#8 - 1986 Mets Rewatch: May 6-7, Playoff Foreshadowing

The 1986 Mets Rewatch Newsletter is a newsletter for Mets fans who like when pitchers hit triples (except when they’re Sid Fernandez … if you know, you know)

The Mets and Astros played an all-timer of an NLCS in 1986. Their regular season series had some pretty great games too. The first two meetings took place 40 years ago this week.

The Mets broadcast of May 6, 1986 doesn’t seem to have survived. But atop this article is the link to the Astros broadcast of the game.

So we get to see what the other side thought of a Dwight Gooden two-hit shutout and a 4-0 Mets win.

But it’s not Gooden’s dominance that I’m most interested in seeing. The at-bat I’m most interested in watching is the one that produced Gooden’s first career triple (queued up here).

It came in a high-leverage situation, with the Mets leading 1-0 in the seventh inning. The Mets had runners on second and third with one out after Denny Walling’s throwing error on Rafael Santana’s ground ball.

Astros pitcher Bob Knepper and Gooden waged a good battle. Knepper, an emotional sort on the mound (and a weird dude), slammed at the dirt with his hand after falling behind 3-1. Gooden actually swung at Ball 4 to bring the count to 3-2, then fouled the next pitch off.

On the 7th pitch of the at-bat, Gooden hit a fly ball to right field. The Astros were playing their outfield shallow and Gooden was able to get it just over the outstretched glove of Terry Puhl, not far from the warning track. The ball bounced to the wall. Third base coach Buddy Harrelson ran all the way to home plate waving both runners in.

The crowd went nuts. One thing I remember about 1986 Mets crowds. They were LOUD (it helped that no one was doing anything on their phone). It helped that people loved anything Dwight Gooden did.

“What is there that this guy can’t do?” asked the Astros announcers, Gene Elston and Larry Dierker (Elston was the Astros version of Bob Murphy, old enough to have seen Dizzy Dean pitch).

Gooden could hit (I was at his first two home runs in 1985 and 1988). He had 8 home runs and 5 triples in his career. He’s the Mets all-time pitcher leader in home runs with 7.

Gooden brought the thunder and the skies promptly brought the rain, as it immediately started to rain hard (an on-and-off shower). Kevin Mitchell brought home Gooden with a single against Charlie Kerfeld, the last run of the 4-0 win.

Gooden finished the shutout, getting a bases-loaded double play from Glenn Davis to end the game. He improved to 5-0 with a 1.04 ERA. He had two top-notch stretches in this game, retiring 12 in a row to start the game and 10 in a row later in the game.

The game essentially represents the end of an incredible reign of dominance by Gooden. Over a 50-start span encompassing the end of 1984, all of 1985, and the first 6 starts of 1986, Gooden had a 37-4 record and 1.38 ERA.

Question of the Week

Other than Bartolo Colon’s home run, do you have a favorite Mets pitcher hitting moment?

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The other game in this series doesn’t have any video accompaniment.

Sid Fernandez was pitching for the Mets that day. If it seems like all of our write-ups feature Sid, you're not wrong. He pitched in a lot of good games!

Fernandez was off to a good start. He was pitching against Nolan Ryan, who was not. Ryan entered with a 5.31 ERA. Ryan's success that season came after a three-week IL stint in June. Upon his return he pitched to a 2.24 ERA in 18 starts. This game came a bit before that.

The Mets got to Ryan early. Darryl Strawberry hit a two-run home run in the third inning and Len Dykstra had an RBI double in the fourth. The Mets outhomered the Astros in the regular season 16-6, by the way.

Fernandez pitched five scoreless against a lineup featuring all right-handed batters, then gave up an RBI double to Glenn Davis in the sixth and a sacrifice fly to Bill Doran in the seventh.

This rings true with how I remember Fernandez. Really good early, not so good late. How was Sid Fernandez's 3rd time penalty compared to other NL pitchers?

Sid was considerably better than other NL pitchers OPS-wise, but his OPS took a much bigger hit from the second to third time through. That confirms what I thought to be true.

Davey Johnson went to Roger McDowell in the eighth and, as was McDowell's want, he got himself in and out of trouble. Mark Bailey lined out to a perfectly-positioned Tim Teufel at second base with two on and two out so that McDowell escaped unscathed.

McDowell gave up a leadoff hit in the ninth and Johnson turned things over to Jesse Orosco. Terry Puhl singled to put two runners on with nobody out. Orosco recovered to strike out Bill Doran and get Billy Hatcher to fly out.

This brought up Phil Garner (RIP), who hit a smash to third base that looked like it was going to be a go-ahead double. But Ray Knight dove and gloved the ball, limiting Garner to an infield single rather than a double, which loaded the bases with two outs. Knight admitted he guessed wrong, thinking Garner would hit the ball in the 56 hole, and positioned himself accordingly. That nearly cost him.

"At least the ball didn't get by me," Knight said.

Garner told Houston reporters afterwards: "He had no business catching that ball,"

That brought up Glenn Davis, who like Ryan, would finish the season far better than he started it. Davis was the runner-up for MVP to Mike Schmidt that year and hit a home run accounting for the only run in Game 1 of the NLCS. But he was hitting just .220 in his first 24 games of the regular season.

Davis flied out to shallow right, a ball on which some reporters thought Strawberry looked "shaky" (he may have lost the ball's path in the lights) and the Mets escaped with a one-run win. 

This was the Mets 16th win in 17 games.

Mets vs Astros – Really Good Games in Regular Season

Great lede:

Wrote Jack O'Connell in The Bergen Record:

"Ray Knight decided to get a postgame haircut last night in the player's lounge at Shea Stadium. It may seem an odd time to be seated in a barber's chair, but in this case it was appropriate. It followed a hair-rising inning that was a close shave for the Mets.

They survived without a nick and emerged neater than Knight's trimmed scalp."

Bizarre stat

Davis' out made hitters 0-for-13 with 5 walks all-time in situations in which the bases were loaded with two outs in the ninth inning, with their team trailing the Mets by a run (you can see the full list here).

Recommended reading

This is great. It’s a recap of Sid’s time pitching for one of the Dodgers minor league teams, including a game in which he struck out 21!