Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

"The marriage may come and go, but the game must go on." -- Felix, to Oscar Divorced myself from the first three hours of Mets-Yankees baseball on Saturday. Had to. Felt better when I heard that Luis Castillo didn't sleep well on Friday night. I didn't either. A few laughs at the local community theater (can you guess which show I saw?), and I'm ready to recap the win. * The Mets set a club record of sorts by scoring only six runs. That's the fewest runs they've ever scored in a 9-inning WIN in which they had at least 17 hits. Forgive all the qualifiers here, but I'm trying to make the point that the Mets should have scored more. They've now won 79 games in regulation in which they had 17 hits or more, but scored at least 7 runs in each of the other 78 games. * Omir "Most Valuable President" Santos joined Mike Piazza as the only catchers in Mets history with a 3-RBI game against the Yankees in the regular season. Piazza did it three times...

Dear Pen pal... You'll never guess what happened today At the baseball game. It's hard to believe, what happened today At the baseball game. I was the manager, Schroeder was catcher And all of the team was the same as always But somehow or other disaster struck At the baseball game. * Mets walk-off loss # 384 was their 4th of the season and their first since May 18 when they lost to the Dodgers on Jeremy Reed's throwing error in another one of those stupid regrettable games that will haunt them when they finish with 85 wins. * It is their 4th walk-off loss against the Yankees, the first since Jason Giambi beat them with a two-run single against Braden Looper on June 26, 2005. That Mets team was managed by a second baseman who used two hands to catch pop ups. I pitched my curve, but somehow they hit it. A good strong clout "Lucy" I hollered, "It's coming right to you" She caught it as easy as pie Then dropped it. I don't think it's good for a ...

Who: Tom Seaver What: Pitching and winning a baseball game When: June 12, 1977 Where: Houston Astrodome, Houston, Texas Why: Everyone else is gonna write about the Yankees or Phillies today. I'm going to write about the 32nd anniversary of Tom Seaver's first "last start" for the Mets. And How: Art Howe, former Astros second baseman. I happened to have a copy of this game on audio tape, and in listening to it, a couple of things stood out. * There was no mention at any time of Tom Seaver dealing with any issues with Mets management or the media. This despite the fact that a trade with the Reds was within three days of occurring, and was the dominant subject in the New York Times game story the next day. Seaver's post-game comment: "Leave me alone, please." * One-minute commercial breaks really speed up a game. * This may be sacrilege for a Mets fan to say this, but I didn't like Lindsay Nelson's announcing. The accent was too strong for me, and hi...

I've maintained a degree of anonymity since I began blogging four years ago. But I've dropped a few hints of things I like, other than the Mets. Such as... I am a Man Who Likes His Tidbits Ever since I was little, I've had the ability to discover and recall the most unusual bits of information. My brain is compartmentalized such that I find these nuggets fascinating and store them away in the deepest parts of my brain, ready for instant recall. Sometimes the information manifests itself as a blog entry. Sometimes it's just a reference under "True ___ know..." Some of my favorite blog-related findings include ... * Bill Buckner's team lost the game in which he made his major-league debut when a ball rolled through an infielder's legs. * Jesse Orosco, whose primary uniform number as a Met was 47, finished his career with a record of 47-47. * Don Florence holds the Mets record for most wins without a loss, with three. I am a Man who Likes His Wordplay One...

A Mets pitcher has allowed 4+ HR in a game on 26 different occasions. Only twice has that pitcher been credited with a win. Like the blogger who writes about the history of 6-5 final scores a few hours before a 6-5 win, Johan Santana may have gotten a little help from some friendly baseball gods. I think the only other Mets pitcher to allow 4 homers in a game HE won did as well. The last of Rob Gardner's four wins as a Met came against the Pirates on August 18, 1966. Bill Mazeroski homered twice against Gardner. Donn Clendenon and Jerry May each hit one against him. The Mets didn't homer once. Yet the Mets won, 9-5. The reason for the victory? The play of Pirates third baseman Jose Pagan, who pulled his team out of first place by going 0-for-4 with four errors. The Mets scored three unearned runs in the first inning, thanks partly to a Pagan miscue, and three unearned runs in the fourth inning thanks to three(!) Pagan misplays. The Mets added three insurance runs (Eddie Bresso...

