Yesterday, Pete Alonso had the 186th game in Mets history with a home run and a caught stealing. It was the first time that Alonso has done this in his career, which makes him the 91st Met to post such a performance.
No Met had homered and been caught stealing in a game since last July 4, when Brandon Nimmo did it in Cincinnati. Nimmo has had three of these games, and the Mets have won nine of the 10 games since the start of the 2019 season where they had a player go deep but also get nabbed.
The somewhat dubious team record for a single-season is four, set by Lee Mazzilli in 1978 and matched by Darryl Strawberry in 1985. Strawberry is the franchise leader at 16 games with a homer and caught stealing, with Mazzilli at 11, followed by Howard Johnson at eight, José Reyes at 7, and David Wright and Joel Youngblood at five apiece.
What Alonso would like to have done yesterday is have his seventh career game with a homer and a steal, which would snap a tie with Lenny Dykstra and tie Lindor and Cleon Jones for 11th on the Mets’ franchise list. Ahead of them, and more in Lindor’s sights in the years to come? Strawberry’s team record of 35 should be safe for a while, with Johnson (28), Reyes (27), and Wright (20) all far above the rest of the field. Then it’s Carlos Beltrán and Mookie Wilson (13), Kevin McReynolds (12), Tommie Agee (10), and Mike Cameron and Dave Kingman (9).
According to Stathead, the career leaders for homer/steal games are…
Barry Bonds, 102
Rickey Henderson, 87
Álex Rodriguez, 65
Bobby Bonds, 61
Joe Morgan, 60
Willie Mays, 58
César Cedeño, 48
Beltran, 44
Bobby Abreu, 43
Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Alfonso Soriano, Larry Walker, 42
Strawberry, 40
And to get back where we started, the leaders for homer/caught stealing combo games…
Mays, 29
Babe Ruth, 27
Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, 25
Bobby Bonds, 24
Henderson, 22
José Canseco, 21
Cedeño, Lou Gehrig, Mike Schmidt, 20
Morgan, Gary Sheffield, Strawberry, 19
One more note on Alonso. As he tied Keith Hernandez on the Mets’ career RBI list, he also tied Mex in homer/caught stealing games. It was also against the Pirates, but at Three Rivers Stadium, on April 21, 1987: Hernandez was caught stealing by the battery of Brian Fisher and Junior Ortiz, but took Bob Walk deep for an insurance run that helped lessen the impact of Barry Bonds’ three-run homer off Bob Ojeda in the eighth. Hernandez singled and scored in the ninth, and Jesse Orosco closed out the 9-6 contest, getting Bobby Bonilla to ground out to end it with Bonds, who would have represented the tying run had he gotten the chance to hit, left on deck.
We Can Pod It Out 169: Mean Mr. Mustard