Walk-Off Blast: The Top 10 New York Mets Game-Winning Home Runs

After a full season at Citi Field without a walk-off home run, the New York Mets hit two in two days against the San Francisco Giants this weekend.

Rod Barajas went deep to give the Mets a 6-4 victory on Friday night, and backup catcher Henry Blanco repeated the game-winning heroics Saturday afternoon.

The walk-off home runs were the 102nd and 103rd of the team's history, bringing the other members of the team out of the dugout for a celebration at home plate.

Here are the top 10 walk-off blasts in New York Mets history.

Mets Walk-Off Facts

Let's start with some facts to get you in the mood. After hours of research, and I mean hours, here are 10 facts any Mets fan should enjoy.

• There have been 103 regular season walk-off home runs in Mets history, including three in the postseason.

• The first walk-off was back on July 1, 1964—Shea's inaugural year—when Frank Thomas took St. Louis pitcher Curt Simmons deep in front of a 13,804-strong crowd to give the Mets a come-from-behind 3-2 victory in the bottom of the ninth inning.

• The last walk-off before the back-to-back bombs Friday night and Saturday afternoon came on Aug. 7, 2008, when David Wright beat Heath Bell and the Padres with a ninth inning blast to break a 3-3 tie.

• There are four Mets who are tied for the most walk-off home runs at Shea Stadium: Mike Piazza, Chris Jones, Cleon Jones and Kevin McReynolds each has four.

• The Mets have beat 16 different teams with walk-off home runs. The most victimized are the Cubbies, who have lost a dozen games with a walk-off.

• There have only been four seasons when the Mets have failed to win a game with a walk-off: 1973, 1979, 1994, and 2009.

• Spare a thought for Claude Raymond. The Mets beat him with walk-off blasts in 1965 and 1967 when he was with Houston and then again in 1969 when he returned with Atlanta. He must have hated visiting Shea.

• Only three Mets have ever hit a grand slam walk-off. Mike Jorgensen did it against Rick Sutcliffe in 1980; Tim Teufel broke an 11th-inning 4-4 tie by taking the Phillies' Tom Hume deep in 1986; and Kevin McReynolds hit a three-on, two-out jack against Scott Ruskin and the Expos to walk off in 1991.

• No Met has ever hit a walk-off when the team was trailing by three runs.

• The most-watched regular-season walk-off at Shea came in 1971, when Donn Clendenon won the game with two men out and nobody on in the 15th inning in front of more than 52,000.

10. Len Randle: July 9, 1977

The Mets' 3B and leadoff hitter Len Randle breaks a 5-5 tie in the bottom of the 17th inning by sending Will McEnaney's pitch into the Saturday sky for a two-out, two-RBI walk-off home run.

The Mets had put up a four-spot in the fifth inning to take the lead 4-3 but the Expos answered straight back with a run in the top of the sixth. Both sides added a single run in the 11th and Montreal had a chance to win it in the 12th but they stranded runners on the corners.

Randle brought the 4:17 marathon to an end with his late heroics and finished with 2-for-6 with three RBI, a walk, a stolen base, a sac fly, and a pair of strikeouts.

9. Mike Piazza: July 2001

The Philadelphia Phillies must have hated the New York Mets by the time they left Queens in July of 2001.

First, 3B Robin Ventura took Turk Wendell's second pitch of the ninth inning to right-center field to give the Mets the walk-off win and then Mike Piazza dispatched Rheal Cormier to left-centre field to win the game the following day.

On the Saturday, Wendell had retired the Mets in order in the home half of the eighth, but he was unable to get the better of Ventura, who connected for his 18th home run of the year.

Things didn't get any better for the Phils the very next day. They had tied the next game at 5-5 when Armando Benitez blew the save, but Piazza connected for his 26th home run of the campaign in the bottom of the ninth.

Who knew that less than a decade later the Mets would be jealous of the Phillies?

8. Todd Pratt: Oct. 9, 1999

Bobby Valentine's Mets clinched the NLDS against the Arizona Diamondbacks with Todd Pratt's extra-innings walk-off home run.

Pratt's 10th inning blast to center field narrowly cleared a leaping Steve Finley's glove to give the Mets a 4-3 win and a 3-1 series victory.

Pratt was in the lineup because of an injury to Mike Piazza and he made the most of his chance in the limelight. Matt Mantei was the villain for the D'Backs, giving up the two-run shot and ending their chances of postseason glory.

7: Todd Hundley and Chris Jones: July 1996

See entry No. 9? Well, the Pittsburgh Pirates can tell the Phillies just how that feels after suffering a near identical fate almost exactly five years earlier.
Here's the scene:

Picture it. The Mets rally from 4-3 behind in the bottom of the eighth inning to win the first game in a day-night doubleheader 5-4 thanks to back-to-back pinch-hit RBI from Andy Tomberlin and Carlos Baerga.

In the nightcap, Alvaro Espinoza—pinch-hitting for Rey Ordonez—ties the game 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth inning and Todd Hundley—who pinch-hit for pitcher Dough Henry in the ninth inning and remained in the game as the Mets' catcher—won it with a solo walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th against Jon Lieber.

