Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

This is part 2 of what I’d call my Silly Scores phase – You may have seen my last endeavor in which I looked at games that the Mets won 3-1 . I was born on January 31, so those numbers had some significance. I was born in 1975, so my next stop in this silliness is Mets 7, Others 5. Mets 7, Other Guys 5 has some big bops, like one from 2019 in which Wilson Ramos had 6 RBIs , one from 1966 when Ron Hunt drove in 5 , and another from 2001 when Robin Ventura hit a grand slam . There’s late-game heroics from Mookie and Fonzie and also Tony Clark . There neat quirks, like a Tom Seaver complete game and a Pedro Martinez start in which he allowed five runs and three hits, but struck out 11. And it’s good for some undeserved credit, such as when Armando Benitez got a hold for a relief appearance of four walks, one out. It’s also a good day for pitcher’s hitting – Jon Matlack had 2 RBI , Ron Darling had 3 , and Noah Syndergaard homered . But none of those were Mets enough to make my l...

In my previous blogging days, I had a series that I called “ The Best Games I Know ” which was meant to represent the best Mets wins of a certain type. It was usually picking games against a particular opponent, though I also expanded the genre to encompass the best triples and best sacrifice flies in team history. I also did one series that I called “Bad Pitcher, Good Game” devoted to exactly that. One time, I went so far as to find the best Mets games of a certain score, because it seemed like the Mets had a historic number of amazin’ 6-5 wins . So I thought I’d try that again. But what score to do? I picked Mets 3, Other Guys 1 and I suppose the hook there is that my birthday falls on a 31st. 3-1 is about season hellos (Opening Day 2015) and player goodbyes (a famous and terrific one makes the list). 3-1 represents good days for Nolan Ryan , Ray Sadecki, Mickey Lolich , John Pacella and Wes Gardner , and George Foster , Jeromy Burnitz and Devin Mesoraco . The bad side of 3-...

Jeff Shaw was one of the game’s top closers from 1997 to 2001, his 194 saves were fourth-most in the majors behind Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera and Robb Nen. Shaw excelled with the Reds and Dodgers, was a two-time All-Star, and saved 43 games in 2001, his final MLB season. But against the Mets, he was something else -- very hittable. Shaw was 0-8 with a 5.80 ERA and 1.43 WHIP against the Mets. Though he had 10 saves, he also blew five save chances, so there was no fear factor when he came in to pitch. Shaw allowed four runs and seven hits in three innings against the Mets in his first appearance, a start, against them for the Expos in May 1993. That was a harbinger of things to come. His first defeat wasn’t entirely his fault, though mostly so. On May 4, 1995, Shaw escaped a ninth-inning jam but then loaded the bases in the 10th. Shaw was hooked for lefty Bryan Eversgerd, who yielded a first-pitch pinch-hit grand slam to Todd Hundley. He’d take another partial-fault loss 11 d...

Remember watching Edwin Díaz mess up game after game last season and saying to yourself “This will be the one in which he turns everything around” only for that never to happen. This is the story of the time that it did. If I’m going to write about great relief stints in Mets history then it is imperative that I make sure you know the tale of Tug McGraw circa 1973. I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you’re familiar with the story of “Ya Gotta Believe!” and how McGraw’s rallying cry became the spark that carried the Mets to Game 7 of the World Series. But do you know the numbers that go with it? On August 20, McGraw was the losing pitcher in an 8-3 16-inning loss to the Reds. That dropped to Mets to 55-67, the second-worst record in the NL, and left them seven games out of first place. McGraw allowed 5 runs in 3 1/3 innings in that game – one run in the 13 th and four more in the 16 th . Part of the deal with McGraw that year was that when he got hit, he got hit a lot . He al...

When we talk about the best pitching stretches in Mets history, the discussion usually starts with something from Dwight Gooden circa 1985 or Tom Seaver from any number of seasons or a Jacob deGrom stretch from 2018 or 2019. One oft forgotten is Jesse Orosco and his run of dominance in 1983. The 26-year-old Orosco went 13-7 with a 1.47 ERA and 17 saves in 62 relief appearances spanning 110 innings. This was a time when it wasn’t unusual for a good relief pitcher to be asked to pitch two to three innings in a game, which Orosco did 33 times. That was all good enough to place Orosco third in the NL Cy Young voting behind John Denny and Mario Soto. He also won NL Pitcher of the Month for August. Orosco’s most dominant run that season is one I’d like to relive here. On July 19, he allowed six runs in one inning in relief of Seaver in an 11-7 loss to the Braves. The Daily News called it the most humiliating Mets loss of the season as Seaver failed to hold a 6-1 lead. That appeara...

I went looking for the best game by a hitter in a Mets loss and came across this one from the otherwise completely unmemorable 1978 season. It was a May 24 game between the Mets and Pirates attended by just over 5,300 fans, likely rendering it forgettable to many. But for Willie Montañez, it was about as good a day as he could have at the plate. For those unfamiliar with Montañez, he was a player with some personality to his game. It didn't play well with some people at the time. As was described in his SABR Bioproject : When Willie Montanez walked to the plate from the on-deck circle he would flip his bat end over end like a baton. When he swung and missed he had a high, circular finish reminiscent of a matador twirling his sword at a charging bull. At first base, he would sometimes tap runners on the rear end with his glove which on occasion led to more than one altercation. He was called a hot dog or showboat or worse, all of which Montanez disputed. “I’m just being me,” he said...

  We are coming up on the 50 th anniversary of one of the most remarkable individual games in Mets history. It features one of the best individual games for a hitter and the worst individual games for a fielder. And they happen to be the same person! Joe Foy isn’t remembered fondly in Mets history. The Mets hoped that Foy would be the answer to their third base problem when they traded minor leaguers Amos Otis and Bob Johnson to the Royals for him in December 1969. While Otis went on to be a star and Johnson won a World Series ring with the 1971 Giants, Foy didn't perform up to the expectations he set when he had a 4-WAR season with the 1966 Red Sox or hit .262 with 11 home runs and 37 stolen bases for Kansas City. His only season with the team came in 1970. Despite a .373 on-base percentage (lots of walks since he hit only .236) Foy was a below-average offensive player. In actuality, he wasn't that  bad, but there was more to the story than what happened on the field....

I was looking over dominant pitching versus opponents and over various stretches in Mets history and came upon one I found interesting. In his first six starts in 1971, Nolan Ryan went 5-1 with an 0.77 ERA. In 46 2/3 innings, he allowed 19 hits and struck out 47. Opponents hit .121 and slugged .172 against him. And oh yes, he walked 37 batters (!), or more than 7 per 9 innings. As you go back through those six starts, you can see both the brilliance and the frustration that eventually led to Ryan’s departure in one of the worst trades in baseball history. April 29 at Cardinals – 6 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 5 K, 8 BB Ryan’s first start of the season was 7-0 win over the Cardinals that completed a four-game sweep, though it wasn’t the most artful of efforts. Ryan walked eight, but held the Cardinals to only two hits. That included the thwarting of Joe Torre’s season-opening 22-game hitting streak. Torre would go on to win the MVP. The big moment in the game came with the score 1-0 in the...