Ultimate Mets Database: Game of June 15, 1997

Dave VW
September 21, 2023
With the Subway Series on the horizon, the Mets look destined for a midseason collapse, suffering one of their worst losses to this point in the season. After an RBI groundout by Matt Franco put the Mets up 1-0 in the 2nd, the Red Sox proceeded to bat around in the 3rd, as 8 straight batters reach base en route to taking a 5-1 lead. They'd go on to double their tally from there to take the first interleague series in Mets history.

Bobby Jones, who had won his last 8 starts, simply didn't have it and only lasted 4 innings. On the flipside, scrub extraordinaire Vaughn Eshelman had one of the best starts of his career, giving up just 1 run over 7 innings, at one point retiring 13 batters in a row. He also legged out a bunt single in his first career at-bat. History shows Eshelman only made 7 more Major League appearances after this game and held a 10.34 ERA over that span. He didn't pitch professionally again until the year 2000, and actually wrapped up his career with the Mets Triple-A affiliate in Norfolk in 2001. I also just learned he died in 2018 after complications from a liver transplant. RIP.

Meanwhile, this marked Barry Manuel's last appearance as a Met, and also was Bernard Gilkey's first time batting first in the lineup as a Met. He responded by going 2-for-4 but was still hitting a dreadful .203 for the season.

Now 6-7 in June, missing countless players due to injury (Alfonzo, Huskey, Ordonez, Lance Johnson, Manny Alexander, Isringhausen, Paul Wilson and Pete Harnisch, to name a few), and now starting to see key players regress back to mediocrity after hot starts, this was shaping up to be the absolute worst time to go into the Bronx and take on the reigning champion Yankees with the eyes of the city and MLB upon them. If I were keeping track of things in 1997, I would not be liking the Mets' chances going into the first ever Subway Series.

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The Mets suck! Smith made three errors in this game, and hit into a double play, and the Mets blew a 5-0 lead. They need to get rid of Smith and get somebody like Jones.
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