No matter how many baseball games you might attend, each holds the possibility of seeing something never seen before. A player’s first career homer. A pitcher hitting a homer. Both are unique — the ladder more so now. Countless pitchers have a home run on their statistical ledger. One stands alone. Bartolo Colón was a terrible hitting pitcher even by hitting pitcher standards. Looking at...
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It’s very rare that one player beats an entire team. But Noah Syndergaard pretty much defeated the Cincinnati Reds single-handedly. For the first time in 36 years, he became the first pitcher to homer and throw a complete game in a 1-0 victory. Syndergaard went the distance for the third time in his big-league career on this Thursday afternoon at Citi Field. The other two complete games...
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It helps to be in the right places at the right time. It also helps be a very good pitcher. Al Leiter was both. Those circumstances helped him achieve a feat that, at the time, was unique only to him. The left-hander went seven strong innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Bank One Ballpark, only allowing one unearned run. Thanks to the Mets offense quickly building a significant lead,...
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Less than a year ago, the Mets were lucky to score 12 runs in a series. On June 9, 2015, the last time the San Francisco Giants came to Citi Field, unheralded Chris Heston tossed a no-hitter. By April 2016, things had definitely changed. Yoenis Céspedes, a trade deadline acquisition who was the catalyst to the 2015 team and re-signed the past off-season, changed the dynamic of the Mets lineup....
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The San Diego Padres had won 188 straight games when leading after eight innings. The New York Mets hadn’t won in three games. Both streaks, one long-term and one short, ended with a swing by Mike Piazza — a game-winning two-run ninth-inning homer to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 walk-off victory. Everything pointed to Trevor Hoffman, who converted on 53 of his 54 save opportunities in...
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