Welcome to another edition of the Stache’s Throwback Thursday posts where we take a look back in Mets history for something interesting to post on a Thursday.
Today we all the way back to a better time for the New York Mets… 2008. Sure the team collapsed that year and were coming off a collapse the year before. But lets face it, after the past five years, 2008 was easily a better time than what we got going on recently.
On Friday May 16th, 2008 the Mets and Yankees were going to open up their first of six games in that years edition of the Subway Series, the final one to be played at Yankee Stadium II, but it was rained out.
They would not make up the game until the next series between the two teams in late June and have a two stadium doubleheader because the Mets would play a doubleheader in Atlanta the Tuesday after the first Yankees series.
The Mets would win the two games following the rain out and would have a chance to sweep the final series between the two teams at Yankee Stadium II on June 27th.
With a stellar pitching match-up of Mike Pelfrey and Dan Giese on a very warm Friday afternoon in the Bronx the game began with a couple of interesting facts.
The Mets were looking to get back to .500 again (They were 38-39 when the game began) and had just recently fired Willie Randolph (10 days prior).
The team had been struggling for most of the season and a big part of that was the slump that Carlos Delgado had been dealing with for nearly a year and a half.
2007 had been a nightmare for Delgado and 2008 did not start off too well either. His slash line was .229/.306/.396/.702 and he had 11 home runs with 35 RBI before the June 27th Yankees game.
Those numbers are pretty bad and not exactly what was expected of him as the one “true power hitter” in the lineup.
But on June 27th, 2008 the power hitting monster within Delgado finally returned with authority and the Yankees were the ones on the receiving end of his fantastic second half surge.
(We here at the Stache apologize that it was Michael Kay and not Gary Cohen making the calls. We have no idea why MLB.com allowed that to be the case and we completely 100% blame them for this horrible mistake)
If you noticed, our old friend LaTroy Hawkins was the pitcher that Delgado got to at the end to cap off his 2 home run, 9 RBI to lead the Mets to what was a delayed sweep of the Yankees at Yankee Stadium II and eventually a season series win over the Yankees.
Delgado finished the second half of the 2008 season with a slash line of .308/.392/.626/1.018 with 27 home runs and 80 RBI. His season ended with 38 HR, 115 RBI and a slash line of .271/.353/.518/.871
As most of you know the Mets would collapse at the end of the season and miss the playoffs for a second time of what would be now seven (and counting) seasons without a trip to the playoffs.
But on June 27th 2008 Carlos Delgado had a day to remember against the Yankees and kick-started a second half that many people will never forget.
