Walk-off Mania

[Frayed Knot]

About the only good thing from last night's game is that the loss didn't come via a walk-off of some sort as a full [u:2gl6ed4v]1/3 of the Met road losses this year[/u:2gl6ed4v] (10 of 30) have.
On the other side of the coin, nearly 1/3 (8 of 25) of NYM home wins have been achieved on the last AB of the game*

I have no idea what the "record" for such stuff would be or even what the norm across baseball is for walk-off wins/losses, but doesn't one game in three (for games where a walk-off is possible) seem like a lot?


And while it's impossible for home losses to occur via a walk-off, nine of our thirty-two home losses have come courtesy of runs scored in the visiting team's final AB. I count just three road wins coming via that route.


* The eight 2013 NYM walk-off wins, four of which broke ties, four others were come-from-behind

4/7 -- Mets 4-Marlins 3
Byrd's 2-RBI single off Cishek scores Tejada & Nieuwenuis

4/24 -- Mets - 7 - Dodgers 3 (10)
Valdespin�s 10th inning GS off Josh Wall

5/7 -- Mets 1 - ChiSox 0 (10)
Baxter�s 1-out single off Nate Jones scores Davis

5/9 -- Mets 3 - Pirates 2
Baxter�s 1-out single off Jason Grilli scores Byrd

5/28 -- Mets 2 - Yanx 1
Murphy�s double off Rivera is followed by Wright�s game-tying single then Duda�s winner (after which the Mets probably celebrated too much)

6/14 -- Mets 4 - Cubs 3
Nieuwenhuis�s 3R bomb caps a 4-run inning off Carlos Marmol

7/1 -- Mets 5 - DBacks 4 (13)
After giving up a run in the top of the 13th, Brown�s 2-out/2-run single brings in Buck & Quintanilla

8/1 -- Mets 4 - Royals 2 (11)
Eric Young�s 2-out/2R-HR off Luis Mendoza

[Zvon]

Interesting stuff. Alls I can say is they keep themselves in the game. How many big blow outs have we had, win and lose?

[Frayed Knot]

Using BB-Ref's definition of a blow-out being more than five runs, the Mets this year are 14-16

[Zvon]

Frayed Knot wrote: Using BB-Ref's definition of a blow-out being more than five runs, the Mets this year are 14-16

That don't suck. I thought that would be worse.

[Frayed Knot]

That didn't really surprise me; we're both two games under .500 in blow-outs as well as two games under in 1-run games.

I only started this topic because it just seemed to me that we've been involved in an inordinate number of walk-off games this year (particularly losses) so I decided to look it up.
Problem is, once I looked it up I still didn't really have an idea of whether that pct really qualifies as a lot or not.

[Frayed Knot]

Walk-off notes:

- The Cardinals, despite being in or near 1st place all season, got just their 2nd walk-off win of the season last night in the 14th inning against Pittsburgh
- The DBacks, on the other hand, have had each of their [u:24ne85ht]last three wins[/u:24ne85ht]* come via walk-off wins

... so youneverknow





* we all remember the Goldschmidt HR from a few days ago. On Monday night (after two straight losses - heh, heh) the Snakes won courtesy of a Adam Easton HR, and last night Goldschmidt HR'd in the 9th off Baltimore closer Johnson to tie it and then came up again in the 11th and hit the first pitch out of the park to win it. That boy's having hisself a nice week.

[Edgy MD]

It's got to be murder for pitchers for every pitch to so frequently have the game riding on it, mostly or entirely.

[G-Fafif]

An extra-inning win at home can't help but be a walkoff (or walk-off) win, which has always struck me as a bit of a double-dip. That it's an extra-inning win seems praiseworthy enough without the embellishment. The bottom-nine come-from-behinder (calling Fman!) seems like it should rate its own merit badge. A silver or bronze might be in order as well for what I like to think of as walkup (or walk-up) wins, the kind grabbed late and then held onto immediately: go-ahead run score in the bottom of the eighth at home, top of the ninth on the road and the final three outs are directly secured in the opponent's last at-bat.

And then there are those fourth-inning wins...

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, part of the problem is the ESPN-ization of the term "walk-off" which began originally with the Gibson/Eckersly HR but has since been expanded to include every game-ending play including abominations such as "walk-off Sac Flies" and "walk-off ground-outs". Fortunately former Pirate pitcher Bob Walk had most of his career prior to the invention of that term otherwise a free pass by him with the bases loaded in the right situation might have been described by some over-eager sportscaster as the batter getting 'a walk-off walk off Walk'

I always liked the Japanese phrase of the 'Sayonara HR' for a game winner but there's no equivalent term here and so 'walk-off' has wormed its way into the lexicon.

[Theoldmole]

Why does there need to be an equivalent term. Everyone knows what Sayonara means. I say we should adopt it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The thing that distinguished the Sayonara home run in Japan wasn't just that it had a name but that it was the kind of stat they'd officially track and flash on scorebaords and publish on the backs of cards and stuff.

[Frayed Knot]

TheOldMole wrote: Why does there need to be an equivalent term. Everyone knows what Sayonara means. I say we should adopt it.

That would work fine for HRs, but would get over-used if applied to game-winning Sac Flies, singles, etc. It's those game-winning NON-HR situations that need a new term.

[Edgy MD]

Walk-off didn't reallyworm it's way in. It was sort of born overnight. It was around, but there was one big walk-off weekend back around 2004 when it was suddenly everywhere.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Walk-off didn't reallyworm it's way in. It was sort of born overnight. It was around, but there was one big walk-off weekend back around 2004 when it was suddenly everywhere.

I think what probably happened is that it became a catch phrase around the halls of ESPN and when that happens the desk jockeys suddenly can't use it enough.
They did the same thing with "one-timer" when narrating over the top of hockey highlights. They mis-used that particular phrase more often than not, but that didn't stop them and they sure liked saying it.


Meanwhile, another walk-off/extra-inning win for Arizona this afternoon. That's three in a row over Baltimore and all four of their last four wins.