The lead, built up by RBI from Msrs. Lopez, Olerud, and Huskey, still was 3-2 with two outs and nobody on base in the seventh when Acevedo yielded a ...

Let's flash back to happier times, like say Wednesday, which if things break right will be remembered as one of the most Metmorable wins of a great season. I tried to come up with the appropriate name to describe the manner in which Billy Wagner skated through the ninth inning and came up with the idea of the "Walk-Off Tightrope," which in my world shall describe any scenario in which the Mets won a game by one run, and the opposition had a bases-loaded opportunity in its game-ending scenario (thank you, Jeff Francoeur and Andruw Jones). Turns out the game was payback for Willie Randolph and hitting coach Howard Johnson, who might recall the disaster that was July 8, 1992. That game was a 2-1 loss to the Braves, one in which the Mets loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning, but didn't score because Johnson popped out and Randolph hit into a game-ending double play. The winning pitcher that day: Tom Glavine (victory #66). Funny how it all ties together. I ...

I'll say this for Mike Bacsik. He knows how to work his way into a milestone event. Prior to Tuesday night, Bacsik had a claim to fame that few, other than regular readers of this blog, would appreciate. Bacsik's major-league debut came on August 5, 2001, in a game between the Mariners and Indians, one that just happened to feature the greatest comeback of modern times. It wouldn't have been possible were it not for Bacsik's efforts. It was a Sunday night contest, featuring a Mariners team with an 80-30 record against an Indians squad that was a more respectable 61-48. The Indians were all-too-hospitable hosts. Starter Dave Burba yielded four runs in the second inning, then was removed after yielding three straight hits to start the third. Enter Bacsik, a rookie and son of a former big leaguer, who must have been a little nervous. He was greeted by Mike Cameron, who doubled home two runs. Next was Carlos Guillen, who singled home two more. By the time the last Mariners ...

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...

Getting right to it... Damion Easley's inside-the-park HR was indeed the 24th in Mets history * 10 at home, 14 on the road * 23 different players. The only one with 2 is Darryl Strawberry * Most is: 5 against the Phillies, 4 against the Reds * First was by Gil Hodges, May 16, 1962 against the Cubs at the Polo Grounds * First at Shea was by Ron Hunt, June 5, 1966 against the Dodgers (Game 1 of doubleheader against Sandy Koufax, while trailing 15-2) * There have been 2 inside-the-park HR to come in walk-off wins. May 16, 1962- Gil Hodges vs Cubs (Felix Mantilla walk-off hit) June 11, 2005- Marlon Anderson vs Angels (Cliff Floyd walk-off HR) * Mets who have had a walk-off HR and an inside-the-park HR: Darryl Strawberry, Dave Kingman, Gil Hodges, Howard Johnson, Kevin Elster, Lee Mazzilli and Steve Henderson * Most HR by a Met who never hit an inside-the-park HR, Mike Piazza, 220, Todd Hundley, 124 * Seasons with more than one: 1962, 1979, 1980, 1982, 2006, all with 2

With all the hubbub the last few days regarding the inabilities of Msrs Bonds and Rodriguez to hit a milestone home run, I became reminded of something similar from Mets history. I'm referring to Gary Carter's pursuit of 300 home runs, a story that is one of the most painful I can remember in my life as a Mets fan. On May 16, 1988, Carter hit his 299th career home run, in San Diego. Little did anyone know then that his 300th would not come until nearly three months later. During the 64-game stretch that followed Gary Carter went from a solid batsman, one hitting .284 and slugging .550 with 8 home runs in 31 games, to a psyched-out, horribly mediocre hitter, one who hit .237 with 15 RBI, and treated balls hit to the warning track as if they were major events. It was so blatantly obvious that Carter was pressing that it became hard to watch his at-bats. And yet, he was still selected by fans to be the NL's starting catcher in the All-Star Game. In a column by Joe Durso, that ...

That's okay, I didn't want to go through a whole season without one of these anyway... * Walk-off loss #366 was the first Mets walk-off loss of the season. The Mets were the last team in the majors to lose via walk-off in 2007. The last Mets walk-off loss was against the Pirates last September 16. The Mets are 6-1 this season in games ending via walk-off. * It is the 119th time the Mets have lost a game on a walk-off home run (postseason included) and the 24th time they've lost on a walk-off 2-run home run. * Aaron Sele joins Aaron Heilman as Aaron's to give up a walk-off hit in a Mets loss. Ronny Paulino beat Heilman with a double last September 16. Hank Aaron once beat the Mets with a walk-off home run, on June 13, 1972. * The Brewers now have a walk-off win against the Mets in each of the last two seasons. Bill Hall hit a walk-off home run against Chad Bradford with a Mother's Day pink bat on May 14, 2006. * The last time the Mets lost via walk-off on trade deadl...

On August 9, 1996, Luis Castillo was a gung-ho rookie second baseman, about to play in his second major-league game in Florida, against the New York Mets. On that same date, Tom Glavine, located slightly north in Atlanta, was efforting in an attept to win career game number 137 against the Colorado Rockies. Tonight they unify in a common goal (presuming Castillo shows up in Milwaukee), in an attempt to get Castillo off on the right foot and earn Glavine a historic milestone. But perhaps Glavine would have reached this mark a little sooner had the Mets won the battle for Castillo's services when he was previously a free agent. The value of having someone like Castillo as your second baseman could be seen on that particular August date, 11 years ago. It was a night in which the Mets starting lineup featured Alvaro Espinoza at third base (how far they've come since) and featured one of the finest pitching performances of Robert Person's career. The only blemish through seven i...

I haven't written one of these essays, devoted to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series in quite some time, partly due to the many stories I've already penned on that game, and partly because I've found the conjuring of trivia quizzes to be more entertaining and less time-consuming. I was in the midst of preparing another trivia quiz when I came upon a piece of information that just had to be shared. I'm a little puzzled that I hadn't previously read about it, so if someone is aware of a source for more information on this matter, please share it. September 21, 1969, is a significant day in Mets history in a rather peripheral sort of way, far beyond the Mets recording a doubleheader sweep against the Pirates, three days before clinching the NL East. It marks the major-league debut of one William Joseph Buckner for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The action for that day took place in San Francisco, appropros for the moment since the teams of those two cities meet this week (albei...