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How The 1986 Boston Red Sox Won The AL East

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They’re remembered for a fatal error that cost them the World Series. Kinder observers will also remember that they had a miracle comeback of their own in the American League Championship Series. But before the 1986 Boston Red Sox could do any of the above they had to win the AL East and that, in of itself was a surprise.

Late 1980s Boston Red Sox

Boston had not won the AL East since the pennant year of 1975, and they had not made a serious run at it since the heartbreak of 1978 and Bucky Dent. They had not won 90 games since 1979. The Red Sox hadn’t been a bad team by any stretch—they still won more than they lost—but they had ceased to be a relevant team outside of New England.

John McNamara, who managed the Cincinnati Reds to a division title in 1979, had come on as skipper in 1985 and finished .500. The team was breaking in Roger Clemens and the fireballer from the University of Texas gave hope for the future. Clemens came through in 1986 with a year that was not only a breakout campaign, but also the best season of his career.

Clemens won his first thirteen decisions and finished the season 24-4. His ERA was 2.48. On April 29, at home against Seattle, he struck out twenty batters. He won both the Cy Young and MVP awards, a feat that would not be duplicated until Justin Verlander did it for Detroit in 2012. Clemens was easily the biggest reason a pitching staff not known for success and having to work in hitter-friendly Fenway Park finished fourth in the American League in ERA.

There were other good young arms. Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd was 26-years-old and posted a 3.78 ERA in his thirty starts. Bruce Hurst, a 28-year-old lefty had a 2.99 ERA. Depth was a problem but in June, the Red Sox traded utility man Steve Lyons in exchange for the great Tom Seaver. “Tom Terrific” was 41-years-old, but he had a championship pedigree that was badly needed in Boston and over 16 starts he finished with a 3.80 ERA.

An offseason trade aimed at the bullpen didn’t work out as well as planned. The Red Sox traded a reliable lefty in Bob Ojeda to the Mets as part of an eight-player deal whose highlights for Boston were young arms Wes Gardner and Calvin Schiraldi. Even though Schiraldi came on strong down the stretch—a 1.41 ERA—he still only worked 51 innings and Gardner was a non-factor. Meanwhile, Ojeda pitched well in Queens and the disparity of this trade would really be laid bare when the teams met in the World Series.

And until Schiraldi got rolling, the rest of the pen was staffed by mediocre arms. Bob Stanley, Sammy Stewart and Joe Sambito all had some great high points in their careers, but none finished with an ERA under 4.00 in 1986.

Even so, the quality of the starting pitching combined with the traditional Boston bats to make a winner. The Red Sox offense would rank fifth in the American League in runs scored and they were led by Wade Boggs. The 28-year-old third baseman hit .357 and won his third batting title in four years. He also slugged .486, peppering the Green Monster with extra base hits.

Jim Rice was 33-years-old, but the one-time AL MVP (1978) was still producing. He hit .324 and drove in 110 runs. Another veteran outfielder, 34-year-old Dwight Evans hit 26 home runs, drove in 97 runs and posted a .376 on-base percentage. Marty Barrett, the 28-year-old second baseman was coming into his own and finished with a .353 OBP.

There were disappointments in the lineup. Rich Gedman did not have a good year behind the plate, centerfielder Tony Armas didn’t age as well as Rice and Evans, and shortstop Rey Quinones was a big offensive liability. The Red Sox made an August deal to get a modest upgrade at short in Spike Owen and added Dave Henderson to the outfield, an acquisition that would be huge dividends in October. But the biggest and best trade the 1986 Boston Red Sox made came just before spring training ended.

It was the Friday before the Final Four began, and while the nation might have been thinking about Louisville, Duke, Kansas and LSU, the Red Sox were talking deal with their ancient rivals in the Bronx. Each team had a productive designated hitter—lefthanded hitting Mike Easler for the Red Sox and righthanded hitting Don Baylor for the Yankees. Each would be better served by switching parks, Easler to hit at Yankee Stadium’s short rightfielder porch, Baylor to take aim at the Green Monster.

