Joining the list of legendarily lopsided games
The Mets are far from the first baseball team to lose by 21 runs
Tuesday night’s 25-4 New York Mets debacle had fans scrambling for the record books. It was the biggest loss in franchise history, but hardly the biggest in baseball history.
Indeed, the loss to the Washington Nationals was the 26th time since 1908 that a team has won by 21 runs or more. Here are some of the most memorable ones: Biggest Margin:
Rangers 30, Orioles 3 (2007)
Texas and Baltimore were losing teams, and this late August game between them was hardly expected to be significant. The home Orioles fans were no doubt pleased with a 3-0 lead going into the fourth inning.
The feeling did not last.
After starter Daniel Cabrera was chased, Baltimore brought in reliever Brian Burres for the sixth, trailing by only 5-3. He promptly gave up eight runs while getting only two outs.
And it kept getting worse. Texas padded its margin with 16 runs in the last two innings.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ramon Vazquez had two homers and seven runs batted in apiece for the Rangers. Amazingly, they were the team’s Nos. 8 and 9 hitters and finished the season with only 11 and eight homers.
“Tonight there were some balls thrown across the plate and we put them in play,” manager Ron Washington said in the understatement of the century.
As for the Rangers’ bullpen, Wes Littleton came in for the final three innings, and earned … a save? Yes, in the rare cases when a pitcher finishes a game
throwing three or more innings, he is eligible for a save, no matter what the game’s margin. Even Jose Reyes could probably have earned that one.
Horrifyingly, the Orioles had to come back and play a second game of a doubleheader just after. They lost that one too, 9-7. Shutout:
Indians 22, Yankees 0 (2004)
The Mets tallied four statement runs Tuesday in the late
innings to avoid a record shutout. So that title is still held by the crosstown Yankees, who lost, 22-0, to the Cleveland Indians in 2004, tying a mark set in 1975 by the Pittsburgh Pirates over the Chicago Cubs. New York was in a pennant race with the Boston
Red Sox on Sept. 1 when it faced off against Cleveland at Yankee Stadium. At one point, the Yankees had led by 10 games, but the lead had dwindled to 4½.
The Indians scored nine in the first three innings, particularly feasting on reliever Tanyon Sturtze, who gave up seven runs. Omar Vizquel finished 6 for 7.
“There’s a certain element of embarrassment, no question,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said.
George Steinbrenner, the team’s owner, seemed more annoyed. The New York Times reported that he “brushed past reporters after the game,” adding that “he walked to his limousine, slammed the door and looked straight ahead.”
Still, the Yankees hung on and won the division before making history of another kind by giving up a 3-0 series lead in the American League Championship Series to the Red Sox. Homerfest:
Yankees 23, Athletics 2 (1939)
In this era of the home run, the Nationals’ total of five in Tuesday’s game might seem a little low, especially since two of them came off a position player, infielder Jose Reyes. Their total is three short of the record in a 21-plus blowout. That came in 1939 by a powerful Yankees lineup that hit eight home runs against the Philadelphia Athletics.
Joe DiMaggio and Babe Dahlgren had two homers. Bill Dickey, Canadian-born George Selkirk, Joe Gordon and Tommy Henrich had one each.
The Times called it “a long distance slugging spree unparalleled in the 100-year history of the national pastime.”
Several teams tied the home run record of eight before the Toronto Blue Jays set a mark of 10 in an 18-3 win in 1987.
“A banner crowd of 21,612 persons watched with amazement this mighty display of power, which threatened to go on indefinitely.”
That game was also the first of a doubleheader. The Yanks won the second game by the comparatively closer score of 10-0. The Yanks hit five more homers, with two for Gordon. Lou Gehrig, sidelined by the disease that would take his life, was met with an ovation as he brought out the lineup card for the second game. It was five days before his “luckiest man” speech.
The Yankees went on to win their fourth World Series in a row.