Think it couldn't get worse, right? Wrong.

Left fielder Bernard Gilkey snatches victory away from the Pirates in the following day's game at Shea with a home run to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning. Then, after Jason Kendall had given the Pirates a 2-1 lead with a two-out RBI in the 10th, Chris Jones hit a walk-off two-run bomb off of Dan Plesac to win the game after the tying run had reached on an error.

Proof that the Pirates have had bad luck for more than a decade.

6. Dave Kingman: June 17, 1976

The first of two pitching duels makes the list at No. 6 as the Mets toppled the Dodgers in 14.

Dave Kingman went yard at the expense of Charlie Hough to hand the Mets a narrow 1-0 victory, but the game should be remembered just as much for the pitching.

The Dodgers' Don Sutton—a 1998 inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame and pitcher who had 58 career shutouts—threw nine innings of shutout ball, only to be bettered by the Mets' righty Craig Swan, who struck out eight batters and surrendered just three hits in 10 innings of work.

5. Benny Agbayani: Oct. 7, 2000

Benny Agbayani is one of only three Mets hitters to have the distinction of a postseason walk-off home run at Shea Stadium.

His came in the 2000 National League Divisional Series to see off the San Francisco Giants in Game Three. The Mets would advance to the NLCS the following night.

With a man down in the 13th, Benny homered to left-center field off of Aaron Fultz to give the Amazins' a 3-2 win in front of more than 56,000 fans. The game lasted 5:22, but it could have been very different. Barry Bonds popped out to second base to strand Ramon Martinez and Bill Mueller in the top of the inning.

Unfortunately, Mets fans know how the rest of this postseason turned out—a 4-1 Subway Series defeat to the Yankees.

4. Gary Carter: April 9, 1985

The 1985 season got off to a bang when Gary Carter drilled an Opening Day extra-inning walk-off home run to see off the Cardinals.

Carter had been hit by two pitches and doubled already in this game, but the most excitement was still to come when he took Neil Allen deep with one out in the bottom of the 10th.

What started so promisingly would see the Mets to a 97-64 record, the second best in the National League, behind only the aforementioned Cardinals, who were the only team to top the 100-win plateau that season.

3. Tommie Agee: Aug. 19, 1969

The second one for the purists right here—and another mammoth pitching duel.

The Mets won their fifth consecutive game and moved to within eight games of the National League East-leading Chicago Cubs in a memorable game against the San Francisco Giants at Shea.

Leadoff batter Tommie Agee, the Mets starting CF, hit a one-out walk-off home run against Juan Marichal in the bottom of the 14th inning to win the game 1-0.

Marichal picked up the complete game loss despite only giving up seven baserunners (six singles and a walk) and striking out 13 Mets in 13.1 innings of work.

Gary Gentry, incidentally, pitched equally as beautifully for the Mets, throwing 10 shutout innings of four-hit ball against a lineup that included Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Bobby Bonds.

2. Lenny Dykstra; Oct, 11, 1986

Remember Mookie's dribbler that famously got through Bill Buckner's legs to give the Mets the World Series? Of course you do. It's enshrined in baseballing folklore.

But oh how things could have been different, in many ways than one.

With the Mets and Astros tied in the NLCS series at one game each, the Mets were staring defeat in the face in Game Three, down 5-4 with a man away in the ninth.

But Lenny Dykstra makes history by becoming the first man in postseason history to hit a walk-off home run for a team which is trailing. He took Houston reliever Dave Smith's 0-1 pitch for a two-run bomb to right field to give the Mets a 6-5 victory and 2-1 NLCS lead.

The Mets would win the series 4-2, but history could easily have been rewritten. The Astros would win Game Four 3-1 and would have been just one win away from the World Series against the Red Sox had it not been for Lenny. This could be the biggest home run ever hit by a Met. But it is still only enough to make No. 2 on my list.

1. Robin Ventura: Oct. 17, 1999

The most famous "non grand slam" grand slam of all time: Robin Ventura's Grand Slam "Single," which ended Game Five of the 1999 NLCS against the Braves.

As far as walk-offs go, this is up there with the very finest of the Mets' collection. Yes, officially it counted as an RBI single, but take nothing away from what was one of the most memorable of occasions.

The Mets fell behind 3-2 in the top of the 15th inning when Keith Lockhart hit an RBI-triple off of Octavio Dotel to score Walt Weiss.

With one out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the frame—after an incredible 5:46 of play—catcher Todd Pratt drew a bases-loaded walk to tie the game at 3-3.

What followed was incredible. Ventura crushed Kevin McGlinchy's 2-1 pitch over the wall in right-center field for a heart-pounding and frenzied victory.

Todd Pratt picked up Ventura as he rounded second and the rest of his teammates mobbed the third baseman in celebration, meaning Ventura would never touch home plate...or even third for that matter. In fact, only Cedeno would come across to score, meaning the "home run" was scored as an RBI single, giving the Mets a 4-3 win.

What is remarkable is that, despite how famous this play has become, there has still never been an actual walk-off grand slam home run in the playoffs. But hey, Robin doesn't mind. And neither do Mets fans.