This Date in Mets History: July 28 — A Rare W for AY, Alderson Plays Wheeler Dealer

Anthony Young's 1992 season began just about as well as one could reasonably expect. His first start was a complete game victory in which he allowed a lone unearned run. Ten days later, he made an appearance in relief of a shaky Sid Fernandez and picked up another W thanks to some late inning heroics from the Mets offense. Young wouldn't win another until this date in 1993, a streak spanning 465 days and a major league record 27 consecutive losses.

It was almost 28 straight, too. AY entered the July 28 Mets-Marlins contest with the game tied 3-3 in the top of the ninth. The Fish quickly loaded the base with no outs, as the first three batters of the inning reached via a single and—in typical '93 Mets fashion—two sacrifice attempts the defense couldn't field cleanly. Young bore down at this point, inducing a 5-2-3 double play to erase one runner at the plate. It looked like he might escape unscathed, but speedy Chuck Carr laid down the third bunt of the inning (so GRISSION-y!) and easily beat it out for an RBI single. Young fanned the next batter to limit the damage, but as he stalked off the mound, his hopes for getting off the schneid weren't high. He later told the New York Times, "I've lost a lot of games that way."

However, like in Young's last win 15 months earlier, the offense would bail him out. Two bloops from Jeff McKnight and Ryan Thompson tied the score and and a laser beam double into the right field corner off Eddie Murray's bat finally made Young the pitcher of record in a good way. He then proceeded to lose his next three decisions to finish the year with a 1-16 record.

Transactions
On this date last year, selfish Carlos Beltran selfishly waived his no-trade clause, thus permitting GM Sandy Alderson to indulge the center fielder's desire to be swapped for one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Ugh, the ego on that guy.

Steve Phillips did some wheeling and dealing of his own on this date in 2000, sending former top pitching prospect Paul Wilson and Jason Tyner to the Devil Rays for Bubba Trammell and Rick White. He also made another trade that day, which has been discussed in this space twice before. The less said about it, the better.

Game of Note
The Mets weren't much of a power hitting ball club before Donn Clendenon came along, which made it pretty easy for the first baseman to establish all sorts of slugging records in his short time with the team. On July 28, 1970, Clendenon set a new club record for most RBI in a game, knocking in seven as the Mets trounced the Giants 12-2. Dave Kingman and Carlos Delgado would later have eight and nine RBI games respectively.

Amazin'-ly Tenuous Connection
No Met past or present has a birthday on July 28, but Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez turns 58 today and he once donned a full Mets uniform—pinstriped pants and all—to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a game in 1999. As it turned out, that wasn't even the craziest costume worn that night. For a good read, check out our own Matthew Callan's excellent piece on Bobby V's mustache over at the Classical.