Yes, there are performances that demand to be remembered by everyone with bright yellow highlight ink. Jacob Degrom specializes in those. The last two matches he stayed on the pitch, he scored one on Tom Sewer’s record of 10 strike strikes, then added a six-for-zero, two-hit gem six days later against the nationals.
They are notable.
But when you have a pitcher like DeGrom, what are the more notable days and nights when he is just excellent, when he just shows up and does his work better than anyone else. The Mets have seen this before. Dwight Gooden was someone who was from 1984 to 1988 or around. The routine was so good that it became expected.
The sewer, of course, specialized in it.
The sewer, on any fifth day, can turn into a job so remarkably – yet remarkably similar to the one that came first and the two that come after it – that what was expected with the price of your admission was regular dominance, As the silly two words appear next to each other.
I decided to take a closer look at a routine sewer starting around this time in April 1971, 50 years ago. As any true sewer aficionado knows, ’71 was the greatest season of sewer, even though it had not ended in 1969, ’73 and ’75 as it received the Cy Young Award.
The win was still paramount, and Fergie Jenkins had 20 of the sewers in 24 that year, so it was Jenkins who gave him an ERA (1.76-2.77) in the sewer, despite strikeouts (289 – a new record for right-handed Node). Found – up to 263) and WHIP (0.946–1.049). But even later, Sewer admitted that he never reached those heights again.
This will be familiar to you: 35 of the sewers earlier that year the Mets scored just 3.97 for their side. He scored 12 runs with the Mets scoring 0, 1 or 2 runs.
Game I picked up – Friday, April 16 – The Mets once scored a perfectly accurate goal on the fourth inning home run by Pirates ace Doc Ellis by Mets Clandernon. It was a rough day, 46 degrees on the first pitch, which came in at 2:15 – in those days, the Mets never played a night game after May 1.
The Pirates, as you may know, won the World Series that year. He won 97 games, taking the NL East from seven complete games, finishing third ahead of the Mets 14– 83–79. They were Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargail, an anchorhouse lineup named “The Lumber Company”, named “The Lumber Company” as his aggressive behavior included Richie Hebner, Al Oliver and Dave Cash.
The sewer gave them three hits that day, only one of them – Oliver broke through the box in the seventh – which would have picked up someone’s exhaust velocity antenna if they were even present 50 years ago. He struck out 14. He walked none. Not a single Pirate reached second base throughout the game. He bowled 114 pitches. He reached three balls in one count at a time.
“It was a good, strong tom sewer game,” Tom Sewer describes the 2-hour, 3-minute clinic by the way. “I don’t think I can pitch better than this.”
Gil Hodges, the Mets’ hard-to-impress manager, was so impressed that he joined the sewer, the first person to describe the third-person sewer.
“When Tom Sewer is getting Tom Sewer,” Hodges said, “He’s the best pitcher in the National League, the best in baseball, one of the best I’ve ever seen.”
Their pitching coach? Okay, he almost revived Rub Walker after sniffing the saline when he saw the sewer down the books: “God,” he said, “He’s hard to hit.”
Pirates?
The sewer shook his head and released the pirates.
“They’ve smoked enough to start a forest fire,” said Stargale, who quarreled twice.
“It’s tough enough to hit the sewer on a good day,” Clemente said, ending the game with Clemente, who exited three times, including a fastball at the knees, on the outside corner. “A day when it is cold and windy which is near impossible.”
The shutout gave the Sewers a streak of 20 straight scoreless innings, and would extend to 6 gave / ver five days later when he defeated the Reds, 5-2, and was the longest scoreless stretch in Sewer’s Mets career. It was a random game with an extraordinary season and an extraordinary baseball life.
Jacob Degrom took the ball against the Red Sox on Wednesday night.
This sentence is probably as likely as any baseball sentence.
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