Sweepin' Ain't Easy ... Said No One at Citi Field This Weekend

After looking deflated and defeated in losing three games to their division rivals in Washington, the Mets came home for a four-game series this weekend against the Chicago Cubs, who have been the best team in baseball all season.  The series would mark the 58th time since 1962 that New York and Chicago had squared off for four consecutive games.  And in their first 57 four-game series, the Mets had taken all four games just one time.

But thanks to some timely hitting, effective pitching and a monster 6-for-6 game by Wilmer Flores, that is no longer a true statement.

New York completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs today, defeating the North Siders, 14-3.  They scored seven runs in the second inning to give Cubs starting pitcher Jon Lester his shortest outing in over 300 career starts just one day after he won the National League Pitcher of the Month award for the just-completed month of June.

The Mets won the four games by blowing out the Cubs twice (they also defeated the Cubs, 10-2, on Friday) and taking two nailbiters on Thursday and Saturday, both by a 4-3 score.  Basically, they continued their dominance over the Cubs that began last year during the four-game NLCS sweep.

But as great as the Mets have performed against the Cubs over the last eight months, they had only won every game of a four-game series from Chicago just once in 57 tries.  In 1985, during the first series between the two teams after their battle for division supremacy the previous year, the Mets brought out the brooms against the Cubs in a four-game set at Shea Stadium, allowing a total of just four runs in the series.

Screen shots or it didn't happen.  (Courtesy of Ultimate Mets Database)

The Mets went on to win all nine games they played versus Chicago at Shea Stadium in 1985, taking a three-game series in August and a two-game set in September.  But the four-game sweep marked the first and only time New York had won every game of a four-game series against the Cubs in the team's first 54 seasons.  Until now.

And if you want to say that it's very difficult for any team to win four consecutive games in the same series against the same team, perhaps you should know what the usually lowly Cubs have done against the Mets in four-game sets since their first one in 1962.

That first four-game series in June 1962 at the Polo Grounds resulted in four Cubs victories.  It should be noted that the Cubs finished that campaign with a 59-103 record, which was - and still is - the worst regular season record in Chicago's long history.  (The 1966 Cubs also went 59-103.)

A year later, the Cubs swept another four-game series from the Mets, this time at Wrigley Field.  Then in 1965, the Cubs added a third venue to the four-game sweep-a-thon, taking four straight from New York at Shea Stadium.

It then took nearly two decades for Chicago to win all four games of a four-game series against the Mets, but they finally repeated the feat in 1984, scoring 32 runs in the four August games at Wrigley Field.  The Cubs had previously pulled off four-game sweeps against three awful Mets teams in 1962, 1963 and 1965.  However, the 1984 Mets squad won 90 games.  It wasn't just pushover Mets clubs that were experiencing the wrath of the Cubs in four-game sets.

Let's now fast forward seven years later to 1991.  On August 9, the Mets went into Wrigley Field with a 57-50 record.  They were still very much alive in the race for the N.L. East title, entering the game just 5½ games behind the first place Pittsburgh Pirates.  But the Cubs, who were struggling and under .500 entering the series, took out their frustrations on the Mets, winning all four games.  The sweep was the beginning of a season-changing 11-game losing streak for the Mets.

It was déjà vu all over again for the Mets in 1992, as once again in August, the Mets were still in the race for the division crown - they were 7½ games out of first - but were swept four straight in Chicago.  That sweep was the beginning of a 21-35 stretch for the Mets to close out the season.

With the Cubs moving to the N.L. Central in 1994, the Mets and Cubs only played five four-game series from 1994 to 2014, with none of them resulting in sweeps for either team.  But in 2015, the Cubs pulled off a four-game sweep of the Mets at Wrigley Field in May.  Of course, we all know how that season turned out for the Mets.

So that means the Mets suffered four-game sweeps to the Cubs seven times from 1962 to 2015, returning the favor just once in 1985.  Once.  In fifty-four seasons.

But now that number has gone up to two, as the Mets have just completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs at Citi Field - the only venue in which the Cubs have yet to turn the trick against the Mets.

Sweeping a series of any length - particularly a four-game series - may not be easy, but don't tell that to the Mets.  They treated the series the way Cubs used to treat four-game series against the Mets.  And in doing so, fans got to witness something they hadn't seen the Mets do as a team since 1985.

The Cubs are the cleanest team in baseball after they just got swept by the Mets.

It's Been Tuffy for the Mets to Win at Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field photo courtesy of the Chicago Cubs.  Lack of wins there courtesy of the New York Mets.

The Mets lost another game at Wrigley Field today.  That may not seem newsworthy considering how awful the Mets' offense has been recently, even against a team that has posted 30 losing seasons in the last 42 years.  But despite Chicago's penchant for piling up losses, it's been the Mets who haven't been able to emerge victorious whenever the two teams have hooked up on the North Side of the Windy City.

