On this date in 1965, the Mets opened their fourth season with an 8-1 loss to the Dodgers at Shea Stadium. The 112-loss season didn’t even have a moment to gather oxygen before Maury Wills led off with a single, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball by Chris Cannizzaro, and scored on a Willie Davis double. Later that inning, being the 1965 Mets, it became 2-0 Dodgers when Davis scored on a foul pop to Cannizzaro. How the heck did that happen? Did any of our subscribers see the Mets’ 1965 opener?
If you did see that game, you might also remember that it became 5-0 in the fourth inning when Don Drysdale hit a two-run homer off Al Jackson. That was one of four homers that Drysdale hit in his career against the Mets, tied with Bob Gibson for the all-time lead among pitchers. The Mets have given up 95 homers all-time to pitchers, a number that figures to stay in double digits for many years to come, barring a wave of Shohei Ohtani copycats in the majors.
Drysdale hit a solo shot off Tracy Stallard in 1964 at Shea, the two-run dinger off Jackson in the 1965 opener, a tiebreaking solo blast off Warren Spahn in the eighth inning on June 11, 1965, and then one more on July 24, 1966, at Dodger Satdium, off Jack Fisher.
Stallard also gave up homers during his Mets tenure to Juan Marichal (1963) and Wade Blasingame (1964), which ties him with Ron Darling, Jacob deGrom, and Dillon Gee among Mets pitchers for giving up dingers to their opposite number. The king of this dubious category? Not surprisingly, it’s Tom Seaver, given the amount of opportunities he had.
Seaver gave up homers in 1969 to Dan McGinn and Fergie Jenkins (two of six homers that pitchers hit against the Mets that year (tied with 1962 and 2006 — Dontrelle Willis took Jose Lima, Oliver Pérez, and Roberto Hernandez deep that year — for the team record), Juan Pizarro in 1971, Burt Hooton (a grand slam) in 1972, and Larry Christenson in 1976. Tom Terrific got one of those dingers back in 1979, when he took Craig Swan out of the park in Cincinnati.
As a Met, Seaver hit six home runs, a team record since broken by Dwight Gooden, who tallied seven. Noah Syndergaard also hit six taters with the Mets.
What none of those guys did is hit a grand slam, something no Mets pitcher has done since Jack Hamilton on May 20, 1967… off Al Jackson. Hamilton gave back all four runs within two innings, left the game tied at 4-4, and watched the Mets build back up to a 9-4 lead before losing to the Cardinals, 11-9.
Mets pitchers have hit two grand slams, ever, with the other one hit in 1963 by Carl Willey at the Polo Grounds against the Houston Colt .45s. That total of two is equaled by the number of grand slams that the Mets allowed to pitchers in the final season at Shea Stadium: Félix Hernández (off Johan Santana) and Jason Marquis (off Jon Niese) both did it.
The Mets are 0-7 all-time when allowing a grand slam to an opposing pitcher. No team has given up more of them since 1962.
We Can Pod It Out 88: For No One