Double Digit Dingers
August 18th, 2011 by slangon
During yesterdays Mets win over the Padres, David Wright hit a 3 run homer in the 3rd inning for his 10th of the season.
In the spirit of semi-interesting but ultimately trivial facts, during the broadcast, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen were talking about how this was the 8th time in Davids career that he’s reached double digit numbers in home runs. I personally was a little bit surprised to hear this. I was sure that 2 years ago when the Mets first moved to big, spacious Citi Field and David went through that “power outage” that the New York media made such a hoobidie-do about, he didn’t reach that mark. Sure enough though, he hit exactly 10 home runs that year. Now he’s hit 10 home runs or more in 8 consecutive seasons, during which he’s hit a grand total of 178 taters.
In talking about this, Ron and Gary mentioned that David joins just 3 other players in Mets history that have achieved this plateau.
Not surprisingly, Mike Piazza also accomplished this feat during his tenure in Queens from 1998-2005. That includes 2003, when he played only 68 games. Even during that injury shortened season, he managed to knock 11 out of the park. This span also happens to cover every year that he was a Met, during which he hit a total of 220 home runs.
Another not very surprising name on that list was Darryl Strawberry. He hit 10 or more home runs per season starting with his rookie year in 1983 all the way through 1990, which was his last year in New York. That gives him a grand total of 252 home runs while wearing the blue and orange, which happens to be the Mets team record for home runs. On a side note, I stopped collecting cards around 1989 or 1990 and started up again in 2008. There’s a gaggle of sets that I missed out on during that hiatus. Nine times out of ten, I can’t say I’m too broken up about that, but in the case of 2005 Diamond Kings, I am. That is one really awesome looking set.
If Piazza and Strawberry didn’t really surprise me, the final guy on this list did a little bit.
I guess I was surprised to see Ed on this list just because, although he is beloved by Mets fans, let’s face it, he wasn’t quite the same caliber player that Mike or Darryl were. He did manage to hit 10 or more home runs as a Met for 8 seasons. Unlike the other 3, though, he did not do it consecutively. He did it in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1976 and 1977. Also unlike the other 3 guys on this list who were usually up in the 20’s and 30’s for their yearly home run totals (with the exception of Wrights 2009 total and Piazzas 2003 total), Ed usually lived in the 10 or 11 range. He did hit 16 one year and 14 another year, but that was it. He hit 91 homers during his 8 double digit seasons. He hit 27 spread over the other 10 years of his career. Despite that, he is the 10th greatest power hitter in Mets franchise history.
So there we have it. Four guys from 4 pretty distinct periods of Mets history who all accomplished the same rather random accomplishment. Huzzah.
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