The new season likewise brimmed with potential significance for the Pittsburgh Pirates — albeit from a divisional rent district far removed from the Mets’ penthouse quest. The Pirates danced among the game’s elite from 1970 to 1983, with two World Series championships, six National League East titles, and four second-place finishes. Everything had collapsed in 1984 and 1985: back-to-back last-place finishes, sparse crowds at Three Rivers Stadium, a federal drug trial implicating players and support personnel, and rumors of the club’s imminent relocation.2 The franchise pursued a reboot over the 1985-86 offseason, with a new local ownership group taking over and of Syd Thrift and Jim Leyland hired as general manager and manager respectively. “We Play Hardball,” proclaimed their marketing campaign, promising a scrappy, hustling squad after several years of decay.3

When the Mets and Pirates opened the 1986 season on April 8 at Three Rivers Stadium, New York’s 4-2 victory reflected the Mets’ championship aspirations and the Pirates’ hopes for rebirth.

The audience that night, which included Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth and a paid crowd of 48,953, the largest for a baseball game in Pittsburgh in almost six years, witnessed a matchup of two of 1985’s best starting pitchers. New York’s Dwight Gooden had followed a sensational teenage debut season with one of the most magnificent campaigns for any starting pitcher in the 1980s, by yardsticks both known and unknown at the time. Gooden’s 24 wins, 268 strikeouts, and 1.53 earned-run average led the major leagues. His season total of 8.9 Wins Above Replacement, as calculated by Fangraphs, ranked second among starting pitchers from 1980 to 1989. The month after the season ended, Dr. K celebrated his 21st birthday and received the National League Cy Young Award, earning first-place votes on all 24 ballots.4

Fifteen years Gooden’s senior, Pirates starter Rick Reuschel likewise had a remarkable 1985 season. A constant in the Cubs’ rotation from his 1972 debut through his 1981 trade to the Yankees, Reuschel missed all of 1982 and most of 1983 with a rotator cuff injury. A poor 1984 with the Cubs followed, and Reuschel signed a minor-league contract with the Pirates in February 1985, months before his 36th birthday. Rescued from professional oblivion, Reuschel joined the Pirates in May and earned The Sporting News’ National League Comeback Player of the Year honors with a 14-8 record and 2.27 ERA.5 Per Fangraphs, Reuschel’s 5.2 Wins Above Replacement in 1985 ranked him fifth among National League pitchers, training only Gooden, St. Louis’s John Tudor, and Los Angeles’ Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela.

Notwithstanding their 1985 excellence, both starters began 1986 by surrendering first-inning runs on a chilly, 40-degree evening. Lenny Dykstra led off against Reuschel with a five-pitch walk. One out later, Keith Hernandez drove in Dykstra with a one-hop double to the wall in left center. After alertly taking second base on Sam Khalifa’s relay throw home, Hernandez scored the Mets’ second run on Gary Carter’s sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the first, Pirates leadoff hitter R.J. Reynolds watched Gooden’s first two pitches pound Carter’s glove for strikes. Gooden attempted a high and inside fastball on the third pitch, but left it over the plate. Reynolds pulled the misplaced pitch into the brown seats in right-center, cutting the Mets’ lead to 2-1.6

Gooden and Reuschel settled down after their first-inning struggles, posting a series of scoreless frames through the fifth inning. The Pirates twice threatened to tie the game during this stretch. With two outs in the third, Joe Orsulak grounded a triple down the third-base line. Mets left fielder George Foster appeared to misjudge the carom off the bullpen fence, but Dykstra hustled over from center field and held Orsulak at third. Johnny Ray followed by lining a breaking ball narrowly foul outside the left-field line, before grounding out to Gooden to end the inning. In the fourth, Sid Bream jumped on Gooden’s first pitch, lining it down the right-field line for a double. One out later, Tony Peña hit a sharp line drive to Hernandez, who flipped underhanded to shortstop Rafael Santana to double off Bream.

Reuschel limited the Mets to a Gooden single in his four-inning scoreless streak, even dispatching Wally Backman, Hernandez, and Carter in the fifth on just three pitches. The Mets loaded the bases in the third inning on three walks, but Reuschel induced Foster to ground out to end the threat.

Held to two hits through five innings, the Mets broke out of their offensive stupor in the sixth. Darryl Strawberry led off by lining Reuschel’s first pitch over a leaping Khalifa. The ball bounced on the artificial turf to the wall in left-center, allowing the Mets’ 24-year-old right fielder to reach second with a stand-up double. Foster dropped Reuschel’s next pitch in front of Orsulak in right field. When the ball took a high hop off the turf, Strawberry came home for a 3-1 Mets lead.

The Pirates responded by manufacturing a run in the bottom of the sixth. Reynolds started the inning by doubling down the right-field line. Groundballs by Orsulak and Ray brought him home, narrowing the Mets’ edge to 3-2.

Leyland made his first pitching change as a major-league manager in the top of the seventh, replacing Reuschel with left-hander Pat Clements. Clements immediately pitched into trouble with a four-pitch walk to Dykstra. Backman sacrificed Dykstra to second. Hernandez fell behind in the count, but lined Clements’ 1-and-2 pitch up with middle to score Dykstra and restore the Mets’ two-run margin.

After retiring the Pirates in order in the seventh and eighth innings to sustain the lead, Gooden took the mound in the ninth intent on a complete game. Orsulak led off by working the count full, fouling off three pitches, and then taking a ball low for the Pirates’ only walk of the game. Ray followed by ripping Gooden’s first pitch past a diving Backman and into right field, putting two runners on base for Bream.

The Pirates had obtained the 25-year-old Bream when they traded Bill Madlock to the Dodgers at 1985’s August 31 trading deadline. After the trade, Bream responded well to his first opportunity for regular playing time in the major leagues, registering a .284/.355/.455 slash line in 108 plate appearances. Bullish on their new acquisition, Pirates traded incumbent first baseman Jason Thompson to the Expos four days before the 1986 opener and installed Bream as Opening Day first baseman and cleanup hitter.7

With Roger McDowell and Jesse Orosco warming up in the bullpen and many members of the crowd waving black-and-gold pom-poms in support of the Pirates’ rally, Johnson left Gooden in the game and deployed the Mets’ infield in a standard defensive alignment, apparently expecting Bream to hit away. Leyland, however, called for a sacrifice bunt on the first pitch. Bream squared and pushed the ball down the first-base line. Gooden — the only Met with a chance of making a play — pounced off the mound, grabbed the bouncing ball, and tagged Bream for the first out.8

On Bream’s sacrifice, Ray and Orsulak moved to second and third for Steve Kemp. A strong bat for the Tigers and White Sox between 1977 and 1982, Kemp clung to a part-time role in 1986, eye and rotator cuff injuries having accelerated his professional decline.9 Gooden had struck out Kemp twice earlier in the game, catching him looking at curveballs both times. With the outcome in doubt in the ninth inning, Gooden fell behind in the count 2-and-1, but then threw two fastballs through Kemp’s swing for the second out.

Gooden’s next pitch was his 104th of the night. Peña tapped it back to the mound. Gooden threw to first for the final out. The Mets had taken their first step on the path to 108 regular-season wins — including 17 wins in 18 games against the Pirates — and a World Series championship.

Sources

In addition to the sources referenced in the footnotes, the author relied on game coverage from two Pittsburgh newspapers (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press) and two New York newspapers (New York Times and Daily News); a recording of WOR-TV’s game broadcast; game, team, and individual player data from Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs; and his own memories of watching the game at age 11 from Section 75 at Three Rivers Stadium with his parents.

baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT198604080.shtml

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B04080PIT1986.htm

WOR-TV game broadcast: youtube.com/watch?v=v6dVZcsOrbA

Notes

1 Jeff Pearlman, The Bad Guys Won! (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 42.

2 Bob Hertzel, “1985: The Year the Pirates Turned the Page,” Pittsburgh Press, October 6, 1985: D3.

3 Phil Musick, “Summer of ’86 Will Put Pirates and Fans to the Test,” Pittsburgh Press, April 8, 1986: B1.

4 Jack Lang, “Gooden Cy Young-est: At 20, Met Ace Is Writers’ Unanimous Choice,” New York Daily News, November 14, 1985: 92.

5 Bob Hertzel, “Believer’s Reward: Reuschel Rose from Pirates’ Ashes in ’85,” Pittsburgh Press, March 2, 1986: D3.

6 “I wasn’t shocked he hit it that far,” Gooden revealed afterward. “I threw him two fastballs for strikes, then tried to move him back off the plate and aimed the ball too much. I thought it might be a long day. The Pirates were all pumped up, their home fans shouting, it was like a World Series.” Joseph Durso, “Yanks Top Royals, Gooden Foils Pirates in Openers; Mets Win by 4-2,” New York Times, April 9, 1986: 23.

7 Charley Feeney, “Spring Cleaning: Pirates Sweep Out Thompson, Lezcano, LeMaster,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 5, 1986: 19.

8 “I thought Kemp or Pena might hit the ball out of the park or get a base hit to tie it,” Leyland said of his bunt decision “I felt it was the proper thing to do. The second guess is in baseball. It belongs in baseball.” “Pirate Notebook: Gooden Stays Away from Swinger Peña,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 9, 1986: 20.

9 Bob Hertzel, “Kemp Hopes This Season Will Be a New Ballgame,” Pittsburgh Press, February 27, 1986: B1.

The Mets’ season got off to a frustrating start when three of the first seven games, including two dates with the Cardinals during their first series of the season at Shea Stadium, were rained out. The one game they did manage to play against the Cardinals, they lost 6-2 in 13 innings. After the first week and a half of the campaign, the Mets were just 2-3, in fifth place, 2½ games behind the division-leading Cardinals. They had lost three in a row.

Particularly frustrated was the Mets’ “second best [starting] pitcher,”1 Darling, who was the scheduled starter for consecutive rainouts on April 16 and 17. “It’s definitely tough,” he told the New York Daily News’ Jim Naughton. “Everybody’s got their own little things they do. This is the third time I’ve done this. You can’t get your running in. You can’t really throw because you anticipate throwing the next day. When you have too much rest, you tend to be too strong sometimes.”2

Finally, on April 18, the skies cleared over Flushing Meadows and Darling took the mound against the Philadelphia Phillies. Darling had faced the Phillies in the Mets’ second game of the season and pitched poorly, giving up six runs on eight hits in 4⅓ innings in a game the Mets eventually won, 9-7.