Things weren't always that way for the Mets in Chicago.  They used to win there quite regularly.  But things got tougher on the road once Tuffy Rhodes got things going in one memorable game against Dwight Gooden and the Mets at Wrigley Field.

The Mets opened the 1994 season in Chicago against the Cubs, handing the ball to Dwight Gooden for his eighth Opening Day assignment.  In his first ten seasons with the Mets (1984-93), Doc had allowed two homers to the same batter in a single game just once.  That came in 1986 when Montreal's Tim Wallach took Gooden deep twice in a 7-4 Expos victory on June 18.  Wallach never got a chance to hit a third homer off Doctor K that day, as Gooden was removed from the game immediately after Wallach's second blast.

Wallach hit 260 home runs in his 17-year major league career, making him a legitimate power threat and not an unusual candidate to take a pitcher of Gooden's caliber out of the park twice in one game.  But on Opening Day in 1994, Doc was victimized three times by a player who had five career home runs coming into the game and hit just five additional home runs after his game to remember.

Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes hit three of his 13 lifetime home runs against Gooden in the 1994 season opener.  However, unlike the aforementioned Wallach game in 1986, Gooden and the Mets actually overcame the trio of Rhodesian taters, taking a 12-8 decision over the Cubs.  The Mets went on to sweep the Cubs in the season-opening series, giving them 11 series sweeps at Wrigley Field in a 21-year period (1974-94).  So how many times have the Mets swept a series from the Cubs at Wrigley Field in the 21 years since the Tuffy Rhodes series?

Would you believe the answer is zero?

Incredibly, the Mets have played 25 series at Wrigley Field since 1994 and have won just six of them, taking two of three games in all six series.  Over the same time period, the Cubs have won 15 of those series (the two teams have split four series).  And it's even worse since 2003, as the Mets have lost 28 of their last 39 games in Chicago and have been swept five times.

It's one thing to be dominated at Turner Field by the Braves - a team that has been a playoff contender for most of the last quarter century.  But the Cubs have finished in last place or next-to-last in 12 of the last 21 seasons.  Not only that, but over the past 70 years, the Cubs have the worst home record of any non-expansion team in baseball.  And the Mets still can't beat them in Chicago.

Prior to the series that made Tuffy Rhodes a household name for about 15 minutes, the Mets didn't have much of a problem defeating the Cubs at Wrigley Field.  But everything has fallen apart for New York on the north side of Chicago since that opening series in 1994.

The Cubs have the Curse of the Billy Goat.  The Mets appear to have the Curse of Tuffy Rhodes.  The once-friendly confines of Wrigley Field have been most unfriendly to the Mets in the 21 years since Rhodes introduced himself to Doc Gooden.

Ever since Doc Gooden allowed three home runs to Tuffy Rhodes, the Mets have wanted to run home from Chicago.

August 16, 1987: Mets Score Club-Record 23 Runs

The late Harry Caray probably wishes he hadn't been taken out to the ballgame on August 16, 1987.

Note:  I originally published this piece five years ago on Mets Merized Online, but this Mets game from 1987 has always fascinated me, and I have since uncovered some more oddities about this game.  Therefore, I felt compelled to make some quick edits and share this piece once again with you.  Enjoy!


The New York Mets are currently playing a three-game set against the Chicago Cubs at Citi Field.  Twenty-seven years ago today, the Mets were also playing the Cubs, although the venue on that lazy Sunday afternoon was Wrigley Field in Chicago.  One year after winning the 1986 World Series, the Mets were battling the St. Louis Cardinals for the division title and needed to win the finale of their four-game series against the Cubs after dropping the first three games.  They were in the throes of a poor stretch that saw them lose six out of eight games after they had cut the Cardinals’ lead in the division from 10½ to 3½ games.  In that eight-game stretch, they had scored only 20 runs.  They needed to bust out of their slump quickly if they were going to continue to stay in the race with St. Louis.  Fortunately, the wind was blowing out at Wrigley Field on August 16 and the Mets’ bats were ready to take advantage.

The starting pitchers were Ron Darling for the Mets and a kid for the Cubs who had just been recalled from the minors after being sent down two weeks earlier due to a poor 6-10 start for the big club.  You may have heard of him.  He was a scrawny 21-year-old kid named Greg Maddux.

The Mets jumped out of the box quickly, scoring three runs in the first inning to take an early lead.  The lead had extended to 7-0 by the time the Cubs came up to bat in the bottom of the fourth inning.  However, Ron Darling struggled in the fourth, giving up a grand slam to catcher Jody Davis.  That was followed up by a home run from the next batter, a rookie who was pinch-hitting for Cubs reliever (and former Met) Ed Lynch.  That rookie was Rafael Palmeiro, who hit the tenth of his 569 career home runs to cut the Mets lead to 7-5.

