Category Archives: 1999 Project

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 45-47

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

daveparker_mask.jpgMay 24, 1999: Pirates 7, Mets 4

Thanks to the general ineffectiveness of their starting rotation, the Mets front office debated bringing Jason Isringhausen all season. The member of the ill-fated Generation K missed all of 1998 thanks to elbow surgery, and had appeared in only 33 games since a promising rookie campaign in 1995. Bobby Jones’ trip to the DL (despite Jones’ protests) forced the team’s hand, and he was called up from triple-A Norfolk in time to start the series opener in Pittsburgh.

Izzy showed flashes of the stuff that made him a first-round pick, striking out seven in six innings of work. But his first pitch was tagged for a double, and Jason Kendall clubbed a three-run homer shortly thereafter. The righty would give up another homer and five runs overall. Bobby Valentine called his outing “encouraging,” but it didn’t translate into a win.

The Mets’ offense pulled within one, but Turk Wendell gave up a two-run homer to Ed Sprague that put the game out of reach. They got the tying runs on base in the eighth and ninth innings, but couldn’t get break through against the Pittsburgh bullpen.

May 25, 1999: Mets 8, Pirates 3

Masato Yoshii turned in yet another quality outing–not an overpowering one, but more than effective. The Pirates got the leadoff man on in five of the seven innings Yoshii started, yet were only able to scratch out two runs against him. He gave up a leadoff homer to Al Martin and settled in thereafter, striking out six and inducing two key double plays in 6 2/3 innings of work.

Offensively, the Mets were kickstarted by a 442-foot solo bomb by Mike Piazza off of future battery mate Kris Benson. A few batters later, Brian McRae hit a three run shot, which was all the offense they would need, although they added four more runs against the Pirates’ relief corps.

May 26, 1999: Mets 5, Pirates 2

Orel Hershiser pitched six strong innings to earn the win and helped his cause with a pair of hits. Benny Agbayani knocked the fourth home run of his brief major league career, and John Olerud hit a key two-run single in the top of the ninth to plate some insurance runs.

However, all the post-game talk centered around the Mets’ injury woes. Al Leiter was suffering from a sprained knee, and following an unpromising BP session, Bobby Valentine opted to push back his next start by at least one game. To make matters worse, Isringhausen experienced elbow pain during a throwing session, which jeopardized the likelihood of him making his next scheduled start.

Bobby Bonilla was eligible to return from the DL but refused to take a rehab start in the minors. Instead, he wanted the Mets to fly farm team pitchers into New York for him to face, as they had done with Mike Piazza. (Such a team-first attitude is what made Bonilla a favorite among Mets fans everywhere.)

Unfortunately, the Mets’ troubles were only beginning.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 42-44

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

May 21, 1999: Mets 7, Phillies 5

Orel Hershiser turned in his best outing yet, going 6 2/3 innings and allowing only two runs. John Olerud had three RBIs and finished a triple short of the cycle, and Mike Piazza homered for his fourth straight game.

The Mets took a 7-2 lead into the eighth, when reliever Turk Wendell gave up two singles to start the inning, followed by a three run homer by Ron Gant and a triple by Bobby Abreu. Armando Benitez came into a game for the first time since Marquis Grissom Incident #2, and stranded Abreu at third with two K’s and a groundout. John Franco struck out the side to end the threat of further drama.

May 22, 1999: Phillies 9, Mets 3

Bobby Jones was knocked out of the game in the third inning, and afterwards complained of a balky shoulder. He compared the feeling to “a dead-arm period” and hoped it was no
worse than tendinitis. Also felled in the third inning: Benny Agbayani, who already had some big hits in his brief call-up period. Benny slid into the concrete base of the outfield wall trying to catch a foul ball and had to be carted off the field. It turned out to be no worse than a bruise, and Agbayani was expected to miss only two games at most. Ex-Met Paul Byrd held his former team in check for 7 2/3 innings.

May 23, 1999: Mets 5, Phillies 4

In anticipation of his start at Shea, The New York Times featured a glowing profile of the Phillies’ ace, Curt Schilling:

The dean of the Philadelphia Phillies’ attractive young team, Schilling is the reincarnation of Robin Roberts, the team’s Hall of Fame pitching star of the first half of the 1950’s, a player who more often than not completed what he started.

In this game, Curt Schilling finished what he started. Presumably, not in the way he wanted.

The game was preceded by a two-hour rain delay. Once it finally started, the Mets looked like they wished it hadn’t. Schilling completely stymied them for eight innings, limiting the Mets to four hits, all singles. Rick Reed went seven decent innings, but his team was down 4-0 going into the bottom of the ninth. Despite throwing 103 pitches, Schilling remained in the game. Coming into the ninth, he had set down nine in a row

99_ventura_schilling.pngPiazza led off the ninth with a single. Robin Ventura would later say Schilling had lost nothing on his fastball all day. But that didn’t
prevent him from hitting a two-run homer to cut the Phillies’ lead in half. Still, there was no move to the bullpen. For one thing, the
Phillies’ closer, Jeff Brantley, was unavailable. Even if he had been, manager
Terry Francona told reporters afterwards, “Regardless of who was available, that was his game.”

After a groundout by Brian McRae, Matt Franco singled and Luis Lopez was hit by a pitch. Jermaine Allensworth, batting for the pitcher, knocked in Franco with a single, making it 4-3 and putting the tying run on second.