Darling’s mound opponent for this game was fading Phillies lefty Steve Carlton. Carlton, the future Hall of Famer and perhaps the greatest Phillies pitcher of all time, was coming off an injury-plagued 1985 campaign and, at 41, hoping to regain some of his earlier form. The Phillies lineup still contained the powerful bat of Mike Schmidt, but the other players who made up the great Phillies teams of the recent past were gone.3

In the top of the first, Darling struggled. Whether it was a case of being “too strong” or just being rusty after seven days’ rest, he gave up solo home runs to Milt Thompson and Schmidt. For Thompson, it was his first home run as a Phillies player and just the third of his career. Schmidt’s blast to deepest center field was the 460th of his career.

Down 2-0, the Mets took advantage of Carlton’s wildness to respond with three runs in the bottom of the first. Lenny Dykstra led off with a single, took second on a wild pitch, and then moved to third on a passed ball. Tim Teufel struck out, but Carlton walked Hernandez, Carter, and Strawberry in succession, forcing in Dykstra with the Mets’ first run. After George Foster struck out for the second out of the inning, Ray Knight blooped a single to the outfield grass, scoring Hernandez and Carter. Carlton then walked Rafael Santana before striking out Darling — on his 47th pitch of the inning — for the third out.4 After one frame it was Mets 3, Phillies 2.

From there, both pitchers settled down considerably over the next few innings. Darling, in fact, allowed only two baserunners from the second inning to the sixth, a second-inning walk to John Russell and a fifth-inning single by Steve Jeltz.

Carlton also allowed only one hit over that stretch but was in constant trouble due to walks. A Knight double-play ball got him out of a two-on, one-out jam in the third. In the sixth, Strawberry reached third with none out on a walk and first baseman Von Hayes’s errant throw after a pickoff attempt. But Carlton got Foster to ground out to second against the pulled-in infield, struck out Knight, and, after an intentional pass to Santana, escaped the inning by inducing a groundball from Darling.

In the top of the seventh, it was Darling’s turn to pitch out of a jam, after Schmidt led off with a single and Glenn Wilson was hit by a pitch. Phillies manager John Felske called for a bunt, but Russell failed to get it down and fanned for the first out. Darling then got both pinch-hitter Joe Lefebvre and Jeltz to fly out to right field, preserving the Mets’ 3-2 advantage.

In the home half of the seventh, the Mets added to their lead. Carlton got the first two outs as Dykstra grounded to short and Teufel struck out for the fourth time in the game — Carlton’s 10th strikeout of the night. “He had my number,” Teufel lamented after the game.5 Hernandez then lifted a foul popup down the third-base line, Schmidt gave chase but stumbled twice and the ball dropped safely.6 Given another chance, Hernandez singled. Carter followed with a single, and Carlton walked Strawberry to load the bases. It was Carlton’s eighth walk of the game, and his 140th pitch of the night.7

Felske brought in veteran reliever Kent Tekulve to face the struggling Foster, who had heard some boos from Mets fans after he struck out in the first inning.8 Foster singled, scoring Hernandez and Carter, and turning the boos to cheers. The two RBIs brought Foster’s career total to 1,200. Mets 5, Phillies 2.

To start the eighth inning, Mets manager Davey Johnson called on lefty Orosco to relieve Darling after Darling’s shoulder stiffened. “When he stiffened up after the seventh,” Johnson said, “I told him that it’s still early. There’s no sense trying to be a hero. I’ve got a bullpen.”9

With one out, Gary Redus reached Orosco for a single, stole second, and with two out, got to third on a wild pitch. Redus died there, however, as Hayes popped out to catcher Carter. Phillies pitcher Don Carman set the Mets down in order in the bottom of the eighth. In the ninth, Orosco made quick work of the Phillies, getting Schmidt to ground out and striking out Wilson and Russell to earn his second save of the season. Orosco had begun the year with four shutout appearances covering seven innings.10

After this routine win evened their record at 3-3, the Mets did not lose another game in the month of April. The victory launched them on an early season 11-game winning streak. Those 11 wins included a four-game road sweep of the defending National League pennant-winning Cardinals. By the time the streak ended on May 1 with a 7-2 loss at Atlanta, the Mets had a 4½- game lead over the Montreal Expos. They would not relinquish first place the rest of the season and finished 21½ games in front of the second-place Phillies on their way to the World Series championship.

Darling steadied himself after the frustrating start to his season to post a 15-6 record with an excellent 2.81 ERA. He was shaky in his one start in the National League Championship Series against the Astros but pitched very well in three starts in the World Series against the Boston Red Sox, going 1-1 with a fine 1.53 ERA. He lost the opening game of the Series 1-0 to Bruce Hurst but beat Al Nipper 6-2 in game Four and then started Game Seven as the Mets took the thrilling Series four games to three.

Sources

In addition to the Sources cited in the Notes, this article relied on the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and the box scores noted below. Source materials also included game coverage in the New York Daily News, New York Times, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philadelphia Inquirer newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198604180.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B04180NYN1986.htm

Notes

1 John Stapleton, “The Inquiring Photographer,” New York Daily News, March 2, 1986: 157.

2 Jim Naughton, Mets’ Parade Rained On Again,” New York Daily News, April 18, 1986: 63.

3 Only Carlton, Schmidt, Gary Maddox, and utilityman Greg Gross remained from the Phillies’ 1980 World Series champions and both Carlton and Maddox would be gone by July.

4 Peter Pascarelli, “New York Walks to 5-2 Victory Over Phillies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 19, 1986: 35.

5 Michael Martinez, “Foster Draws a Few Cheers,” New York Times, April 19, 1986: 47.

6 Pascarelli.

7 Rich Hoffman, “Carlton’s Stuff Not Enough for Phils.” Philadelphia Daily News, April 19, 1986: 42.

8 Martinez.

9 Martinez.

10 Martinez.

As the season’s third week began in April, however, these magic moments were purely aspirational. The Mets had unquestioned talent and unrivaled ambition – but a spectator’s view of the postseason for 12 seasons in a row. But their 6-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 21, a night of rallies culminating in clutch hits by Tim Teufel and Gary Carter, continued a pacesetting winning streak and foreshadowed October’s late-inning thrills.

The Mets entered 1986 seemingly on the verge of something big. Their 24-man roster included 13 once or future All-Stars.1 Their 188 wins over the previous two regular seasons led the NL.2 Their likenesses decorated America’s magazine covers and bedroom walls.3 Their manager, Davey Johnson, vowed to “dominate” the division.4 But all they had to show for the stars, wins, ink, and boasts were back-to-back runner-up finishes in the NL East; no new flags had graced Shea Stadium since their unlikely 1973 pennant-winners.

New York’s first two weeks of the season – five wins, three losses, three games postponed by weather – had done little to distinguish them from the pack, but a three-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies hinted at their untapped capacity.5 The Pirates, winners of five in a row after a majors-worst 57-104 record in 1985, followed the Phillies to Flushing Meadows.6

Right-hander Rick Aguilera faced Pittsburgh in Monday night’s series opener. The 24-year-old Aguilera was part of a parade of talented young pitchers onto the Mets’ staff during their NL East ascendance. Ron Darling had arrived in 1983. Dwight Gooden and Sid Fernandez in 1984. Roger McDowell and Aguilera a year later. Debuting in June 1985, Aguilera spent the rest of the season in the rotation; his 4-2 record and 2.95 ERA in September and October helped to keep the Mets close to the division-winning St. Louis Cardinals.7

The Pirates’ R.J. Reynolds, who had homered on Gooden’s third pitch of the season on Opening Day, led off by swatting Aguilera’s fifth pitch of the game over George Foster’s head in left for a double. One out later, Aguilera had to duck under Johnny Ray’s line-drive single as Reynolds scored for a 1-0 Pittsburgh lead. Jim Morrison drove a hanging slider over the fence in left to make it 2-0 in the second.

Pittsburgh threatened again in the third. After hitting a single with two outs, Ray was running on a 3-and-2 pitch to Sid Bream, who lined Aguilera’s slider down the right-field line. Ray kept on going as Darryl Strawberry hustled over, picked up the ball near the stands, and fired a one-hop strike toward home. Carter grabbed the big hop, blocked the plate, and tagged a sliding Ray on the thigh, denying the Pirates a larger lead.

Left-hander Larry McWilliams had emerged as a leader in Pittsburgh’s rotation with 27 wins during 1983 and 1984, but shoulder problems had hindered him in 1985.8 He pitched out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the first by fanning Strawberry and getting Foster to ground out. A clean second followed; when Kevin Mitchell and Teufel popped up to open the third, McWilliams had retired seven in a row.

Keith Hernandez batted with two out in the third; McWilliams’s breaking ball hit him on the right hand. Carter took a fastball over the plate, then swung early on a breaking ball for strike two. Two balls later, McWilliams threw a high curve. Carter ripped it over the fence in left center, tying the game.

Aguilera and McWilliams reasserted themselves, trading scoreless innings in the fourth and fifth, allowing no more than a single baserunner in each frame. The game remained tied as the Pirates batted in the sixth.

Ray led off with his third hit of a game, a single past Rafael Santana at short. Aguilera struck out Bream, bringing up Mike Brown. The muscular right fielder attacked the first pitch, and it soared over the 396-foot sign in left-center for a two-run homer. Pittsburgh was back on top, 4-2.

McWilliams had a lead to protect, and he spent the next two innings snuffing out Mets rallies with fastballs and slow breaking balls. Foster reached on Ray’s one-out bobble of his grounder to second in the sixth, but shortstop Sam Khalifa made a diving stop on Knight’s shot up the middle and started an inning-ending double play. Wally Backman’s pinch-hit single and Teufel’s double set up Hernandez with two runners in scoring position and two outs in the seventh. But Hernandez, unable to extend his arms against a breaking ball, hit a harmless grounder to Ray for the third out.