In another era, ownership of these same teams had discussed swapping Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams for the same reasons, and according to legend that seems well-founded, even agreed to it during a heavy night of drinking before recanting in the morning. Easler-for-Baylor wasn’t quite on the same level, but it had an impact.

Easler remained a productive player in New York, but Baylor had a clubhouse presence that would be invaluable for a Red Sox team living in a city haunted by its history. And he was awfully good at plate, hitting 31 home runs and finishing with 94 RBI.

After starting the season 9-8, Boston took advantage of a long stretch of games against the weaker AL West, going 19-6. By Memorial Day, the Red Sox were 28-14 and had the second-best record in baseball behind the Mets. But Boston was only a half-game better than the Yankees in the AL East and the race looked to be on.

The Red Sox surged in the early summer and owned their division rivals. They swept a home-and-home with the Indians, going 6-0. They took two of three from defending AL East champ Toronto. They won three straight in New York, scoring 22 runs in the process and winning a Clemens-Ron Guidry showdown in a 10-1 rout.

Clemens didn’t lose his first game until early July. By the All-Star break, Boston was rolling at 56-31 and had some separation in the race, plus-seven games on the Yankees, with the Indians, Orioles and Blue Jays all hoping to make a run.

The city of Boston flew into a panic when the Sox lost 10 of 13 on a road trip against the AL West. By the end of July, the Yankees and Orioles had the lead cut under five games, while the Blue Jays and Tigers were only 5 ½ out. The Indians were 6 ½ back. It was at this time that Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy wrote that the Red Sox were the only team that could be mathematically eliminated while still in first place.

But the clubhouse, led by Baylor, didn’t panic. Having Seaver in the rotation was also a boon, and he opened a three-game series in Detroit on August 8 with a complete-game five-hitter. The Red Sox swept a series that Clemens didn’t pitch in, scoring 23 runs in the process. The race was still close, but Boston stabilized. On Labor Day, they were 3 ½ games up on the Blue Jays and 6 ½ up on the Yanks.

There were thirteen games against either New York or Toronto in the final month. New England was battening down the hatches for a fight to the finish. Instead, the completely unexpected happened and Boston took the bull by the horns.

They swept three-game sets against Texas & Minnesota and took three of four in Baltimore. By the time September 11 arrived and the big sequence of games began, the Red Sox were running away with the AL East, nine games up on Toronto and ten games ahead of New York. Even though Boston went 4-9 in those games, it didn’t matter. The Blue Jays had been swept by the Yankees, while New York struggled in two series against Oakland, enabling the Red Sox to pull away.

On September 28, the penultimate Sunday of the season, Boston clinched against Toronto. Oil Can Boyd threw a complete-game and Barrett’s three hits led an offensive barrage that produced a 12-3 win. The Red Sox were going back to the playoffs.

1970s Red Sox

The most dramatic postseason in baseball history awaited the Fenway Faithful. They were driven to the brink of elimination against the California Angels in the ALCS before making a stunning climb off the mat to win it. Henderson hit a two-out, two-run homer in the ninth inning of Game 5 to give Boston a 6-5 lead when they trailed the series three games to one. The Red Sox won that game in extra innings and came back to Fenway to secure the pennant.

The World Series saw Boston take on a more familiar role, that of aggrieved victim. They won the first two games on the road against the 108-win Mets. They lost two at home, but took Game 5. With the sixth game in extra innings, Henderson hit another huge home run. Boston led 5-3 and had two outs with nobody aboard. Three singles and a wild pitch set the stage for Bill Buckner’s error and the shocking loss. They lost Game 7 in spite of grabbing an early 3-0 lead.

That’s what the 1986 Boston Red Sox are most remembered for. But they should also be remembered as the team that turned back challenges throughout the summer, blew a race open and won a division title that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Roger Craig Turns The 1986 San Francisco Giants Around

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After chasing the NL West title to the final weekend in 1982, the San Francisco Giants slid off the map for the next three years and bottomed out with a 100-loss campaign in 1985. The organization reached out to Roger Craig, one of the game’s highly regarded pitching coaches and one who had been part of the 1984 Detroit Tigers staff that won it all. Craig showed immediate improvement in the Bay Area and the 1986 San Francisco Giants got on trajectory that would eventually produce some October baseball.