All information is current through the morning of May 8, prior to the Mets series opener with the Phillies. I had remarked to a blogging colleague a couple of years ago that I thought it would be neat to look at the best Mets wins by score of game. The reality of the matter is that such a project is extremely ambitious, but I decided recently that it would be worth trying to do for the scores of games that I found interesting. I find no score in Mets history to be more significant than 6-5. The reasoning is simple. That was the final score of the World Series game played on October 25, 1986. It has also been the final score to a great number of Metmorable wins in franchise history. Here are some of the highlights. The First (May 15, 1962) The first 6-5 win in Mets history came in their 26th game, though it would be in their next game that they would get their second. The first one, against the Cubs, required 15 walks and 13 innings, and required rallies from deficits of 1-0, 4-1, and 5...

News item: Mets claim lefthanded pitcher Patrick Misch on waivers from the Giants. "I'll always be a winner, and you'll always be a loser," This is the second time I've quoted the same line of the Seinfeld episode, "The Revenge." and its appropriate here with the news that the Mets added Misch to their major-league roster. Mishmash is more like it. Patrick Misch sports a win-loss record of which only Charlie Brown could be proud. If Misch never pitches in the majors again, he'd be one of 15 pitchers since the advent of the major leagues to sport a record of no wins, and at least seven losses. That's a fun list of pitchers to look through. It's one that includes the likes of Tommy McCarthy , who has no relation to the former Met broadcaster (not that I know, anyway), but is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. McCarthy wasn't much for moundsmanship, going 0-7 for the 1884 Boston Reds of the Union Association, but was quite an able bats...

Wednesday was National Fistbump Day, but the Mets were a little tardy in allowing us to celebrate. We'll provide taps of honor to the oft-criticized Tim Redding and Sean Green for fine work in Friday's win in Washington. * It was the 180th extra-inning ROAD win in club history, by our count, the first such win of the season, and the first since a 6-5 win over the Brewers on September 2, 2008. * The Nationals are 0-7 in extra-inning road games. Earlier today I noticed an article on Hardball Times that their predecessors of 40 years, the 1969 Expos, went 0-12 in extra-inning games. The Mets had a road extra-inning win against that team too- On July 20, 1969, man walked on the moon, and the Mets won Game 2 of a doubleheader in Montreal, 4-3, on a squeeze bunt by Bobby Pfeil. * It is the first time in 20 years that the Mets won an extra-inning game by the exact score, 3-1. The last was a 3-1 win in 10 innings over the Giants on May 31, 1989. * David Wright now has 2 game-winning ex...

There's a new Will Ferrell movie coming out today, and though I'm someone who thinks he's very hit-or-miss, I've gained a new appreciation for him recently. A couple of weeks ago, Ferrell was on Saturday Night Live, and one reran sketch featured him as an attorney named Wade Blasingame, best known for filing lawsuits against misbehaving dogs. Those who know Ferrell's work know he is a legit sports fan (favorite player: Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillen), and it made me laugh to see that he made it a point within the sketch to note that he was not playing the baseball player sharing the name of that attorney. Turns out that Wade Blasingame dogged the Mets pretty good during his day, of the ilk of a Josh Johnson or fellow southpaw Randy Tomlin . From 1964 to 1970, Blasingame went 9-0 against the Mets. That run of starts included May 20, 1965, in which he beat Warren Spahn, 7-1, and was kept from a no-hitter only by a Ron Swoboda seventh-inning single. One of the reason...

Johan Santana, 11 starts to his name in 2009, is 1/3 of the way through his season, with a 7-3 record, and a 2.00 ERA. If we presume he maintains the same pace through a full schedule of 33 starts, here's what we'll have. * The first Mets pitcher with 21+ wins since... Dwight Gooden went 24-4 in 1985. The only pitchers with a 21+ win season as a Met are Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Dwight Gooden. He'd be the first 20-game winner since Frank Viola in 1990. * The first Mets pitcher with 267+ strikeouts since... Dwight Gooden had 268 strikeouts in 1985. 267 would put Santana 5th in Mets history behind two seasons apiece of Msrs. Seaver and Gooden. * The first Mets starting pitcher to average 11+ K per 9 since... Dwight Gooden's 1985 season is the only one by a Mets starter (10+ starts) averaging 11-strikeouts per game or better. Santana's 11.13 is just a shade below Gooden's 11.39. * The lowest ERA by a Mets starter since... Dwight Gooden had a 1.53 ERA in 1985. ...

