Good Morning,
Today we’ll take a fun look at how Luis Guillorme’s 22-pitch walk yesterday compares to the greatest marathon plate appearances in Mets history. But we start by catching you up on a busy weekend of Mets news.
⏰ Catch me up on what happened over the weekend…
🚶♂️LONG WALK: After falling behind 0-2 in the count, Luis Guillorme drew a 22-pitch walk on Sunday. Had the plate appearance occurred in a regular season game, it would have broken a major league record for the most pitches seen in a plate appearance since pitch count data became official in 1988 (Brandon Belt had a 21-pitch at-bat in 2018).
PATIENCE: The plate appearance lasted 12 minutes in real time, with the Mets’ dugout growing more animated after each pitch, cheering their teammate on.
HEAT: Making his first appearance since June 2019, Cardinals right-hander Jordan Hicks threw ten pitches over 99 MPH to Guillorme, with three landing as balls, one a called strike, and six fouled off. In total, the Mets’ utility man swung at 17 pitches and failed to make contact only once, fouling off 16 offerings before taking Ball 4 on the 22nd pitch of the plate appearance.
HE SAID IT: “I'm just happy I ended up with the walk because if I would've gotten out that would've been not fun for me, all that work for nothing,” Guillorme said after the game.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time Guillorme did something incredible in Spring Training…
☀️ READY: After being shut down due to right elbow soreness, right-hander Carlos Carrasco threw at 75 feet on Sunday and told reporters that he expects to be ready to start the season in the Mets’ rotation.
CAUTION: While Carrasco sounds optimistic he won’t miss a start, manager Luis Rojas wants to see how he does this week before offering a timeline for his return: “The idea of throwing the side and then facing hitters by the end of the week, that’s a quick ramp-up after not being able to throw for (five) days.”
🍎 STARTERS: Two of the pitchers battling for back-of-the-rotation spots started this weekend:
JORDAN YAMAMOTO: The 24-year-old right-hander pitched 3.1 innings on Saturday, allowing 1 run on two hits, while striking out two. It was the first earned run he has allowed in 8.1 innings of spring work.
DAVID PETERSON: It was a rough outing for the Mets’ left-hander on Sunday, as he gave up three runs on five hits and two walks.
💡 LIGHTS OUT: Presumptive closer Edwin Díaz continues to look impressive, striking out two more batters on Saturday to bring his spring total to five in three innings of work.
🔥 HOT: First baseman Pete Alonso collected another hit on Sunday and is now 7-21 with two home runs this spring; Michael Conforto is also seeing the ball well, going 3-3 on Sunday.
ALONSO: “I’m really happy with how my spring is going so far,” Alonso told reporters on Friday. “I’ve made a lot of really good, quality swings and made some good plays on the defensive side of the ball.”
🦶 RETURN: Catcher Tomás Nido is ready to return to action after fouling a ball off his left foot last Thursday. He caught Taijuan Walker in a “B game” on Sunday (in which Jeff McNeil homered).
🗓 ON DECK: Jacob deGrom will make his next start on Tuesday against the Astros, yet again (and finally on SNY!) and could be the first Mets pitcher to hit this spring.
The greatest marathon plate appearances in Mets history
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
Baseball is a funny sport in that it can take 22 pitches to earn a walk, and then just one pitch to line into an out. That sums up America’s beautiful game, as well as Luis Guillorme’s consecutive at-bats in the 5th and 6th innings of the Mets’ Grapefruit League game on Sunday.
While it’s only Spring Training, if you’re a Mets fan who followed yesterday’s game, there’s no way your Sunday wasn’t highlighted by the 13-minute at-bat, whether you happened to be watching it live, listening to it on the radio, or learning about it in a text from a friend.
In celebration of Guillorme’s performance, I thought it would be fun to rank the greatest marathon plate-appearances in Mets history. To identify these epic battles, I used Stathead’s search tool and filtered on plate appearances since 1988 (when pitch tracking data became available) that were at least 10 pitches long. I then used my own judgment in choosing the plate appearances that were the most significant. Without further ado, here is the ranking:
1) Mookie Wilson’s 10-pitch epic vs Bob Stanley (Boston) in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series
I mean, come on! You could argue this is one of the greatest 10-pitch plate appearances in baseball history. Since it was a World Series game, it is an instance where we have pitch count data before 1988. And you just can’t have a list of marathon at-bats without including this one.
While the image of Bill Buckner letting a slow ground ball roll under his legs as Ray Knight rounded third to give the Amazins an improbable comeback is etched in everyone’s minds, Mookie’s entire at-bat was one for the ages.