Hernandez’s inning-ending groundout came on McWilliams’s 102nd pitch of the night,9 and Jim Leyland, managing the ninth game of what turned out to be a 22-season major-league career, turned to right-hander Cecilio Guante in the eighth. Guante had not allowed a run through six appearances in 1986; another successful outing appeared at hand after Carter’s check-swing grounder to second and Strawberry’s swing-and-miss at a two-strike breaking ball.

With the count 2-and-2 on Foster, Guante’s slider flirted with the outside corner. He skipped off the mound as catcher Tony Peña held the ball, anticipating umpire Eric Gregg’s concurrence. But Gregg’s arm remained by his side, the count went full, and Guante’s next pitch missed outside for ball four.

The right-handed-batting Knight was up next. During spring training, trade speculation had targeted the 33-year-old third baseman, including rumors of an attempted deal to the Pirates for Lee Mazzilli.10

He looked toward the dugout, wondering whether Johnson would pinch-hit with a lefty.11 “I was looking over my shoulder,” Knight said afterward.12 “[Johnson] winked at me. I got a big surge.”13

Guante, noticeably displeased by umpire Gregg’s call, paced behind the mound, blowing on his hand. He threw two balls to Knight, bringing Leyland to the mound. “Don’t let up,” Leyland told Guante.14 “Make sure he hits your good stuff.”15

Knight drove Guante’s next pitch over the left-field fence, deadlocking the game again, 4-4. The sparse crowd of 10,982 requested a curtain call, and Knight pumped his arm into the air.

Aguilera had departed for Randy Niemann after six innings,16 and Johnson summoned McDowell for the top of the ninth. Former – and future – Met Mazzilli pinch-hit for Khalifa and walked on four pitches. The Brooklyn native took second on pinch-hitter Bill Almon’s sacrifice and third on Reynolds’s groundout.

Joe Orsulak, hailing from nearby Parsippany, New Jersey, dropped a surprise bunt between home and third. Carter and Mitchell – who had moved from center to third – had no play. Mazzilli ran home. Pittsburgh had a 5-4 lead.

Leyland sent in left-hander Pat Clements for the ninth. Dykstra, who had entered the game to play center, dropped a single in front of Brown in right. Mitchell sacrificed Dykstra to second.

Teufel took a strike. He lined the next pitch down the line in left. Reynolds cut it off before it reached the corner, but Dykstra scored the tying run and Teufel had a double.

Clements walked Hernandez on four pitches, and Leyland came out of the dugout. Jim Winn was in to face Carter.

A day earlier, Winn had allowed a game-tying ninth-inning home run to Keith Moreland of the Chicago Cubs.17 Winn’s first pitch to Carter, a slider, missed high for a ball. The second pitch was in the zone, and Carter lined it into the left-field corner. Teufel scored, and the Mets had a 6-5 win.

“After ball one, I was looking for a strike,” Carter said afterward.18 “He couldn’t afford to fall behind, not with Darryl Strawberry behind me. That’s a plus having a hitter like Darryl behind me.”19

The Mets beat the Pirates a day later for their fifth consecutive win.20 On April 24, they made it six straight, tying the Cardinals on Howard Johnson’s two-run homer in the top of the ninth and winning in the 10th.21 They didn’t lose again for the rest of April, as their streak eventually reached 11 in a row.22 By May 10 they had won 18 of 19 and enjoyed a five-game lead over the division.23

New York steamrolled to 108 regular-season wins and a divisional landslide. The early-season win over the Pirates initiated a theme of late-inning rallies, last-at-bat wins, and triumphant embraces – qualities especially apparent after Game 162. The Mets’ signature postseason wins in Games Three and Six of the NLCS and Game Six of the World Series involved deficits overcome and victories in doubt until the final hit, strike, or error. These trademarks first surfaced on a Monday night in April at Shea Stadium.

Sources and Acknowledgments

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and the box scores noted below. He also used game coverage from the New York Daily News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh Press newspapers; and a YouTube video of WOR-TV’s game broadcast, at the link below.

SABR member Greg Prince’s Mets blog Faith and Fear in Flushing was invaluable to the author’s understanding of this game’s significance to the Mets’ 1986 season. Greg also provided insightful comments on an earlier version of this article.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198604210.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B04210NYN1986.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i9-r7Uwf_0

Notes

1 Marty Noble, “Thumbnails of the ’86 Mets,” Newsday, April 7, 1986: 78. Gary Carter, Ron Darling, George Foster, Dwight Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Ray Knight, Kevin Mitchell, Jesse Orosco, and Darryl Strawberry had made All-Star teams prior to the 1986 season. Sid Fernandez was selected the first time in 1986. Rick Aguilera, Lenny Dykstra, and Howard Johnson made initial All-Star appearances after 1986.

2 The Detroit Tigers and Toronto Blue Jays also had 188 total regular-season wins over 1984 and 1985. The St. Louis Cardinals were second in the NL with 185 wins during that period.

3 A photo of Dwight Gooden, for example, appeared on the cover of the April 7, 1986, edition of Time. A season earlier, Gooden was on Sports Illustrated’s April 15, 1985, “Baseball ’85” issue and Gooden and Hernandez were on The Sporting News’ April 8, 1985 “Play Ball” special section.

4 Johnson made the statement in a team meeting on the first day of spring training in 1986. Jeff Pearlman, The Bad Guys Won! (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 42.

5 Michael Martinez, “Mets Complete Sweep of Phils,” New York Times, April 21, 1986: C1.

6 The Pirates extended their streak to five games with a 14-8 win over the Chicago Cubs on April 19. Bob Hertzel, “Spring Madness: 14-8 Win Is Pirates’ 5th in Row,” Pittsburgh Press, April 20, 1986: D1. A day later, their game at Wrigley Field was suspended on account of darkness after 13 innings, with the score tied, 8-8. Bob Hertzel, “Pirates’ Spree Hits 5½ with Standoff,” Pittsburgh Press, April 21, 1986: C1. When the suspended game was resumed on August 11, Pittsburgh won in 17 innings, with all official statistics added retroactively to April 20. Bob Hertzel, “Morrison, Diaz Make Pirates King for a Day,” Pittsburgh Press, August 12, 1986: C1. Accordingly, the Pirates officially had a six-game winning streak entering the game but chronologically a five-game streak.

7 Jack Lang, “Magic in Met Cards? Beat Bucs; Card Lead Cut to 3½,” New York Daily News, September 29, 1985: 54.

8 Bob Hertzel, “Pirates Pitchers Sweep Up Phillies,” Pittsburgh Press, October 6, 1985: D5.

9 The author determined McWilliams’ pitch count from his review of WOR’s television broadcast.

10 Marty Noble, “‘Maz’ Isn’t Big on Bucs,” Newsday, April 9, 1986: 131. Mazzilli, a Met from 1976 to 1981, rejoined the Mets in August 1986 after the Pirates released him. Howard Blatt, “Maz Thrilled to Be Back: ‘I Want to Contribute,’” New York Daily News, August 8, 1986: 40.

11 Steve Marcus, “Big Night for New Knight,” Newsday, April 22, 1986: 110.

12 Marcus.

13 Marcus.

14 Bob Hertzel, “Heartbreak Kids: Pirates’ Bullpen Turns Victory into Defeat,” Pittsburgh Press, April 22, 1986: C1.

15 Hertzel.

16 According to the author’s review of WOR’s television broadcast, Aguilera threw 100 pitches over six innings.

17 Hertzel, “Pirates’ Spree Hits 5½ with Standoff.”

18 Jack Lang, “Carter Had Fine Knight to Help Him,” New York Daily News, April 22, 1986: 50.

19 Lang.

20 Jim Naughton, “Ojeda Reigns Over Rain: Mets’ Lefty Beats Pirates, Two Delays in First NL Start,” New York Daily News, April 23, 1986: 50.

21 Jim Naughton, “Guns of April: Hojo HR Ties It in 9th, Foster Wins It in 10th,” New York Daily News, April 25, 1986: 46.

22 Jim Naughton, “Aflame in Atlanta! Doc Sparks Mets to 11th Win in a Row,” New York Daily News, May 1, 1986: 68.

23 Jim Naughton, “Mets’ (Paper) Route Thrives as Darling (3-0) Delivers,” New York Daily News, May 11, 1986: 46.

Still, their expectations were prime. Of 210 writers from the Baseball Writers Association of America surveyed by The Sporting News before the 1986 season, 179 had the Mets winning the NL East, and 100 the World Series.1

Alas, many predictions turn out wrong – those same writers had picked the Cardinals for fifth place the year before. The 1986 Mets, however, lived up to the preseason hype.

A key moment in their rise was a four-game weekend series in St. Louis in late April. For how early it was, the tensions surrounding the matchups felt astoundingly World Series-esque.2 The Cardinals needed to get right amid a three-game losing streak, and the Mets, already on a five-game roll, wanted to go for their throats.

Through three games of the series, the Mets had a come-from-behind 10-inning win in the opener on April 24, then a shutout by 1985 NL Cy Young Award winner Dwight Gooden, then a one-run win capped by an acrobatic game-ending double play.3 Passion displayed itself on both sides. Cardinals shorstop Ozzie Smith broke up a double play with an aggressive takeout slide.4 Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez was visibly dismayed when a potential home run was called foul,5 mentally battered by the St. Louis fans in his first action in the city since he testified about his drug use with the team.6

New York went for the series on Sunday, April 27, with a chance to legitimately throw aside the Cardinals and get a significant early edge in the division.

In front of a crowd of 39,193, John Tudor took the mound for St. Louis.

Were it not for Gooden’s master class in 1985, Tudor would have taken home his own NL Cy Young Award – he won 20 of 21 decisions after June 3 and finished second to Gooden in award voting. His microscopic 0.93 ERA in 48⅓ innings against the Mets played a major role in the Mets’ shortcomings. Twice against New York he threw complete-game shutouts,7 and in a third start he threw 10 scoreless innings before the Mets won 1-0 in the 11th.

But despite a 3-0 start to the 1986 campaign, with a 1.69 ERA, the lefty was already a far different pitcher than the year prior – he had suffered a shoulder injury in Game Seven of the World Series.8 His velocity, which had already dropped significantly (albeit with improved results) throughout his career, fell to the low 80s. Tudor’s 1986 season would see him dealing with his worsening injuries while throwing the slowest of any pitcher in the National League.9 Still, for the Mets to beat him here would signify monumental progress.