The folks at MikeMav.com were kind enough not only to confirm my belief that Jack Clark was tied for most walk-off RBI in the 1980s, but to provide a list of the walk-off RBI leaders by each decade in which the Mets have existed. The most intriguing list comes from the 1960s: Most Walk-Off RBI 1960s 13- Frank Robinson 13- Bob Aspromonte 13- Roberto Clemente 11- Felipe Alou 10- Ron Santo What name doesn't belong? I'll give you a hint: Frank Robinson ranked 3rd in the 1960s with 1,011 RBI Ron Santo ranked 5th in the 1960s with 937 RBI Roberto Clemente ranked 8th in the 1960s with 862 RBI Felipe Alou ranked 30th in the 1960s with 611 RBI The other guy on the list, Bob "I was the last active player who was a Brooklyn Dodger" Aspromonte, had 417 RBI, the 71st-most in the decade. A quick look at his career totals indicates that on his best day he was decent, and for the most part, he was a very average player. But one with one skill. For whatever reason, Bob Aspromonte was...

Continuing our game summary noting Mets past and present who were born during the championship season of 1969. Part I is linked here: http://www.metswalkoffs.com/2009/05/in-summer-of-69-part-i.html (Thanks again to http://metstats.wordpress.com/ for the birthday data) June 2, 1969 (Kurt Abbott) The Mets got to .500 to stay with a 2-1 win over the Dodgers, evening their record at 23-23. Jerry Koosman rescued the Mets after a dicey start to the ninth inning put a Dodgers runner on third with no outs, coaxing a pair of popouts before getting Jim Lefebvre on a fly to left to end the game. The Mets got their lone runs on consecutive fourth-inning RBIU hits by Jerry Grote and Al Weis. Those celebrating a happy Mets birthday know... Kurt Abbott's lone Mets walk-off hit was a home run to beat the Orioles on June 8, 2000. August 19, 1969 (Matt Franco) One of the most famous Mets regular season walk-off wins came on the same day that a player who would shine in an equally famous walk-off wi...

I'm getting old. I saw Jack Clark on the Cardinals post-game show on Friday night, and had to educate a couple of the young pups on why I found that significant. Jack Clark was one of the scariest players of my childhood. If you watched a Mets-Cardinals game in either 1985 or 1987, the entire game seemed to be built around when two players would be coming to bat. One was Darryl Strawberry. The other was Jack Clark. My father and I had a conversation at Monday's game about players we liked on other teams. Clark would definitely be a rep if we did an 80s squad. Clark was 6-2 going on 6-6, 205 pounds, but built more like 230, since his height and weight were well-sized for that time period. The best adjectives to describe him as a hitter were "frightening," and "powerful." Clark played for a number of teams, but I remember him best on the Cardinals and Giants. A lot of hitters put up good numbers in 1987 and one of those who took incredible advantage of the su...

Three fistbumps for Friday, and they go to Gary Sheffield, Omir (President) Santos and Mike Pelfrey. * Mets walk-off win #359 was their third walk-off win of the season and second this month. They are 3-3 in walk-off games this season. It is the third time in the last four seasons that the Mets won a May 29 game via walk-off. Those are the only three walk-off wins in Mets history that took place on May 29. * The Mets have had a walk-off on the 29th day of a month in each of the last four seasons. Last year, they had one on April 29 against the Pirates. * The Mets actually had a May 28 walk-off win against the Marlins last season, so this one nearly came a year to the day of that one. * Omir Santos gets his first career walk-off hit. It was the first walk-off hit by a Mets catcher since Ramon Castro (how about that?) beat the Marlins with one on April 16, 2005. Coincidentally, Castro homered in that game, as Santos did in this one. * The last three Mets catchers to win a game with a wal...

It has been mentioned that Jon Niese was born the day the Mets clinched the 1986 World Series, and it was said during the game the other day that Fernando Martinez was born during the 1988 NLCS (the day of Game 5, actually). That got me stirring with a new tool, recently obtained from the good folks at the Metstats website- the Mets birthday database- to see which current and former Mets were born during the championship season of 1969. Here's what I found for April and May, and we'll follow up with the rest of the season in a subsequent post. April 8, 1969 (Pete Walker) This was Opening Day 1969, the first game in the history of the Expos franchise, which happened to be an 11-10 win over the Mets at Shea. The Mets scored four runs in the bottom of the 9th in hopes of a walk-off win, but came up one tally short. Those celebrating a happy Mets birthday know... Walker's lone Mets win was the walk-off win of October 1, 1995, a 1-0 victory over the Braves in the season's ...