But Schilling remained on the mound, and looked like he might escape the mess when Roger Cedeno hit a ball right back to him. Schilling threw to second to force Allensworth and bring the Mets to their final out. After reaching on the fielder’s choice, Cedeno took
second without a throw. (Retrosheet says defensive indifference, although I don’t know if you can be indifferent to the man who represents the winning run.)

Schilling went right after the next batter, Edgardo Alfonzo. But he went after Alfonzo a bit too much, grazing him on the forearm on a 1-2 pitch to load the bases. That made two hit batsmen in the inning, for a pitcher who hadn’t hit anyone in his previous 81 1/3 innings of work.

“That’s the game,” Schilling told reporters later. ”The pitches I had made up to that point, I had a chance to get him out. And I didn’t want Olerud up in that spot.”

99_olerud_schilling.pngOlerud lined the first pitch he saw to left to send Lopez home with the tying run. Cedeno decided to try and score from second, and he just beat Gant’s throw home to plate the winning run and give the Mets an improbable 5-4 victory.

The win kept them in second place, and made the decision to play the game look like genius, according to Bobby Valentine.

It was a weird game. We sit around for an hour and some people started saying: ‘Should we even play this game? We should issue an executive edict and miss Schilling, and maybe he’ll be in the
American League the next time we play them.’ There was a lot of that going around. And if we didn’t win that game, there would have probably been a lot of second-guessing.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 38-41

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

May 17, 1999: Brewers 7, Mets 6

Bobby Jones had yet another poor outing and was charged with all seven Brewer runs. But Bobby Valentine saved his harshest words for home plate ump Bill Hohn, who (in his opinion) called an inconsistent strike zone: “This was a [strike] zone where balls off the plate were called strikes sometimes. [The Brewers] were getting ’em. What did we have, five called third strikes?”

The Mets bench barked at Hohn throughout the game, which might have cost them at its conclusion.They pulled within one run after scoring three in the eighth, then got the tying run on base in the ninth when Roger Cedeno walked. A steal and a groundout put Cedeno on third with two out, so Milwaukee opted to intentionally walk Mike Piazza and face Jermaine Allensworth, who took a questionable called third strike to end the game.

May 18, 1999: Brewers 4, Mets 2

With the Mets up 2-1 going into the eighth inning, thanks mostly to seven solid innings from starter Rick Reed, Valentine brought in Dennis Cook. The lefty gave up two singles, immediately putting the lead in jeopardy.

Valentine yanked Cook and called on Armando Benitez, who struck out the first two batters he faced, but then gave up a three-run homer to Marquis Grissom. Two years earlier, when Benitez was with the Orioles, he gave up a game-winning homer to then-Indian Grissom in game 2 of the ALCS. That shot propelled Cleveland to the World Series. This one just dealt the Mets their third straight loss.

Reed’s quality start looked suspicious to Brewers manager Phil Garner, who demanded the umps examine his glove in the fifth inning. Nothing funny was found, but the request rankled Reed:

If the guy’s thinking I’m cheating, then he’s getting the wrong stats because I had a 7-and-a-fucking-half ERA coming in. If he wants to come out early tomorrow, I’ll teach him how to throw it.

Valentine was no happier. In the bottom of the eighth, Allensworth was tagged out in a rundown between first and second. The manager thought the Brewers had committed obstruction, but the umps both refused to reverse the call or lodge Valentine’s protest with the league office. Still bristling from the glove-check earlier, Valentine went ballistic and was ejected. His team left much quieter, with three straight groundouts to finish out the ninth.

May 20, 1999: Mets 11, Brewers 10 (Game 1); Mets 10, Brewers 1 (Game 2)

99_ventura_gs_1.pngThis rain-necessitated twin-bill allowed Robin Ventura to achieve a curious baseball first. The third baseman became the first man in major league history to club a grand slam in both halves of a doubleheader. Other than this historic anomaly, neither game was pretty to watch.

In the first game, the Mets roughed up starter Jim Abbott for seven runs, including Ventura’s first grand slam of the day in the first inning. But Al Leiter barely fared better, struggling with his control and turning in an excruciating effort. He left after five innings trailing 6-5, but the Mets were able to get to Abbott and the Milwaukee bullpen to retake the lead and stretch it to 11-6.

Benny Agbayani, getting a chance to start in the Mets’ hobbled outfield, clubbed two
homers of the non-grand-slam-variety and drove in five runs. Allen Watson pitched two good innings of relief but also allowed a 3-run homer to Jeff Cirillo in the eighth, which left the Mets with a slim 11-9 margin going into the ninth.

John Franco came on to save the game and turned in a typically weird/nerve-wracking inning. Grissom doubled to lead off the inning, and after a strike out, ex-Met Alex Ochoa walked to put the tying runs on base. After a flyout, Sean Berry hit a pop fly that just eluded Edgardo Alfonzo’s glove.

99_ventura_gs_2.pngGrissom scored, and Ochoa would have also, if he’d been running hard. For some curious reason, he took his sweet time around the bases, and by the time he rounded third, Mike Piazza was waiting for him, ball in
glove. Not in the mood for any Pete Rose-esque heroics, Ochoa ran into Piazza’s mitt, and the game was finally over. Despite struggling mightily, Leiter got credit for the win, his first in almost a month.

The nightcap featured another offensive outburst by the Mets, with no counter-offensive by Milwaukee. Masato Yoshii held the Brewers to one run in seven innings of work. Ventura put the game away with his second grand slam of the day in the bottom of the fourth.