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Craig got the most of a veteran staff that had appeared to be washed up. Mike Krukow, at the age of 34, came up with a 20-win season. Mike LaCoss, 30-years-old, logged over 200 innings and posted a 3.57 ERA. And Vida Blue, a mainstay of the great Oakland A’s teams from 1971-75, but now 36-years-old, got at least a sip of the Fountain of Youth, with 10 wins and a 3.27 ERA.

The vets were augmented by 25-year-old Kelly Downs, who made 14 starts and finished with a 2.75 ERA. Scott Garrelts was as versatile as they come, with 18 starts, 35 relief appearances and finished with thirteen wins, ten saves and a 3.11 ERA. Jeff Robinson worked over 100 innings out of the bullpen with a 3.36 ERA. Greg Minton finished with an ERA of 3.93

Mark Davis, who would one day win a Cy Young Award in San Diego, and Juan Berenguer, filled out the bullpen with sub-3.00 ERAs. All this depth and consistency produced the third-best staff ERA in the National League.

San Francisco could also hit and the fourth-best offense in the NL was keyed by an ability to get on base. Bob Brenly, the catcher, future manager of the World Series champion 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks and Fox-TV analyst, was the prototype. Even though Brenly hit just .246, he drew 74 walks and finished with a solid on-base percentage of .350.

Third baseman Chris Brown had a .376 OBP, though he did it the old-fashioned way, with hits rather than walks. Dan Gladden posted a .357 OBP in centerfield. Chili Davis was at .375 in right. A 22-year-old phenom at first base by the name of Will Clark broke in with a .343 on-base percentage. Utility man Mike Aldrete was the best of a bench that was as deep as the pitching staff, at .353.

The power wasn’t there—Candy Maldonado was the only player with real pop, as he slugged .477 and hit 18 home runs. Clark, and left fielder Jeffrey Leonard did not have the muscle that would later display. But it was enough for the Giants to score runs.

San Francisco took four of six from their archrival and defending NL West champ, Los Angeles in the early going and the Giants won ten of their first fifteen games. By Memorial Day, they were 24-19 and part of an NL West logjam where five of the six teams were packed within 2 ½ games.

Craig’s pitching staff made their first big statement in a four-game series with Houston, an NL West rival prior to the realignment of 1994. San Francisco allowed just six runs in the four games, highlighted by Krukow’s complete-game 4-2 win. The Giants concluded the home sweep with a game and a half lead in the division. By the All-Star break they were 48-40, up a game on the Astros and three on the Padres. The Dodgers had slipped to 40-48 and would suffer a bad year in 1986.

A 13-game road trip started the second half and nine losses, capped by losing three straight in Dodger Stadium spelled the end of the first-place run. The Giants went 12-16 in the month of August and by the time Labor Day arrived, they were at .500, eight games back and watching the Reds move past them into second place and the Astros pulling away from everyone.

But San Francisco didn’t give back the progress they were making by mailing it in down the stretch. On September 11, Downs beat the Reds 2-1 and got the Giants to 71-70. They were over .500 for good. San Francisco had to live through the embarrassment of watching Houston’s Mike Scott throw a no-hitter at them on September 25 that clinched the NL West for the Astros. But San Francisco kept competing and on October 3, the final Friday of the season, Downs had another strong game, this one against Los Angeles. The lineup peppered 16 hits in an 8-2 win.

The “8-2” final was appropriate because it was win #82 and clinched a winning season for a team that had been awful just a year earlier. It was the mark of progress and by 1987 there would be an even bigger mark—the Giants would win the NL West and in 1989, they would go one step further and claim the National League pennant.

The Seasonal Narrative Of The 1986 New York Yankees

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The 1986 New York Yankees continued a pattern of close-but-not-quite. After the glory years of 1976-81 when they won two World Series and four American League pennants, the Yankees spent the early and middle part of the decade with high expectations, mostly winning teams, but no playoff appearances.

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New York was coming off a 1985 season where they won 97 games, but finished second to the Toronto Blue Jays and the result Billy Martin was fired…yet again. Enter Lou Piniella and enter an offseason of activity.