Tudor opened with three perfect innings, striking out Darryl Strawberry and Lenny Dykstra and getting six groundouts.

Sharing the mound with Tudor was his former Red Sox teammate Bob Ojeda. Having been traded to the Mets in November 1985 after an anti-ownership outburst in Boston, he still had much to prove.10 Off to a hot start, Ojeda sat 2-0 with a 1.46 ERA through three outings.

The Cardinals led off the bottom of the first by manufacturing a run, as was their style. Vince Coleman led off with a single and moved to third on a single by Smith. Ojeda induced a grounder by Tom Herr to Kevin Mitchell at shortstop. Mitchell, playing the position for the first time professionally,11 flipped low to Tim Teufel, who dropped it for an error, scoring Coleman.12

A fly ball by Jack Clark advanced Smith to third base, setting up reigning National League MVP Willie McGee for first and third with only one out. But Ojeda struck out McGee, and Tito Landrum grounded out to Teufel to end the frame.

A quiet second inning brought the Cardinals to the third, when Coleman turned a leadoff single into three bases via a stolen base and a Herr groundout. Ojeda again managed to scrape his way out of the jam, as another Clark fly out ended the inning, keeping the score 1-0.

The tides turned for the Mets in the fourth inning, when Mitchell led off with his first career home run, catching just enough of a changeup to muscle it over the left-field fence. With the game brand-new at 1-1, Hernandez singled, and a double-play ball to short by Gary Carter coaxed a rare errant throw from the Wizard, sailing over the head of Herr.13

With men on second and third, Strawberry’s groundout to first brought home Hernandez, and George Foster’s single drove in Carter to make the score 3-1, Mets.

In the bottom of the inning, the Mets’ two-run lead was cut to one when McGee powered his second April homer, over the left-field fence. It was a rare positive for McGee early in a season during which his batting average ultimately plummeted nearly 100 points from the .353 mark of his MVP season.

The Cardinals threatened to draw even when Terry Pendleton singled and stole second, but Ojeda put down the last two men in the St. Louis lineup to end the fourth.

The top of the Mets’ order came up with two outs in the top of the fifth, and Mitchell singled to left field before Tudor made his biggest mistake of the game, with Teufel at bat. As Tudor remarked afterward, “Mike Heath called a change. … I was thinking fastball and at the very last second tried to throw a changeup.” What came out of his hand was somewhere in between,14 and left up high for Teufel to hit a two-run blast. Like Mitchell’s, it was not crushed; in fact, Teufel ran it out initially, prompting Todd Worrell to throw at him in his next at bat in the eighth inning. Nonetheless, the Mets had a 5-2 lead.15

The Cardinals stranded Herr on second in the fifth, and Pendleton in the sixth. For the game they hit 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

Tudor finished his day with a one-two-three seventh inning, as Worrell relieved him and pitched an uneventful top of the eighth (working around the Teufel beaning). Afterward, Ojeda returned to face the middle of the Cardinals’ lineup. Clark’s home run reduced the Mets’ lead to two, and McGee’s single brought Landrum to the plate as the tying run. But a groundball to Rafael Santana, in at short for Mitchell, started a 6-4-3 double play and kept the Mets in front 5-3.

New York looked for insurance in the top of the ninth, loading the bases with one out on Strawberry’s double, Foster’s single, and Dykstra’s intentional walk. The Mets squandered the opportunity, though, as Ojeda grounded to Herr, who made a fine play to force out Strawberry at the plate. Santana’s popout allowed the Cardinals one more chance to score two runs.

Ultimately, the game ended as quietly as it started. A trio of fly outs from Pendleton, Heath, and pinch-hitter Clint Hurdle finished off the complete game for Ojeda and the four-game sweep for the Mets.

The Mets stars of the final game each paralleled 1985 Cardinals. As a left-hander coming over from Boston, Ojeda was compared to Tudor from the moment he arrived.16 Mitchell, whose batting average was up to .391 after the game, felt to the Mets the way rookie Coleman had been to the Cardinals. Teufel’s acquisition was reminiscent of Jack Clark’s the year before. For those three to be contributors on an already deep roster brought the Mets’ ceiling to new heights.17

Beyond that, the success of the two righties Mitchell and Teufel represented the fruit of an offseason designed to lengthen their lineup against left-handed pitchers like Tudor – Mets right-handed bats jumped from a .678 OPS against lefties in 1985 to .748 in 1986.18

In completing their sweep of the Cardinals, the Mets sucked the heart out of their rivals – columnist Phil Pepe labeled it a “total and complete wipeout.”19 The Mets had won nine straight, and the Cardinals had lost seven.

For Tudor, the loss ended an 18-game home win streak, and 14-game streak overall – especially brutal because it fell one shy of Bob Gibson’s franchise record.20 For Ojeda, winning became the norm en route to a fourth-place finish in the NL Cy Young Award voting – the highest placing of four Mets starters to receive votes.

The April sweep served as a massive confidence boost to players and fans alike. Backman put it bluntly – “There’s a lot of talk around the clubhouse about winning [the pennant] early – April, May, June.”21 The series was among the first glimpses of the dominant season that would eventually bring Queens its second World Series title.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

SABR members John Fredland and Kurt Blumenau provided insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Photo credit: Trading Card DB.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

The author also reviewed SABR Baseball Biography Project biographies of several players who played in the game, especially Rory Costello’s biography of John Tudor and Alan Cohen’s biography of Bob Ojeda.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN198604270.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B04270SLN1986.htm

Notes

1 “Bush-League Predictions,” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1986, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-30-me-10099-story.html.

2 Jeff Pearlman, The Bad Guys Won! (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 64-65.

3 Phil Pepe, “El Sid’s 10 Ks Aren’t Wasted,” New York Daily News, April 27, 1986: 36.

4 Rick Hummel, “Mets Keep Cards In Spin 4-3,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 27, 1986: 48.

5 Jim Naughton, “On or off Field, Hernandez Has No Hideaways,” New York Daily News, April 27, 1986: 70.

6 George Vecsey, “Torn Between Shadow and Sunshine,” New York Times, March 9, 1986: 4S.

7 June 8 and September 11.

8 Peter Gammons, “How Long Can It Last?” Sports Illustrated, May 21, 1990.

9 Fred Mitchell, “Martinez ‘happy’ to be optioned back to Iowa.” Chicago Tribune, August 4, 1986: Section 3:3.

10 Pearlman, 223

11 Marty Noble, “Mitchell Outplays the Master at Short,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), April 28, 1986: 92.

12 Noble, “Mitchell Outplays the Master at Short.”

13 Jim Thomas, “Basket-Ball,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 28, 1986: 3C.

14 Thomas. Tudor said he tried to throw a changeup at the last minute. Thomas also referred to it as a changeup. Jim Naughton, “Ojeda Pins Loss on Ex-Mate Tudor,” New York Daily News, April 28, 1986: 53.

Teufel referred to the pitch as a fastball.

15 Naughton, “Ojeda Pins Loss on Ex-Mate Tudor.” Teufel said he initially ran out the home run. John Sonderegger, “New Mets Keep Cards on Skids,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 28, 1986: 7C. Worrell dusted off and then hit Teufel in his first plate appearance after the home run. This was the first of only four home runs for Teufel that season. He didn’t hit another until June 10, when he hit an extra-inning walk-off pinch-hit grand slam off Tom Hume of the Phillies. Teufel’s 27 homers in Triple A in 1983 convinced manager Davey Johnson to trade for him, but his power didn’t show up to a large degree in 1986.

16 Fred McMane (United Press International), “There Are Enough Similarities Between Bob Ojeda and His …,” November 14, 1985. https:/www.upi.com/Archives/1985/11/14/There-are-enough-similarities-between-Bob-Ojeda-and-his/3500500792400/.

17 Sonderegger, “New Mets Keep Cards on Skids,” 3C.

18 Pearlman, 67-68.

19 Phil Pepe, “Mets Didn’t Beat Up Wimps,” New York Daily News, April 28, 1986: 53.

20 Jim Thomas, “Basket-Ball.”

21 Jim Naughton, “How Sweep It Is for Mets,” New York Daily News, April 28, 1986: 47.

With the 11 straight wins, the swagger the ’86 Mets became known for began to show as well: Back in spring training, “(A) couple of our guys said, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if we got off like the Tigers did?’” recalled backup third baseman Howard Johnson, a member of that iconic Detroit team that rocketed to a 35-5 start in 1984 and coasted to the AL pennant and the World Series championship.2

This was a memorable week in professional sports: Just the night before, Roger Clemens had struck out 20 Seattle Mariners at a raucous Fenway Park; and on the night of this game, rookie defenseman Steve Smith of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers had knocked the puck off goaltender Grant Fuhr’s skate and into his own goal to give the Calgary Flames a Game Seven division-final victory, temporarily stalling the Edmonton Stanley Cup dynasty at two. But in New York, it was the NL East standings that dominated the back pages.

When their streak began on April 18 against Philadelphia, the Mets, five games into the new season, had been 2½ games behind St. Louis and only a game ahead of the last-place Cubs. But a three-game sweep at home of the Phillies, then two straight over the Pirates at Shea Stadium were followed by a rare four-game road sweep of the Cardinals. A 10-5 victory over the Braves the night before had made it 10 in a row.

The 8-1 victory over Atlanta for number 11 began the way many Mets games did that season, with New York jumping on right-hander Joe Johnson in the first inning. Leadoff hitter Lenny Dykstra bunted his way on, stole second and third and, after Wally Backman walked, scored on a single by first baseman Keith Hernandez.

When right fielder Darryl Strawberry singled in Backman, the Mets had a 2-0 lead they would not give up. The game ended with the box score showing Strawberry enjoying a 5-for-5 night, including a two-run homer and three RBIs; catcher Gary Carter adding another two-run blast that ended a personal 0-for-12 streak; and, despite his harsh self-criticism, Gooden’s first career win at Atlanta. He now had a winning record against every team in the league (albeit just 2-1 versus Atlanta and Montreal) and a win in every ballpark in the league, though it was the start of only his third big-league season. The game was also the ninth in a row in which the team homered, one short of the team’s record set in 1970 and repeated in ’75.

