Opening Day for the 2020 MLB regular season is just over a week away as I type this sentence. Finally. But still, this stoppage in play has allowed us a unique opportunity to look back on recent (and distant) New York Mets history more than we likely ever would’ve in a typical circumstance.
If you can’t tell, I’m trying to find some silver lining here. Is it working?
This has at least been true for me personally. No new Mets baseball has led to me looking back on certain aspects of New York’s 2006 season, which will easily go down as one of my most memorable years as a Mets fan. Just a few examples include Carlos Beltran showing he was worth a record-setting contract, New York’s dominant June road trip, and the glory that was pairing Beltran with Carlos Delgado in the middle of the organization’s lineup.
As we wait for new baseball (that counts, at least) to appear on our TVs, I wanted to take a second to remember something else the 2006 club did, which happened 14 years ago today. I would say the suspense is building, but you already know what I’m going to talk about.
Yes, their historic 11-run outburst against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
These two teams entered the night on two different ends of the spectrum. the Mets owned a 54-37 record and were in the midst of coasting to an NL East title, while the Cubs were already 20 games below .500 with a 35-55 mark. That didn’t stop Chicago from immediately jumping on Orlando Hernandez, chasing him after he allowed five earned runs in just 1.2 innings of work.
New York’s bullpen kept the Cubs offense at bay with 3.1 scoreless innings from Darren Oliver and Pedro Feliciano. The Mets chipped away with a run in the fourth and another in the fifth before entering that memorable sixth inning while staring at a 5-2 deficit. Then, that’s when the magic happened.
For some context, Baseball-Reference listed the Mets’ odds of winning the game at 15% entering the top of this inning. By the time this historic onslaught was complete, it was all the way up to 99%. The half inning of play lasted 41 minutes and Cubs hurlers threw 70 pitches. They didn’t benefit from the two errors committed behind them, which led to eight of the 11 runs scored being unearned.
Even though Jon Miller had noted multiple times that the wind played a role during this performance, it’s worth noting how many pitches were hit to the opposite field — especially the homers from Cliff Floyd, Beltran, and David Wright.
Obviously, the two grand slams hit in the same inning is what made this moment a historic one. It was the first time a team had done it since Fernando Tatis did it all on his own for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999, and it was just the seventh occurrence in MLB history spanning back to 1871. This particular feat hasn’t gotten more common in recent years, either — the next time it happened was in 2015 by the Baltimore Orioles.
If there’s one instance I’d have to pinpoint that perfectly summed up this club, it’d probably be this one. This monstrous comeback wasn’t the least bit surprising, either. The way Willie Randolph‘s club played made us almost expect them to win every single night, which is something they were pretty successful at in 2006.
Seriously, though, this described the 2006 Mets perfectly. The starting pitching struggled, which wasn’t necessarily unordinary considering the rotation’s cumulative 4.67 ERA that season. The bullpen came in to stabilize things, which is something they were really good at doing in ‘o6. Randolph’s relief corps had the lowest ERA (3.28) and highest fWAR (7.0) in the National League, along with leading baseball with 32 wins.
All they had to do was buy time for the offense to pounce at the right moment, which obviously happened. From a wRC+ perspective, New York’s offense wasn’t overly impressive (99), but it was still among the league’s top 10. They did lead baseball with 28.1 fWAR, were seventh in homers (200), and were also seventh in runs scored (834), so the position players knew what the heck they were doing.
As was the case with most big events during this season, I remember watching this happen in real time. I was pumped for Floyd hitting his second homer of the day (he was my favorite Met for the short period of time he was with the club). All I could do was chuckle when Beltran sent his own ball over the wall with two outs (without knowing the historical significance, of course). And then all I could do was sit there in disbelief watching Wright add a two-run dinger for good measure.
What a fun year, and what a fun freakin’ inning to watch. It seemed like anything was possible that year…until it no longer was (single tear).