There was the Stanley wild pitch to allow the tying run to score. And there were all of those foul balls, four with two strikes, before Wilson sent a slow trickler down the first base line that kept Boston fans believing in a curse for a few decades longer.
2) Justin Turner’s pinch-hit, 13-pitch walk vs Heath Bell (Miami) on April 26, 2012
In a game the Mets started their first entirely homegrown lineup since 1971, they found themselves down 2-1 against former Met Heath Bell and the Marlins in the bottom of the 9th. After loading the bases, Justin Turner came to the plate as a pinch-hitter with one out and light rain falling at Citi Field.
The plate appearance turned into a 13-pitch battle in which Turner kept fouling off fastballs until he earned a walk to push the tying run across the plate. Rookie Kirk Nieuwenhuis later delivered the game-winning hit, and the Mets won 3-2.
3) Ruben Tejada’s 16-pitch walk vs Antonio Bastardo (Philadelphia) on May 27, 2011
While this one might not carry the significance of some of the other plate appearances included on this list, it is the longest on record for a Met since 1988, so it deserves recognition.
Tejada worked a 16-pitch walk with two outs and nobody on base in the bottom of the 8th of a 3-3 contest between the Mets and the Phils. It turned into nothing, and Philadelphia ended up plating three runs off Francisco Rodriguez in the 9th on their way to winning the game 6-4. But it was the longest plate appearance for a Mets since Cliff Floyd’s 15-pitch at-bat in 2006.
We will see if Guillorme can break the 16-pitch record in a regular season game.
4) Dave Magadan’s 12-pitch, pinch-hit single vs Tim Burke (Montreal) on September 25, 1990
Desperately fighting to keep their division title hopes alive, Dave Magadan came off the bench in the bottom of the 7th inning to work a 12-pitch at-bat before lining a clutch, 2-RBI single into right field to give the Mets a 3-1 lead they would never relinquish.
With Darryl Strawberry also available off the bench, but nursing a sore lower back, manager Bud Harrelson decided to give Magadan the pinch-hitting opportunity and it paid off. Unfortunately, the Mets ended up losing the division by 4 games to the Pirates that year.
5) Carlos Delgado’s 10-pitch walk-off walk vs Michael Wuertz (Cubs) on May 14, 2007
Carlos Delgado had been struggling so much at the plate to begin the 2007 season that the Cubs elected to intentionally walk Carlos Beltran to load the bases in the bottom of the 9th of a 4-4 game in hopes Delgado would fail in the clutch.
Instead, he grinded out a 10-pitch plate appearance, fouling off four, 2-strike pitches, before patiently taking Ball 4 to bring in the winning run.
⚾️ Cleveland manager Terry Francona made it seem like former Met Andrés Giménez will be their Opening Day shortstop: “Part of the reason we felt comfortable enough to move Amed (Rosario) is because of what we see in Gimenez. This kid is a really bright spot for us.”
⚾️ The Orioles are finalizing an agreement with 3B Maikel Franco, per Jon Heyman.
⚾️ Nationals starter Stephen Strasburg was forced to leave his start early on Sunday due to a problem with his left calf, which he called “nothing major.”
🔗 Mets’ Marcus Stroman ‘open’ to analytic call to throw slider more, by Mike Puma, NY Post: “Marcus Stroman is listening to the analytics. And those numbers tell the Mets right-hander he should be utilizing his slider more often. It’s a pitch Stroman threw only two percent of the time in 2019, according to Fangraphs, as he relied primarily on his changeup and sinker as secondary pitches.”
🔗 Mets Statcast numbers worth watching this spring, by David Adler, MLB.com: “Sam McWilliams is averaging 95.6 mph and 2,497 rpm on his four-seamer in tracked spring outings, and he's dialed it up to over 97. That fastball should play well if he elevates it, and in tandem with that high-80s vertical-breaking slider.”
🔗 Inside MLB’s push to legislate more action on the bases, by Andy Martino, SNY: “The limiting of shifts, the automated strike zone and the pitch clock generated the most attention, but the new rules on pickoff attempts and stepping off the rubber are also major innovations…Data obtained by SNY further illustrates this point…In the Atlantic League, it worked. In the first half of the season, there were 1.02 stolen base attempts per game and 75.5% success rate. Under the new rules in the second half, there were 1.73 stolen base attempts per game and 80.9% success rate.”
And we leave you with every pitch of Luis Guillorme’s 22-pitch walk…
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I'm really enjoying your newsletter. I heard you on the Shea Anything podcast. Thanks for what you do.
The best part of the 22 pitch AB was on pitch 18 "Lets Go Mets" broke out in the crowd LOL