The other dugout was not without its own story: star center fielder Dale Murphy had sliced the palm of his right hand the night before, running into the outfield wall while chasing a ball hit by Hernandez. The cut required nine stiches and the fear was that Murphy’s 676-game streak, which had begun on September 25, 1981, would be broken.

But Murphy refused to stay off the field (“It wasn’t like it was amputated,” he declared3) and pinch-hit for Johnson in the fifth, hammering a home run off Gooden. It was the first earned run off the right-hander in 16 innings and was the first hit Murphy had collected off Gooden in eight plate appearances. “He wanted it, I guess,” conceded Gooden, who ended the night with a 4-0 record and a neat 1.26 ERA.

Strawberry ended up batting .372 during the stretch, belting three homers and driving in 13 runs. The 11-game winning streak during the last two weeks of April catapulted the Mets into first place in the National League East, five games ahead of the Montreal Expos. It was a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the season.

“It’s not something you think about when you’re playing,” said Howard Johnson while comparing the Mets’ hot start to that of his former team, the 1984 Tigers. “But when you see the standings, you might think about it.”4

The streak ended the next night when the Braves hit four home runs off Mets pitcher Rick Aguilera in a 7-2 victory. Then the Mets proceeded to win another seven in a row.

This article is included in the book “The 1986 New York Mets: There Was More Than Game Six” (SABR, 2016), edited by Leslie Heaphy and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author also consulted:

Noble, Marty. “Murphy’s Injury Will End Streak,” Newsday, April 30, 1986.

“Gooden Now 2-1 Against Atlanta,” New York Times, May 1, 1986.

Notes

The Mets had beaten the Giants in the first two games, 2-1 and 7-4, boosting their record to 25-9 – the best in baseball – and extending their lead in the National League East Division to five games over the Montreal Expos. For the finale, New York was pitching its ace, budding superstar Dwight Gooden. The 21-year-old reigning NL Cy Young Award winner owned a minuscule major-league best 1.25 ERA to go with a 5-1 record. He also had won three of four career decisions with a 0.82 ERA against the Giants.1

Opposing Gooden was 34-year-old veteran Mike Krukow, off to a solid start with a 5-3 record and a 4.07 ERA. San Francisco, coming off the only 100-loss season in franchise history, was 22-17 and in a virtual tie for the NL West Division lead with the Houston Astros (21-16).

The Giants were confident; the Mets cocky.

What had the makings of a bona fide pitchers’ duel failed to come to fruition as the Giants picked and pecked at Gooden and two relievers en route to a 10-2 victory before a Thursday-afternoon crowd of 27,422.

Ever-enthusiastic Giants manager Roger Craig, in his first full season at the helm, gave his team an infusion of “Humm Baby” positivity during a pregame meeting.

“I told them they can beat this club, they can beat this guy,” Craig said afterward. “The whole club was really motivated for this game. They couldn’t wait to get out of the clubhouse. They wanted to show they’re a good club.”2

At first it appeared that the Mets would extend their winning streak to four games. Mookie Wilson led off the game with a single and, after Wally Backman advanced him to second with a sacrifice, Keith Hernandez stroked his second home run of the season to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.

However, that was all New York would muster. Literally. After surrendering the home run, Krukow set down 23 straight Mets through eight innings of quality work. He recorded 10 fly outs, seven groundouts, five strikeouts, and one lineout. Greg Minton pitched a perfect ninth, getting two groundouts and a strikeout.

The Giants scored an unearned run in the second on a two-out RBI single by Jose Uribe that scored Chili Davis, who had led off with a walk and appeared to be picked off first base but reached second on an errant throw by Gooden.

With the Giants trailing, 2-1, in the fourth, Davis led off with a double and Robby Thompson drew a one-out walk. Uribe singled to score Davis and tie the game, with Thompson advancing to third. After Uribe stole second, Krukow helped his own cause with a suicide squeeze bunt that plated Davis and put San Francisco ahead, 3-2.

The first four Giants singled in the fifth: Will Clark, Chris Brown, Jeffrey Leonard, and Davis. Davis’s bloop hit scored Clark and Brown, sent Leonard to third, and knocked out Gooden. After Davis stole second, reliever Rick Aguilera uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Leonard to race home and Davis to move to third. Davis scored the fourth run of the inning when Aguilera was called for a balk, extending the Giants’ lead to 7-2.

Gooden labored through four-plus innings – his shortest outing of the season3 – throwing 111 pitches and allowing seven runs (six earned) on nine hits – seven of them to the opposite field – with two walks and three strikeouts. He gave up more than half as many runs as he had in his eight starts combined entering the game (13), and his ERA rose to 1.96.4

“We discussed staying away from the high fastball,” Clark said. “Otherwise, we treated him like any ordinary pitcher. You can’t go to the plate thinking he’s better than you are.”5

In the seventh, against Aguilera, Davis came up with his third hit of the game to plate Leonard, who had reached on a two-base error by Wilson, the Mets’ center fielder.

Doug Sisk relieved for New York in the eighth and walked Dan Gladden with one out. Clark singled and Brown reached on a fielder’s choice as Clark was forced out at second. With runners on the corners, Leonard and Davis rapped back-to-back RBI singles to round out the scoring.

Davis went 4-for-4 – raising his season batting average from .272 to .295 – with a walk, four RBIs, and three runs scored.6 Brown was 3-for-5, while Clark, Leonard, and Uribe each had two hits. Twelve of the Giants’ 13 hits were singles.

“We think we can beat anybody,” Brown said. “We’ve shown them we’re a team to reckon with. … We’ve probably got the best attitude in the National League.”7

Just over a week later the teams met again in New York, with the Giants winning two of three games, capped by another Krukow victory in the finale on June 1.8 The Mets won the season series, 7-5, but San Francisco’s five wins tied Houston for the most by an NL West opponent.9

Both Krukow and Gooden went on to be selected as NL All-Stars. In his finest big-league season, Krukow posted a 20-9 record with a 3.05 ERA, ranking among the NL leaders in wins (second), ERA (eighth), complete games (10 – fourth), shutouts (2 – tied for fifth), innings pitched (245 – sixth), and strikeouts (178 – ninth). He finished third in voting for the Cy Young Award, behind Mike Scott of the Astros and Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gooden, meanwhile, was seventh in the Cy Young balloting after going 17-6 with a 2.84 ERA. Among the league leaders he was tied for second in complete games (12), tied for fourth in strikeouts (200), fifth in ERA and innings pitched (250), and tied for fifth in wins and shutouts (2).10

The Mets paraded their way to the NL East title, going a franchise-best 108-54 to top the runner-up Philadelphia Phillies by a whopping 21½ games. The Giants wound up third in the NL West, 13 games behind the Astros. San Francisco’s 83-79 record marked a 21-game improvement from 1985, and the Giants became just the ninth major-league team to post a winning season after a 100-loss campaign.

The Mets dispatched the Astros in six games in the NLCS and then rallied to win the World Series over the Boston Red Sox in seven games.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for player, team, and season information, as well pitching game logs and the box scores for this game:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN198605220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B05220SFN1986.htm

Notes

1 In his first four starts against the Giants, Gooden pitched 33 innings, allowing three earned runs and 24 hits, with six walks and 49 strikeouts. He had two complete games, including a shutout.

2 Glenn Schwarz, “Giants Serve Notice,” San Francisco Examiner, May 23, 1986: F-1.

3 Gooden also pitched only four innings against the Cincinnati Reds on July 9.

4 Gooden allowed six or more earned runs for only the fourth time in his 75 career starts to date.

5 “Giants Serve Notice.”

6 Davis improved to 9-for-16 against Gooden lifetime, and his .563 batting average was the highest among players with a minimum of 10 at-bats. Davis also had drawn six walks for a .682 on-base percentage.

7 “Giants Serve Notice.”

8 Krukow retired the first nine Mets he faced on June 1, making it a string of 32 consecutive New York batters who failed to get a hit off him. Krukow was 4-0 with a 1.73 ERA against the Mets in 1986. In 31⅓ innings pitched, he allowed six earned runs and 18 hits, with four walks and 16 strikeouts.

9 In 1986 the Mets were 10-2 vs. San Diego, 9-3 vs. Los Angeles, 8-4 vs. Atlanta and Cincinnati, and 7-5 vs. Houston and San Francisco. Only one team had a winning record against New York – Philadelphia at 10-8.

10 Gooden went 1-1 with a 4.02 ERA in two additional starts against the Giants in 1986. In 15⅔ innings pitched, he allowed seven earned and 16 hits, with seven walks and 17 strikeouts.

Toeing the rubber for the Mets was 25-year-old right-hander Ron Darling, whom Craig Wolff of the New York Times described as “present[ing] perhaps the Mets biggest melodrama.”1 The good-looking hurler from Hawaii had a career record of 34-18 in parts of four seasons, including a 5-0 start in 1986; however, the New York media had reported on his supposedly contentious relationship with his ofttimes prickly manager. “I don’t have a feud with Ronnie,” said Johnson. “Maybe I expect too much out of him.”2 Even little squabbles could be blown up in Gotham, where Mets fans starved for their first division crown since the “you gotta believe” club in 1973. “I don’t pay any attention to what Davey says about me,” said Darling somewhat nonchalantly. “It’s not like a new thing. He does it because I can do better.”3

For decades the Dodgers had cultivated a feel-good, all-American reputation, but they were on edge, too. Prior to their game against the Mets, a clubhouse fight broke out between All-Star second baseman Steve Sax and his double-play partner, first sacker Greg Brock. Tom Niedenfuer, a stout 6-foot-5 relief pitcher, who was officially listed at 225 pounds, but might have been 25 pounds heavier, stepped in to break up the brouhaha. Sax and Brock downplayed the altercation and assumed the role of church choirboys to the national media. “We grew up together, came up through the system together,” said Brock. “We go a long way back.”4

Los Angeles threw the proverbial first punch of the game when Ken Landreaux parked a one-out offering by Darling in the stands for his third round-tripper of the season, giving the Dodgers a 1-0 lead and hushing the partisan crowd of 35,643. The Dodgers’ starting pitcher, 29-year-old right-hander Bob Welch, with a 96-67 career record, including 3-3 in ’86, mowed down the first nine batters he faced. The Mets tied the game in the fourth when Gary Carter hit a sacrifice fly to right field to drive in Wally Backman.