Fortunately for Darling, manager Davey Johnson did not remove him from the game despite the poor inning.  He was allowed to put out the fire he started and pitch the minimum five innings required to qualify for the victory.  Because of that, Darling was able to stick around to reap the benefits of the additional fireworks displayed by his teammates as they continued to ride the jet stream out of Wrigley Field.

The Mets immediately responded to the Cubs’ five-run fourth by scoring three runs in the fifth inning and seven additional runs in the sixth.  They now had a commanding 17-5 lead, but the Cubbie carnage continued.  Not satisfied with a lead of a dozen runs, they scored three additional runs in both the seventh and eighth innings.  Jesse Orosco relieved Darling in the seventh and gave up four runs in his inning of work, but by then, the Mets had already put the game away.  A run by Chicago in the ninth inning off Jeff Innis produced the final tally in the Mets’ 23-10 shellacking of the Cubs.

The offense was powered by Lenny Dykstra and Darryl Strawberry.  Eights were wild for the two Met outfielders, as they combined for eight hits, eight runs scored and eight runs batted in.  Strawberry in particular smoked the Cubs’ pitchers, as all four of his hits went for extra bases (two doubles, a triple and a home run).

Dykstra and Strawberry - two smiling California kids who put lots of frowns on Cubs fans' faces on August 16, 1987.

In doing so, Strawberry became just the third Met to produce four extra-base hits in one game, joining Joe Christopher, who accomplished the feat in 1964, and Tim Teufel, who turned the trick just six weeks prior to Strawberry.  Strawberry added a stolen base in the second inning, making him the first and only Met to collect four extra-base hits and a stolen base in the same game.

Strawberry also became just the third Met to score five runs in a game, after Lenny Randle in 1978 and Lee Mazzilli in 1979.  In addition, the Straw Man drove in five runs, making him the first Mets player to have a five-run, five-RBI game in franchise history.  The only other Met to accomplish that rare feat since August 16, 1987 is Edgardo Alfonzo, who produced six runs and five RBI against the Houston Astros on August 30, 1999.

Dykstra also made Mets history in the game, becoming the first Met to collect seven at-bats in a nine-inning game.  The only Met to match Dykstra since then is Luis Hernandez, who went 3-for-7 in an 18-5 thrashing of the Cubs in 2010, which, just like Dykstra's record-setting effort 23 years earlier, took place on a lazy Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field.

Strawberry and Dykstra victimized several Cubs pitchers that day, including starting pitcher Greg Maddux.  Maddux collected almost 10% of his 355 career wins against the Mets.  His 35 victories (against 19 losses) are the most by any pitcher against New York.  However, one of his worst pitching performances against the Mets (or any other club) took place on that Sunday afternoon in the North Side of Chicago.

Throughout his major league career, which resulted in a much-deserved call to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, Maddux was always known as a control pitcher, as he walked fewer than 1,000 batters in over 5,000 innings.  But on August 16, 1987 against the Mets, Maddux pitched 3⅔ innings and was charged with seven earned runs allowed.  He gave up six hits and a very un-Maddux-like five bases on balls.  Let's dissect Maddux's effort to see just how much of an anomaly this game was for him.

Greg Maddux would have preferred starting at Shea Stadium on August 16, 1987.

Greg Maddux made 740 starts in his big league career.  He issued five bases on balls or more in just 20 of those starts.  But in 14 of those 20 starts, he lasted at least six innings, giving him more time to issue those free passes.  Maddux wouldn't have another game in which he lasted fewer than four innings and allowed five or more walks until 2004, a year in which he produced his first ERA above 4.00 since - you guessed it - 1987.

Maddux also allowed seven earned runs in the game, which was the first time he had ever allowed that many runs in one of his starts.  Maddux would go on to allow seven or more earned runs in a start a total of 27 times in his career, including three more times against the Mets, but he never walked more than three batters in any of his other seven-run efforts.  The game on August 16, 1987 was the only time in his 23-year career that Maddux allowed seven or more runs and walked more than three batters.  And that was from a future Hall of Famer who beat the Mets more than any other pitcher in the 53-year history of the club.

Going into their series finale against the Cubs on August 16, 1987, the Mets were in a hitting slump and got out of it in a major way at Wrigley Field.  They scored more runs in that one game than they did in their previous eight contests.  By doing so, the Mets established a new franchise record with their 23-run outburst in Chicago and were able to use that game as a stepping stone that carried them all the way until the last week of the season, when they were eliminated from playoff contention by the Cardinals.  And it all happened 27 years ago today.
 

