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Early this morning, ten years ago, the Mets got into an old-fashioned battle of attrition with the Diamondbacks. To 13 innings they went, before falling behind by a run in the 13th.
No magic runner in those heady days, the Mets were going to have to get that run back honestly. Things didn't look too bright as Josh Collmenter struck out Marlon Byrd to open the inning, but then Josh Satin approached the plate, and Collmenter, who had perhaps never seen such rich, full eyebrows in his life, surrendered a linedrive double to deep right-center. It may have been one out late, but the Mets got a magic runner on second after all. Or, at least, a runner with magic eyebrows.
Up came Mets catcher John Buck. If you're Josh Collmenter, you may be thinking "Here's a guy I can strike out!" but Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson saw it differently. Gibby knew that Mets pitcher David Aardsma was on deck, and the Mets had run out of available batters to pinch-hit. And while Aardsma may have been the first name in The Baseball Encyclopedia, he was about the 10,000 in the list of names Terry Collins or anyone swayed to the Mets cause wanted to see up in that situation. So Gibson ignored trivial superstitions about putting the winning run on base, and ordered Buck walked. He was playing for the win on the road, tie be damned.
Collins considered his options, and figured a starting pitcher at least has more experience standing in the box than the career reliever Aardsma, and called on good ol' #33, Matt Harvey. Who knows what Harvey was up to in the clubhouse at the time, but he was sent to the plate, ordered to bunt, and God bless his heart and soul, laid down a successful sacrifice.
Two out, tying run on third, winning run on second, and the game over five hours old, and this is where things got funky. Up to the plate stepped Omar Quintanilla. You may think Omar had been switched into the game by some seventh-inning maneuvering that looked good at the time but was now coming back to haunt the Mets, but it wasn't like that at all. The injury bug had bitten the Mets at shortstop, and this was how far down the depth chart they had gotten. Omar was the starting shortstop and had played the whole game.
But as unlikely a hero as Quintanilla may have seemed at the time. Something was eating at Kirk Gibson. Omar may have been the Mets third or fourth shortstop, and a light-hitting AAAA-type of player, but he had a few things going for him. First, he was a lefty, which gave him some edge on the righthanded Collmenter. Second, he was hot, having collected an unlikely three hits in five at-bats in the game that had now spanned the previous day's night into the new day's morning. Third, Omar was a pro. He wasn't the type to have an existential crisis up there. The situation was the highest of stakes, but he wasn't the type to shake. If he screwed up and got sent down to AAA for a few more years, well, he had been through that a few times already.
So Gibson did the unexpected. He walked Quintanilla. After walking Buck two batters earlier, his finger was apparently getting used to hitting the Intentional Walk button because now he did it in a situation that would force in the winning run on a walk or a hit-batsman or the like.
Up stepped ... Andrews Brown. Double-switched into the game in the 10th inning, Brown was exactly the type of guy who had cause to worry that failing in this situation could cost him his baseball future. But Brown saw Omar Quintanilla walked so Collmenter could face him. And whatever shivers and shakes the precarious situation might send down his spine, there was something in that insult that stiffened his back just fine as he dug in, even as Collmenter got ahead 0-2.
You know what to do 0-2 as a pitcher in a game situation. You don't want to put anything in the strike zone. Nothing hittable at all. But the breaking pitch away was a dangerous option with the tying run at third, so Collmenter went with the fastball upstairs. It was no strike, up by the armpits, but any illusion that it was unhittable were quickly dispelled as Brown Sugar turned on it with extreme prejudice, driving it toward the gap in left center, splitting the outfielders enough so that, as Satin tore across home plate with the tying run, he could turn and see the lumbering Buck following him across with the game-winner.
July 2013. A tumultuous time. The Arab spring was turning violent. A new pope preached to millions at World Youth Day in Rio. But it all opened so beautifully, early in the morning of July 2, as Andrew Brown turned night into day.
[YOUTUBE]62hb8N_hV7E[/YOUTUBE]
Time of Game: 5:13
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