Darling and Welch did their best Seaver and Koufax impressions by recording all six outs via strikeouts in the fifth inning. Darling had whiffed the side in the third, as well, and with eight punchouts through five innings had already exceeded his previous season high of five.

Depending on one’s perspective, the sixth inning was either memorable or forgetful. The first five Mets collected hits off Welch. Backman doubled down the right-field line to drive in Lenny Dykstra and Carter singled to short right-center to plate Backman and increase the Mets’ lead to 3-1. Danny Heep, starting in right field in place of slugger Darryl Strawberry (sidelined with sprained ligaments in his left thumb), singled to load the bases and send Welch to the showers.

Tom Niedenfuer, fresh off his pregame domestic peacekeeping mission, replaced Welch to face 37-year-old George Foster. In his 18th and final big-league season, the five-time All-Star with his trademark sideburns was no longer the home-run threat that he had been with the Big Red Machine, for whom he belted 52 and 40 round-trippers to lead the NL respectively, in 1977 and 1978; however, he was in the right situation at the most opportune time. Niedenfuer, making his 21st appearance of the season, had been struggling with the long ball, and had yielded five homers in just 27 innings. “It took just one quick turn on a fastball thrown across the letters,” wrote Craig Wolff, to change the tenor of the game.5 On an 0-and-1 count, Foster clouted one over the 388-foot sign in left field for the 13th and final grand slam of his career, and gave the Mets a seemingly insurmountable 7-1 lead. The strikeout-prone, right-handed hitting Foster was originally not scheduled to start against the righty Welch, but Johnson had made a lineup change at the last minute. “I guess it was good I played,” said Foster after the game.6

Foster’s hit, wrote Craig Wolff, “turned a cool quiet evening at Shea Stadium into a rollicking, explosive affair.”7 With his next pitch, Niedenfuer hit Ray Knight on the left forearm. Knight, whose wife, professional golfer Nancy Lopez, had given birth to a child the previous day, was a former Golden Gloves boxer with a chiseled 185 pounds on a 6-foot-1 frame.8 “I charged the mound,” said Knight. “He [Niedenfuer] tried to tackle me. Then I hit the ground – people were scratching at my face, so I started swinging again.”9 A benches-clearing brawl ensued with players coming together in one large rugby-like scrum. When order was finally restored, neither Knight nor Niedenfuer was ejected, drawing the wrath of Lasorda. “I felt he threw at me,” explained Knight after the game. “I’ve always had the philosophy that I would never charge the mound unless I knew for sure.”10 Niedenfuer, who had hit only one batter in 106⅓ innings of work in ’85, denied throwing at Knight. The pitch to Foster was “not where I wanted it to be, and neither was the one to Knight,” he said.11 After hitting Knight, Niedenfuer yielded a single to Rafael Santana and misplayed Darling’s bunt to load the bases. His night was over. Reliever Ed Vande Berg got out of the jam by retiring Dykstra on a short fly to center, and inducing Backman to hit into an inning-ending double play.

Through all of the chaos, Darling kept his cool on the mound, but was not surprised by the brawl. “Whenever someone hits a grand slam to more or less put the game out of reach, you can anticipate something like this happening,” he said. “Being a pitcher, I can understand what’s going through Niedenfuer’s mind. I know I was the first one off the bench.”12 Darling quashed a mini-rally by the Dodgers in the seventh (runners on first and second with one out) by fanning Franklin Stubbs and dispatching Mariano Duncan on a grounder to short. Darling benefited from yet another run of support when Keith Hernandez led off the seventh with his third home run of the season to give the Mets an 8-1 lead. Typically regarded as a finesse pitcher, unlike his hard-throwing teammates Dwight Gooden and Sid Fernandez, Darling recorded his 11th and 12th punch outs in the final frame sandwiched around a one-out double by Steve Nicosia. He induced Stubbs to ground out to second for the last out of the game and tied a team record with his sixth consecutive victory to start a season.

“I think I’ve had just as good stuff in other games, but today I got ahead of hitters,” said Darling, whose curveball and split-finger fastballs mesmerized Dodger hitters, eight of whom were rung up looking.13 His 12 strikeouts tied a career high, and it was the third of eight times in his 13-year career (364 starts) that he whiffed at least 10 batters. Darling often struggled with control, leading the NL with 114 walks in ’85, but issued only two free passes while recording his first complete game of the season.

With the victory the Mets moved to 28-11, and two games later completed the three-game sweep against the Dodgers behind Gooden’s complete-game five-hitter with 10 strikeouts and Fernandez’s four-hitter over eight strong frames.

This article is included in the book “The 1986 New York Mets: There Was More Than Game Six” (SABR, 2016), edited by Leslie Heaphy and Bill Nowlin.

Notes

Several Mets were struggling at the plate. Keith Hernandez had managed just one hit over the previous four games. Wally Backman was not much better with just three hits in his previous 24 plate appearances. Gary Carter entered the game batting just .230 after going 0-for-5 and leaving six runners on base in the previous day’s loss. Carter acknowledged his struggles, saying, “I’ve been trying to hit 10 homers and knock in 30 runs with one swing. One of these days I’ll learn you can’t do that.”2

Lefthander Bob Ojeda took the mound for the Mets. He entered the game with a 7-2 record and a 2.29 ERA. Five days earlier he had shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Ojeda didn’t look sharp in the first inning despite keeping the Phillies from scoring. After leadoff batter Jeff Stone walked, Juan Samuel hit a one-out single to left. Then Glenn Wilson hit a ball to Kevin Mitchell at short. Mitchell—who had not played shortstop in his two years with Triple-A Tidewater and had been shuffled between the outfield and shortstop just two months into his rookie season—mishandled the ball and instead of a double play, the bases were loaded. Mitchell redeemed himself one batter later when he backpedaled into short left field to grab Von Hayes’s pop fly. Ojeda finally got out of the frame by fanning John Russell.

Ojeda retired the Phillies in order in the second, but they grabbed the lead in the third. Singles by Stone and Ron Roenicke, along with a steal by Stone, put runners at the corners. Stone crossed the plate with the Phillies’ first run when Samuel hit into a force at second. Philadelphia made it 2-0 one inning later on a pair of walks and Samuel’s RBI single.

Charles Hudson started for the Phillies. Hudson, in his fourth season with Philadelphia, had a 4-3 record and was looking to shake off two losing seasons in a row. The right-hander gave up just one hit through the first three innings, a two-out single by Ray Knight in the second.

Darryl Strawberry got the Mets’ second hit, a one-out double in the fourth. This brought up Carter, who had taken extra batting practice with hitting coach Bill Robinson earlier that day. When they were done, Robinson told him, “Leave something for the game, Kid,”3 but Carter ignored him and took several more swings.

The extra work paid off. Carter’s single brought Strawberry home to narrow the Phillies’ lead to one run. Two innings later, Carter struck again, following Strawberry’s leadoff walk by driving Hudson’s second pitch into the left-field bleachers to give the Mets a 3-2 lead.

After the game, Carter, who had had just two hits in the prior six games, said, “Well, someone pointed out that my average was exactly the same exactly a year ago, and I got hot and went on to have a productive season. It was bothering me that I wasn’t hitting. I do take those things personally. But maybe this is the start of something.”4

A pair of Phils singles, followed by Hayes’s sacrifice fly, tied the score in the seventh. Philadelphia jumped ahead again the eighth. Steve Jeltz led off with a walk and moved up a base on Darren Daulton’s sacrifice bunt. With one out, Roenicke hit a liner in the hole on the left side. Jeltz scored when Mookie Wilson’s throw home was late. Right-hander Doug Sisk relieved Ojeda and got Samuel to line out to left field for the final out.

Phillies southpaw Don Carman pitched a flawless seventh. After he got Strawberry to fly out to start the eighth, right-hander Steve Bedrosian came out of the bullpen to face Carter. Carter sent Bedrosian’s slider sailing over the left-field wall for his second homer of the night, tying the game again. “That’s strength against strength,” said Mets manager Davey Johnson. “Fastball pitcher against fastball hitter, and the hitter won.”5

The emotional Carter gave “three high fives to assorted on-deck hitters and batboys. One big fist to the crowd. Nine high fives in the dugout, believed to be two short of his career high. The noise came up again, and Carter jumped out, took off his helmet, and gave it the double striding fist.” Asked about his actions, Carter smiled said, “The fans seem to want it. And now they do it for everyone on the team who hits a homer. But it never happened to me in Montreal. Well, once. When I hit three home runs in a game, and that was in 1977. See, I had a lot of them saved up.”6

Neither team scored in the ninth, and they moved to extra innings in a 4-4 tie. Roger McDowell, the Mets closer, took over in the 10th and got the Phils out in order.

Randy Lerch, who pinch-hit in the top of the frame, stayed in the game as the Phillies’ fifth pitcher. It was his first major-league appearance in more than two years; Lerch, a member of the Phillies from 1975 to 1980, had returned after spending 1985 and the first two months of 1986 in Triple A. The 31-year-old left-hander “had enough adrenaline pumping to move a mountain when he walked out there to start the 10th.” He said later, “Last game I won was against the Mets [on August 25, 1984, while with the San Francisco Giants]. I was pumped up, unbelievably excited.”7  Lerch pitched a one-two-three inning, shutting down the Mets on a pair of fly balls and a groundout.

McDowell shut down the Phils again in the 11th for his second perfect inning of relief. Lerch returned to the mound in the bottom of the inning. The first batter he faced was Knight, who had the second-highest batting average in the league at .333. He hit a bouncer toward third. Just as Rick Schu was about to grab the ball for an easy out, it hit the edge of the grass and took a crazy hop, giving Knight a single instead.

