Ultimate Mets Database: Game of July 11, 1991

Charlie with Good Taste
October 11, 2017
This was the night the Padres chose to pitch to the wrong ex-teammate. With the winning run on second base in the bottom of the ninth inning, Garry Templeton (traded to the Mets by San Diego that season) was walked intentionally to set up a force play situation. Kevin McReynolds, another former Padre, came to bat and hit an RBI single for a Mets victory. I guess the Padres figured if an old friend was going to beat them, let it be one who left the team five years ago instead of a more recent one.

Dave VW
October 10, 2022
Instead of watching the debacle that was the Mets' 7-1 loss to the Padres in Game 1 of their Wildcard series last night, I tuned in to this uplifting affair against San Diego from 1991. Wise choice, indeed. I couldn't believe they chose to pitch to McReynolds (one of the hottest hitters in the game for the past 2 months) instead of the weak-hitting Templeton in the ninth, even if Larry Andersen had good career numbers against Kevin and the walk set up a force at every base. His walk-off handed the Mets their 9th straight win and caused the New York Times to print, "The Mets win everything these days." During his pregame commentary, even Rusty Staub, giddy over the recent winning streak, said the Mets "should have an exciting second half." Oh, how wrong they'd all be.

This was the first game after the All-Star break, and the Mets would go 31-50 in the second half. Hubie Brooks opened the scoring with an opposite field home run, his 15th dinger of the year; he'd actually only hit 1 more the rest of the season. As he was apt to do, Buddy left Gooden in way too long. Up around 120 pitches in the 8th, Gooden allowed a 2-out single to Tony Gwynn with McGriff due up. Instead of bringing in Franco (who wasn't even warming up and Buddy said it was too early to bring him in, give me a break), Gooden stayed in and walked McGriff, then gave up an RBI single to Jerald Clark before finally getting the hook. Alejandro Pena entered and coughed up a game-tying RBI double to Santiago (who tied a Padres record with 3 doubles in the game). Franco then came in a batter later and got out of the inning, making Buddy look even dumber for not bringing him in to face McGriff.

More bad Mets defense too. Elster threw one in the dirt and Carreon flat out dropped a flyball in centerfield that allowed a run to score. He made up for it with an RBI single in the 6th, though. Magadan also could have been charged with an error on a booted ground ball in the 5th but the official scorer must have wanted to be nice to him as Dan became a father for the first time earlier in the day.

This was also Tim Teufel's first time ever playing against the Mets, as he had just recently been traded to San Diego after 5+ seasons in NY. He struck out on 3 pitches against Doc in his first AB and later became his 1,500th career strikeout victim in the 7th.

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