Warning to Johan Santana: Strike out 11 and walk 6 too many times and you'll wind up making history for someone else. Only one other pitcher has done what Santana did in Wednesday's win...strike out at least 11 and walk at least 6. That would be Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan didn't just do it once. He did it three times (without the benefit of replay)as a Met and than 34 more times after his Mets career ended. A quick summary of the three Mets instances, with mucho assistance from New York Times game stories. June 18, 1968 vs Astros, 3-2 loss (12 K, 7 BB) Jimmy Wynn's 7th-inning homer snapped a 2-2 tie in Game 1 of this doubleheader, the first in the managerial tenure of Astros skipper Harry Walker. Ryan pitched a complete game, one in which strikeouts were contagious. Astros starter Denny Lemaster whiffed 10 Mets. Ryan's 7 walks tied the Met record at the time. May 30, 1970 vs Astros, 4-3 win (11 K, 6 BB) The Mets treated the Helmet Day crowd to a walk-up win, scoring thr...

We don't do the fistbumps thing unless it's a walk-off, walk-up, or road win 9th inning or later, so Livan Hernandez will just have to settle on just getting a thank you for a job well-done. * Not only was it a complete game (yes, the first since Santana on the final Saturday at Shea), but it was a 127-pitch complete game. Baseball-Reference tells us that's the most pitches by a Met in a complete game since Al Leiter threw a 128-pitch CG in the second game of a doubleheader against the Braves on September 11, 2002. Leiter actually had the Mets last three complete games of 127 pitches or more. * The last Mets pitcher to throw a complete game, allowing 9 hits or more: Kenny Rogers in a 12-5 road win over the Giants on August 15, 1999 (12-hitter). The last one at Shea was thrown by Masato Yoshii in a 6-1 win over the Reds, May 21, 1998. * This was the 7th time that Livan struck a batter out to end a game, but the first time in 5 years. His last was Jeromy Burnitz in a 3-1 win ...

You may have noticed that I've added the "This Date in History" gadget to my sidebar. I hope you find it interesting, and worth the trouble to check in with it every day. An addendum to today's: May 26 marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most famous walk-off wins of all-time, though it's not remembered for that. On this date in 1959, Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix took a perfect game into the 13th inning against the Milwaukee Braves. He lost the perfecto bid on an error, than lost the game on what was thought to be a Joe Adcock game-ending home run. However, Hank Aaron, on base at the time, thought the ball had bounced off the wall (no instant-replay then), and ran astray. Adcock passed Aaron on the basepaths and was thus called out. The home run became a single (somewhat akin to the "Grand Slam Single."), and Haddix lost, 1-0. Two future Mets played in this game...Joe Christopher made his MLB debut that day as a reserve outfielder. Felix Mantilla wa...

The answers to all of these can be found from a viewing of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, or in the comments section of this blog. 1- What was the last name of the Red Sox pitching coach, Bill, who visited the mound to talk to Calvin Schiraldi in the middle of the Mets comeback? His last name is spelled differently from that of a chunky Mets pitcher of the early 1960s. This coach's claim to fame is that he once pitched 84 1/3 straight innings without issuing a walk. 2- The attendance for Game 6 of the World Series was 55-thousand and ____. You can fill in the blank with the last 2 digits being the same as a season that haunts Red Sox fans. 3- This former Met, who teamed with Calvin Schiraldi to pitch badly in the 26-7 loss to the Phillies in 1985, was standing with Bob Stanley in the bullpen during the inning, though Vin Scully noted he was not throwing at that moment. Name him. 4- How much money did each player get for winning the World Series in 1918? 5- Fill...

At the rate Omir (President) Santos is going, he's going to be our Fistbumps Player of the Year, hands down. Let's just say that the approval rating for the current catching administration is favorable. We'll give the fistbumps for Saturday (awarded after walk-off wins, walk-up wins, and road wins in the 9th inning or later) to Santos, Ramon Martinez, and Mike Pelfrey for their supporting the cause. Honorary fistbumps as well to the fellow who sat next to me at Fenway. When discussing why Martinez was in the on-deck circle (instead of Fernando Tatis) as Santos came to the plate, this gentleman said "He's there for when this guy (ie: Santos) puts them ahead." Nice prognostication . Nice victory. (I should also note that earlier in the afternoon, I said of Martinez: "Get him the (Glavine) off the field," using an inappropriate word in place of the pitcher's name.) * This was the 136th time that the Mets won a road game by scoring the go-ahead run(s...