“That was like an AstroTurf bounce,” Lerch said afterward. “It was a weird game. That used to happen to us [the world champion ’80 Phillies] when we were winning all the time. It seems like you get those kind of breaks.”8

Johnson now called for a hit-and-run. Rafael Santana’s groundout to the right side of the infield moved Knight to second. Then Johnson sent right-handed-batting rookie catcher Barry Lyons to bat for McDowell.

Lyons was hitless in eighth at-bats so far in the season, but Phillies manager John Felske told Lerch to intentionally walk him. Felske explained the move later, saying, “It’s a situation where I don’t know that much about him. And they tell me that Lerch was getting left-handers out in [Triple-A] Portland.”9 But lefty Lenny Dykstra foiled Felske’s move by drawing a walk to load the bases.

Johnson now sent right-handed Tim Teufel to hit for Backman, a switch-hitter who hit much better against righties than lefties.10 Teufel had joined the Mets over the winter in a trade from the Twins. Entering the game, he was batting .226 and had yet to get a hit coming off the bench. Teufel had pinch-hit the previous night in the ninth with a chance to win the game but fouled out to the catcher.

Teufel said he was embarrassed to come up short. “I haven’t been coming through the last couple of weeks,” he said. “I had a chance to win the last game and didn’t. This time, I didn’t want to hit it through the middle. I might’ve hit into a double play. I took a very compact swing, not a vicious swing.”11

As Teufel approached the plate, Shea Stadium’s public-address announcer mistakenly identified him as Backman. Asked about whether the crowd would’ve wanted Backman instead, Teufel said afterward, “They would have. Probably.”12

Felske wasted no time in replacing Lerch with right-hander Tom Hume and shifted right fielder Wilson behind second base in hopes of cutting off a groundball up the middle.

Hume got behind in the count 2-and-0. His next pitch was a fastball. Teufel “launched [the ball] over the drawn-in infield, over the two-man drawn-in outfield, over the blue fence.”13 Teufel said in the locker room, “Hume’s a sinkerball pitcher, but he got it up and I hit it on the nose.”14

Teufel rounded the bases and savored the first grand slam of his career. It was also the third pinch-hit grand slam in Mets history. Teufel had grown up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and felt like his trade to the Mets was like a homecoming. As he soaked up the excitement after the game, Teufel said, “This is right up there with the greatest feelings I’ve ever had.”15

Teufel continued to play a big role as one of the Mets reserve players and finished the season with a .247 batting average with 4 homers and 31 RBIs. He played in three World Series games, going 4-for-9, to help the Mets win the championship over Boston.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting logs, and other pertinent material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198606100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B06100NYN1986.htm

Notes

1 The Mets beat the Pirates 7-1 on April 22 to place them in a tie with St. Louis, which had lost to the Cubs 3-2. Prior to April 22, the Mets were 6-3 and had shuffled up and down the NL East early in the season. They fell to fourth in the division after three straight losses early in April before climbing up the ladder in the division over the next week. Their victory on April 24 placed them solely in first place, where they remained for the remainder of the season.

2 Associated Press, “Teufel’s Revenge Is to Slam Phils,” Pottsville (Pennsylvania) Republican, June 11, 1986: 9.

3 Marty Noble, “It’s Tim Terrific,” Newsday (New York), June 11, 1986: 147.

4 Mark Whicker, “Carter Is Obnoxious and Great,” Philadelphia Daily News, June 11, 1986: 99.

5 Joseph Durso, “Escape: Mets Win in the 11th, 8-4,” New York Times, June 11, 1986: D27.

6 Whicker.

7 Stan Hochman, “Teufel Slams Door on Phils,” Philadelphia Daily News, June 11, 1986: 96.

8 Hochman.

9 Hochman.

10 Over his 14-season major-league career, Backman batted .294/.364/.362 against right-handed pitching and .165/.258/.201 against left-handed pitching.

11 Durso.

12 Noble.

13 Hochman.

14 Durso

15 Noble.

One could forgive the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates for feeling a bit superstitious before opening their four-game set at Shea Stadium on Friday, June 13, 1986. After winning seven of the first eight meetings between the National League East clubs, the first-place Mets sent Dwight Gooden as their talisman against bad luck to the mound with a National League-leading ERA of 2.11. The fourth-place Pirates countered with Rick Reuschel and his 3.08 ERA. This was Gooden and Reuschel’s third matchup of 1986 and, considering the specter of supernatural associated with the date, perhaps the third time was going to be the charm for the Bucs.

The game opened with the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, Gooden, striking out the eventual all-time home-run king, rookie center fielder Barry Bonds, who was appearing in his 16th major-league game after a May call-up from Triple A.

Both teams saw their number-three hitters reach base through errant defense in the first inning. Johnny Ray, who entered the game with the fourth-highest batting average in the NL (.325), was awarded first via catcher’s interference. Keith Hernandez gained first when left fielder R.J. Reynolds misplayed his sinking liner into an error. Neither team was able to turn these baserunners into runs.

Gooden was uncharacteristically wild in the second. Entering with a season average of 1.75 walks per game, the 21-year-old righty more than doubled that number in this frame alone.

The inning started with a strikeout of Reynolds, who had homered off Gooden on Opening Day in Pittsburgh. Catcher Tony Peña followed by lining a high 3-and-2 fastball down the right-field line. Strawberry fielded the ball on the first bounce and returned it to second baseman Wally Backman to hold Peña to a single. Nine pitches later, the seven and eight hitters, Jim Morrison and Rafael Belliard, were on with walks, loading the bases with one out.

Reuschel squared to bunt on the first pitch of his at-bat. Gooden’s pitch rode up and in, eluding Gary Carter’s mitt and sailing to the backstop. Reuschel spun awkwardly and fell on Carter’s right leg as Carter turned to retrieve the wild pitch. Carter, who had undergone arthroscopic surgery on his right knee during the prior offseason, appeared injured and was unable to get to the ball.2

Gooden hustled back and picked up the ball as Peña scored and the other two runners moved up to second and third. Play stopped as manager Davey Johnson and the Mets’ trainer checked on Carter. Carter remained in the game, and Reuschel struck out on a 2-and-2 fastball for the second out.

Bonds then drew a four-pitch walk. Joe Orsulak fouled off two pitches and worked a 3-and-2 walk, Gooden’s fourth in the inning, to drive in the second Pittsburgh run. Ray’s fly out to Mookie Wilson in center closed out the inning. “Never have I had an inning like that. Not even back in Little League,” Gooden said.3 “… Instead of letting it go, I was aiming the ball.”4

The Mets got one run back in their half of the second. Carter, who had singled, was on third, and Knight on first with one out. Shortstop Rafael Santana hit a high bouncer off the plate, toward shortstop. Belliard fielded it, looked to come home to get Carter, then fired to Sid Bream to retire Santana at first as Carter crossed the plate.

Bream led off the top of the third. He pulled his hands inside and barreled up Gooden’s high inside 3-and-1 fastball over the fence in right-center between the 371- and 396-foot signs, pushing the Pirates’ lead back to two, 3-1.

After the leadoff homer, Gooden struck out the side, finishing Reynolds with a fastball and Peña and Morrison with curveballs.

As in the second, the Mets answered in the bottom half. Mookie Wilson led off by lining a 2-and-0 fastball to the right of the 396-foot sign in right-center for his third home run of the season, cutting the deficit to 3-2.

Backman followed with a drag bunt past Reuschel for a single. One out later, Backman was on third and Strawberry on first for Carter. Reuschel’s first pitch was wide of the plate, and Peña could not backhand it.

Backman scored the tying run; Strawberry turned the bag at second and headed to third as Peña retrieved the ball from the backstop. The throw to third was high, but Morrison leapt, caught it, and tagged a headfirst-sliding Strawberry for the out. Still, the Mets had drawn even, 3-3.

The fourth and fifth were efficient innings for Gooden; he retired all six batters, adding three more strikeouts, and needing only eight pitches in the fourth. Of Gooden’s return to form, first-year Pirates manager Jim Leyland said, “I never saw a guy get on top of his game for four or five innings after struggling and be so awesome.”5

Reuschel matched Gooden in the fourth but ran into trouble in the fifth.

With one out, Backman grounded a single through the box, over Reuschel’s glove. Hernandez hit Reuschel’s 1-and-0 offering to deep center. Bonds made an athletic attempt at the fence to bring the ball back into play. It sailed over his outstretched glove and landed to the left of Shea Stadium’s “Home Run” hat, out of which an illuminated apple adorned with the Mets logo appeared after New York home runs. This two-run shot, Hernandez’s fourth of the season, pushed the Mets in front, 5-3.

Gooden now had a lead for the first time all night. He retired the Pirates in order in the sixth, fanning Peña and Morrison. Belliard’s infield single and Bonds’ second walk of the game gave Pittsburgh two on with one out in the seventh, but Gooden retired Orsulak on a medium fly ball and struck out Ray—his 13th of the game, more than twice his season average of 5.9 coming in—to end the threat.

One more scoreless inning completed Gooden’s night. He worked around an error in the eighth, finishing with 143 pitches.6

Left-hander Larry McWilliams had relieved Reuschel and pitched a clean seventh. The Mets threatened to expand their lead in the eighth, loading the bases against McWilliams and Cecilio Guante. But Guante fanned Santana to keep it a two-run game.

Three outs from victory, Johnson went to the bullpen in the ninth. New York’s primary closer, left-hander Jesse Orosco, had pitched six times in the past seven days. Johnson had a secondary option in righty Roger McDowell, who had converted four of five save opportunities. He gave Orosco the ball and the chance for his 12th save.  

Belliard led off with a looping liner to right-center that dropped in front of Len Dykstra—a defensive replacement for George Foster—for a single. Former Met Lee Mazzilli, who had remained in the game in left after pinch-hitting for Reuschel in the seventh, walked.

Bonds was due up, but Leyland went with the platoon advantage and sent up righty-swinging Mike Diaz, a 26-year-old former college football recruit who had hit his first major-league homer off New York’s Sid Fernandez five days earlier in Pittsburgh.7 When Diaz walked, the Pirates had the bases loaded with no outs. Pitcher Bob Kipper ran for Diaz.

Johnson stuck with Orosco against right-hander Bill Almon, another former Met. Almon flied to medium center field; Dykstra made the catch and threw to the cutoff man Santana to keep the runners at first and second while Belliard scored to close the gap to 5-4.

