After Oliver Perez gave up a leadoff single during the Mets 13-0 rout of the Florida Marlins on April 2, our friends at Mets Walk-Offs (and other minutiae) were wondering how many of the mets 7,320 games without a no hitter (through 2007) were broken up immediately.
I thought that would be quite a monumental task to research since it would require more than standard box scores, but Mets Walk-Offs passed the question on to David at Retrosheet, who came up with a incredible breakdown:
Of the Mets’ 7,320 games without a no hitter from 1962-2007:
- 878 games began with a leadoff hit by the Mets’ opponent
- 662 of those were singles, 140 were doubles, 32 were triples and were 44 homers
- 468 of those games were on the road and 410 were at Shea (or the Polo Grounds)
If you haven’t yet checked out Retrosheet (which I hadn’t before Mets Walk-Offs passed it along), you should. The site was founded in 1989 for the purpose of computerizing play-by-play accounts of as many pre-1984 major league games as possible, and it’s awesome.)
We’ll add these numbers to our static pages and keep them up-to-date through the 2008 season. Thanks David!