On The Road With Joey & Iggy: The Real Chicago Bears

Hi, everyone!  We're Joey and Iggy Beartran and we'll be your tour guides today.  Where are we taking you?  How about the Windy City, the Second City, the city that Jake and Elwood tore apart (especially the cop cars).  We're talking about Chicago!  So sit back, have yourself a nice Polish sausage or some deep dish pizza and enjoy the ride.  Batter up!

We flew out to Chicago on Thursday morning, one day after the Mets completed their second 0-6 homestand since the All-Star Break.  Fortunately, the Mets were off on Thursday so they couldn't lose that night.  To celebrate the Mets' inability to lose that night, we had a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy.  Then we made our way to the Loop and the Chicago River, where we found the famed Chicago Theatre.  Iggy was so excited, she shook her Mets pom pom in jubilation.  (I always wondered where she keeps that thing.  It's not like she has any pockets for it.)

That night, we wanted to experience what a pennant race feels like since the Mets haven't been involved in one since 2008.  So we hopped on the Red Line and got off at Sox-35th St.  It was time to visit U.S. Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox.

The White Sox, who are managed by the great singles hitter, Robin Ventura (the Grand Slam Single was a single and it was great), were hosting the team directly behind them in the American League Central, the Detroit Tigers.  At the time, the Tigers were one game behind the White Sox and were looking to pull into a first-place tie with the Pale Hose.

Although it was a cloudy night, we made it inside the ballpark on time and were looking forward to the first pitch.   But 7:10 PM came and went and there was no "play ball".  Why?  Because this happened...

No, we're not talking about blurry pictures.  We're talking about rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  Enough to delay the start of the game by one hour.  Then at around 8:15 PM, after we had sampled some of the tasty burritos and nachos the Cell had to offer, my colleague went out to snap more pictures of the field.  When he came back, he showed us this photo...

Clearly they didn't get the memo that we were only going to be in Chicago until September 15.

That's right, loyal readers.  Despite the fact that the game had playoff implications and was to feature an outstanding pitching matchup of Justin Verlander (the reigning AL MVP and Cy Young Award winner) against up-and-coming Chris Sale (a 16-game winner for the White Sox), the weather gods had something else to say.  The game was postponed, to be made up two days after we'd be returning to New York.

Sigh.

But the trip to the South Side of Chicago was not a complete washout, as we were able to get these photos inside the ballpark (see below).  The first one is the White Sox homage to "The Franchise", Tom Seaver, celebrating his 300th win with fellow future Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk in 1985.  The photo in the middle is another shot of Tom Terrific in his hideous mid-'80s White Sox duds, as he set the major league record for most Opening Day starts when he took the mound for the 16th time in the season's first game in 1986.  The bottom photo is a shot of John Travolta with various members of the late '80s Southsiders, including Fisk, Ozzie Guillen, Steve Lyons and future Mets centerfielder Lance Johnson.

Well, if we couldn't watch baseball in the South Side of Chicago, perhaps we'd be luckier on the North Side.  And lucky we were!

On Saturday, we made our way to the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field, by far the oldest ballpark in the National League.  It's about the same age as Jamie Moyer, who might just be the only person alive who can remember the last time the Cubs won the World Series (it was in 1908, for those who don't know).

The Cubs were entertaining the Pittsburgh Pirates on a beautiful late summer day, but it was us who were entertained.  Just check out the photos below!

No, the six-foot-tall bear in the photos is not related to us.  His name is Billy Cub and he and his siblings were standing near the corner of Addison and Clark Streets as well as the corner of Waveland and Sheffield Avenues.  The humans in the photos are our Studious Metsimus colleagues.  But you already knew that.

The game itself was all Pirates for the first seven innings.  Pittsburgh, who has slumped recently but is still fighting for the second wild card spot in the National League, scored in each of the first three innings and held a 7-3 lead going to the bottom of the eighth.  But the Cubs pushed across a run in the eighth to cut the Bucs' lead to three, then scored twice in their final at-bat before a bases loaded strikeout ended the rally and the game.  Even the Wrigley Field scoreboard operator was pretty bummed out about the failed comeback attempt by the home team.

Well, that does it for the recap on our trip to Chicago.  We visited U.S. Cellular Field on Thursday for the White Sox game that never started and Wrigley Field on Saturday for the Cubs game that almost never ended.  So what did we do on Friday?  Hmmm...

Maybe we took a side trip.  Maybe we went north to Milwaukee.  Maybe we visited Miller Park to see the Mets play the Brewers.  Maybe we did and maybe ... WE DID!

(Click on "WE DID!" for the recap of our Milwaukee trip.  But whether you click on the link or not, please try to keep quiet.  We're very tired after our trip to the great Midwest...)