Ray walked to load the bases again. Bream flied to shallow left field. Wilson’s throw to the plate was off-line and Mazzilli scored the tying run. Finally, Orosco struck out Reynolds looking on three pitches to end the inning. But the Pirates—once again taking advantage of a burst of wildness from Mets pitchers—had tied it up and handed Orosco his third blown save of the season.

Left-hander Pat Clements was Pittsburgh’s fourth pitcher in the bottom of the ninth. Mookie Wilson placed a one-out blooper between Ray at second and Reynolds in center for a single. “A Texas Leaguer in New York,” Wilson called it.8

Backman, a switch-hitter batting right against Clements, tapped a ball in front of the plate. Peña fielded it, saw that no one was covering second, and threw out Backman at first for the second out.

With Wilson on second and first base open, Hernandez was intentionally walked. Said Leyland, “That is not a good situation to be in. To me, you have a guy in Hernandez who over the years has been one of—if not the—best clutch hitters in baseball. Walking him made sense.”9

On the 1-and-0 pitch, Strawberry,10 who had been slumping against left-handed pitching,11 hammered a sinking line drive into right field to drive in Wilson for a 6-5 Mets win.12

“A lucky day for me, I guess,” said Strawberry.13

Author’s Note

A friend and I attended this game as high-schoolers. We sat in the right field mezzanine. On the train ride home, neither one of us second-guessed pinch-hitting for Bobby Bonds’ son, who was still a rookie. However, we questioned the logic of awarding the win to a reliever who lost the lead with two earned runs on three walks and one hit in one inning, rather than the starter, who went eight innings with 13 strikeouts.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Tom Brown and copy-edited by Len Levin.         

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. He also reviewed a recording of the WOR-TV game broadcast on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198606130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B06130NYN1986.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Pdx-1DblA

Notes

1 Wire Reports, “Mets Top Pirates on Hit in 9th,” Chicago Tribune, June 14 1986: Section 2, 3.

2 Frank Brown, “Doc Ks 13, but Jesse Gets Win,” New York Daily News, June 14, 1986: 26.

3 Bob Hertzel, “Pirates Find Friday the 13th Most Unlucky,” Pittsburgh Press, June 14, 1986: B1.

4 Brown.

5 Hertzel.

6 During the top of the ninth inning of the WOR-TV broadcast, a graphic was placed on the screen that showed Gooden’s pitch count as 143 (93 strikes and 50 balls). The New York Daily News article by Frank Brown listed Gooden’s pitch total as 142.

7 Of the 42 times Bonds was replaced for a pinch-hitter during his career, only four times was he replaced as a potential tying or go-ahead run (three times during his rookie season of 1986 and once in 1987). Three of the four were against lefties (Bob McClure, Orosco, and Randy Myers—Todd Worrell was the righty). This was the second of those four times.

8 Hertzel.

9 Hertzel.

10 Strawberry had 58 official career plate appearances where the preceding batter was intentionally walked. His splits in such a situation (.260/.362/.520) closely resemble his career splits (.259/.357/.505).

11 Per the Chicago Tribune, prior to the walk-off hit, Strawberry had been 10-for-70 against left-handers and hadn’t driven in a run against a lefty since April 25.

12 The single in the ninth was the second of Strawberry’s nine career walk-off hits.

13 Hertzel.

Skipper Davey Johnson’s Mets were in a bad mood as they prepared to play a four-game set with the Atlanta Braves heading into the All-Star break. They had just been swept by player-manager Pete Rose’s Cincinnati Reds in a three-game set at Shea Stadium, and had lost four of five games. Ojeda ended the team’s hitherto longest losing streak of the season by tossing a seven-hitter to beat Atlanta in the first game, but the club was out to prove that its hot start was no fluke. The Mets (56-25) led the NL East by 10½ games. Chuck Tanner, in his first season as Atlanta’s pilot, had his club playing inspired ball. Coming off a 96-loss season in ’85, the Braves had been four games above .500 on July 3 before losses in six of seven games dropped them to 42-43, in fourth place in the NL West.

Enjoying a breakout season, Sid Fernandez entered the game tied with the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela and the Phillies’ Shane Rawley for the NL lead in victories with 11. The Mets had high expectations for the 23-year-old hurler, acquired in a trade with Los Angeles in December 1983. After an early season call-up in 1985, Fernandez won six of his final nine decisions and led the NL in fewest hits allowed (5.7) and most strikeouts (9.7) per nine innings. “I don’t think we’re as surprised as Joe Fan is [about Fernandez’s success],” said Mets pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre. “After last year, several people thought he had a chance to win 20. Maybe we’re surprised with the consistency of the stuff he’s had, but we’re not surprised he’s won 11.”1

Like many left-handers, Fernandez sometimes struggled with his control despite a robust 2.89 ERA in 109 innings. He had issued at least five walks in six of his 16 starts thus far in ’86. Ken Griffey (not yet known as Senior), drew a two-out walk in the first and stole second, but the hard-throwing Fernandez whiffed sluggers Dale Murphy and Bob Horner to end the inning.

The Mets wasted no time attacking David Palmer, a 28-year-old right-hander who entered the game with a 5-7 record (3.17 ERA) and a 43-33 record in parts of seven big-league seasons. After Lenny Dykstra drew a leadoff walk, Wally Backman beat out a drag bunt by evading first baseman Horner’s diving tag. Both runners moved up on Keith Hernandez’s groundout. Gary Carter, the Mets’ inspirational team leader and Palmer’s former teammate with the Montreal Expos, clouted a home run to deep left field, sending the partisan crowd of 39,924 into a loud, raucous standing ovation. A fan favorite, Carter came out of the dugout for a customary curtain call. According to New York Times sportswriter Joseph Durso, he “raised his fist” triumphantly to the crowd.2

Some fans in the vibrating stadium probably knew what was coming. With his next pitch, Palmer plunked Darryl Strawberry in the back. “Without hesitating,” wrote Durso, “[Strawberry] ran straight to the mound,” while Palmer flung his glove at the charging batter as the benches emptied.3 The Braves catcher, Ozzie Virgil, tackled Strawberry while several players subdued Palmer. No punches were landed, and after a few minutes order was restored. Neither Strawberry nor Palmer was ejected. “They act as though they won the seventh game of the World Series,” said Palmer after the game. I told Keith Hernandez when we were scuffling around: I don’t care if you hit 15 home runs, but don’t show me up.”4 On a team with a tough-guy attitude that never shied away from a brawl, Strawberry had no apologies. “You have to protect yourself,” he said. “When a guy hits you, then stares at you, what are you supposed to do?”5 Palmer didn’t find any support from his former batterymate either. “I was his catcher for six years in Montreal,” said Carter. “He was frustrated and he took it out on Strawberry.”6

Palmer regained his composure to retire the next two batters, but his evening only got worse. The Braves failed to take advantage of Terry Harper’s leadoff single in the second when Fernandez sandwiched two more punchouts around an infield popup. In the bottom of the second, with Fernandez on first via an infield single, Backman lined a two-out, seeing-eye single to move the stout, 6-foot-1, 225-pound hurler to third. Backman took second on Palmer’s wild pitch and the bases were loaded after Hernandez walked. Up stepped Carter. “The Kid” sent an 0-and-2 pitch over the left-field fence for his 10th of 11 career grand slams to give the Mets a 7-0 lead. And just as he did an inning earlier, Carter made another curtain call, doffing his cap as the Mets faithful stood and cheered. His seven RBIs were a career high, and one off the Mets’ record, set by Dave Kingman in 1976.

The Mets waited an inning to slug reliever Craig McMurtry, who struck out Strawberry to end the second. In the bottom of the third with Ray Knight on third via a triple and Kevin Mitchell occupying first on a walk, it was Fernandez’s turn to take a swing. He belted a double down the left-field line, driving in Knight and making it 8-0. Dykstra followed with another double, driving in two more. After Hernandez walked, Carter blasted what looked like his third straight home run, to deep center field, but Dale Murphy ran it down for the last out of the frame. McMurtry was there to take one for the team and eat some innings. In the fourth Knight knocked in the Mets’ 11th and final run on a single, driving in Strawberry, who had reached first on an error by shortstop Andres Thomas.

Staked to an insurmountable lead, Fernandez baffled the Braves with his assortment of fastballs, hard and slow curves, and changeups. He had a peculiar, deceptive delivery in which he hid the ball behind his back and drove to the mound in a long stride. After yielding his second hit, in the third inning (a double by Thomas), Fernandez hurled 6⅔ hitless innings. He had a hiccup in the eighth when he issued a leadoff walk to Ken Oberkfell and hit Ted Simmons with two outs. Perhaps Fernandez was still a little winded after legging out a double down the left-field line to lead off the seventh. He tossed a 1-2-3 ninth to complete the game in 2 hours and 39 minutes.

New York “brutalized” the Braves, opined Durso, as El Sid fanned nine and walked three in his first of nine career shutouts and five career two-hitters in 300 starts, and also collected a career-best three hits.7 (He never threw a one-hitter or no-hitter). Described as the “ace of the brilliant Met staff,” Fernandez was arguably the hottest pitcher in the league.8 He won his career-best seventh consecutive start in a dominating stretch during which he crafted a 1.76 ERA and held opponents to a .182 batting average. Earlier in the week Fernandez became the first Hawaiian-born athlete in any US sports league to be named an All-Star when Whitey Herzog selected him to his first of two straight NL All-Star squads, joining teammates and starters Carter, Hernandez, and Strawberry, as well as Gooden. It was widely believed that Fernandez would get the starting nod, but that honor went to Gooden, whose 10-4 record and 2.77 ERA was impressive in their own right.

The Mets took the next two games from the Braves (10-1 and 2-0) to sweep the series and conclude a weekend of festivities, which included an old-timers’ reunion prior to the game on Saturday, and a celebration for Rusty Staub on Sunday, to commemorate their 25th season. Through 2017, the Mets’ 59-25 record at the All-Star break was the best in club history.

This article originally appeared in “The 1986 New York Mets: There Was More Than Game Six” (SABR, 2016), edited by Leslie Heaphy and Bill Nowlin.

Notes