Last night in Queens was special, as Mark Vientos and Francisco Álvarez hit game-tying home runs, the latter with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, and Pete Alonso walked it off with a three-run shot in the 10th.
Obviously, that kind of thing doesn’t happen often. But there are a few games in Mets history that it recalls, and those are fun, too. For instance, May 21, 2000, when Randy Johnson started for the Diamondbacks and gave up tying dingers to Mike Piazza in the third and Edgardo Alfonzo in the seventh, followed by Robin Ventura taking Mike Morgan deep in the eighth to tie the game yet again, and the Mets winning, 7-6, on a walkoff single by Derek Bell off Byung-Hyun Kim, with Joe McEwing (who hit two non-tying homers off the Big Unit that day) scoring the winning run.
The Mets’ other game hitting three tying home runs to thrill fans in Flushing was in 1993, with Bobby Bonilla hitting two of those homers, Tim Bogar the other, and the Mets still losing to the Reds.
But how about two tying homers and a walkoff? The first time the Mets ever did that was 40 years ago this month: May 6, 1983, in a game that started as a Tom Seaver-Mario Soto duel. Dave Kingman got the Mets to extra innings with a two-run shot off Soto in the ninth, Hubie Brooks blasted a solo homer off Tom Hume in the 10th, and George Foster won it with a three-run dinger in the 13th off Frank Pastore.
Three years later, on July 3, 1986, Darryl Strawberry hit a two-run shot in the fifth inning off Jim Deshaies for a 3-3 tie with the Astros, then hit a two-run shot off Frank DiPino in the 10th to tie it again after Phil Garner had taken Jesse Orosco deep in the top of the inning. After DiPino settled down for a pair of outs, Ray Knight won that one with a solo shot.
It took another 20 years for another such game at Shea, until May 23, 2006. And that game itself took 16 innings against the Phillies. The first tying homer was Cliff Floyd off Gavin Floyd for a 2-2 game in the fourth inning, then José Reyes in the eighth off Ryan Franklin to make it 8-8. Being one of those games, of course nobody then scored until the 16th, when Carlos Beltrán punished Ryan Madson on a 2-2 pitch for a 9-8 Mets win.
That’s some big names in Mets history for those games… and then there’s the last time before last night that they’d had two tying homers plus a walkoff: September 13, 2018, against the Marlins — a Thursday afternoon in the first game of a doubleheader. But unless the Mets can acquire Shohei Ohtani, it’s special in its own way that won’t soon be repeated.
Steven Matz started for the Mets and gave up back-to-back homers to Peter O’Brien and Isaac Galloway (these were real major leaguers five years ago) in the second inning. But in the bottom of the inning, after a Kevin Plawecki walk, Matz hit a homer off Sandy Alcantara (hey, he’s actually good).
Alcantara being actually good, the Mets didn’t score again against him, and went to the ninth inning down 3-2. With two outs, Michael Conforto tied the game with a dinger off Kyle Barraclough. Three pitches later, Todd Frazier sent everyone… well, not home happy, because doubleheader (the Mets won the second game, 5-2, with Tomás Nido homering off the same Jeff Brigham who gave up Jose Siri’s homer last night), but to the concession stands happy?
So, that’s five times in Mets history that they’ve hit two game-tying homers and gone on to walk it off. If you’ve been waiting for something special to spark the season, there you go.
We Can Pod It Out 114: Flying