The Yankees traded for veteran knuckleballer Joe Niekro in January and gave up a decent young starter in Jim DeShaies, who helped Houston win the NL West. Niekro made 25 starts in the Bronx and finished with a 4.87 ERA.

New York made nice with their historic rivals in Boston long enough to cut a deal where they swapped designated hitters, Don Baylor going to Fenway and Mike Easler coming to Yankee Stadium. It was a trade that worked out pretty well each way. With Baylor batting right-handed and Easler from the left side of the plate, each were better suited to their new venues. It was a smaller scale of the grand idea where Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams should have swapped places.

In any case, Easler finished with a nice stat line of .362 on-base percentage/.449 slugging, but Baylor also hit well in Boston and it was Baylor who helped the Red Sox win a pennant.

No player summarized the chaotic state of New York better than poor Ron Hassey, a serviceable major league catcher with some pop from the left side of the plate. He was traded to the White Sox in December. The Yanks got him back in February. Even though Hassey was productive, with a .381/.466 stat line, he was traded back to Chicago in July.

New York was willing to put up with poor production from Butch Wynegar at catcher in exchange for acquiring Wayne Tolleson to solve a season-long problem at shortstop and to hope that Ron Kittle, the Rookie of the Year with the White Sox in 1983 could rediscover his form. Kittle did hit twelve home runs in the final two months of the season, but for the most part this was another deal that didn’t work out.

Even with the moves that were either flops or washes, the Yankees could still hit. No one was better than first baseman Don Mattingly, who followed up his MVP season of 1985 with a .394/.573 stat line, 31 home runs and 113 RBI. Leftfielder Dan Pasqua posted numbers of .399/.525, while the great Rickey Henderson patrolled centerfield and was at .358/.469. Henderson, one of the most complete players in the game’s history, also hit 28 home runs, stole 87 bases, scored 130 runs and drove in 74 more.

Dave Winfield was in right and popped 24 home runs while clearing the 100-RBI mark. Veteran second baseman Willie Randolph, a holdover from the glory years, finished with a .393 OBP. Mike Pagliarulo showed pop at third base, with 28 home runs and 71 RBI.

New York finished fourth in the American League in runs scored and given that they were in the top three in every major offensive category (1st in OBP, 1st in slugging, 2nd in batting average, 2nd in walks, 3rd in home runs, 3rd in doubles), it probably should have been higher.

And they needed all the runs they could get, because it was pitching that ultimately held this team back. Dennis Rasmussen had a good year, going 18-6 with a 3.88 ERA. Ron Guidry, now 35-years-old, finished with a 3.98 ERA in 30 starts. Bob Tewksbury, at age 25, had the best ERA in the rotation, at 3.31. But Tewksbury only made twenty starts, none of this pitchers were really aces and the depth wasn’t very good. Niekro was washed up and 23-year-old Doug Drabek wasn’t quite there yet.

Dave Righetti was excellent at the end of the bullpen, with 46 saves (really good in the current era and off-the-charts in 1986) and a 2.45 ERA. But no one else was effective in relief. The Yankees best hope each night was to bash enough runs to get the ball to Righetti.

There were no problems early on. Guidry won on Opening Day, beating the defending World Series champion Kansas City Royals 4-2. The Yankees won five of six games against the champs and started 10-4. By Memorial Day, they were rolling at 28-15. The only problem is that the Red Sox were also rolling, a half-game up. The Yanks and Sox were the second and third-best teams in baseball, behind only the Mets as MLB took a decided turn to the big markets of the Northeast.

The first part of summer wasn’t as kind. New York was swept three straight by Baltimore and Toronto, and most ignominiously by Boston, who steamrolled through the Bronx. The sweep was marked by a 10-1 loss where Guidry was rocked while the Yankees couldn’t touch Boston’s rising young star named Roger Clemens.

After the rough June, New York was able to win eight of thirteen going into the All-Star break. They were 50-39 and still had the third-best record in baseball, but were now staring at a seven-game deficit against Boston.

The latter part of summer saw little change, as the Yankees got to Labor Day at 70-61 and still within striking distance at 6 ½ games out, though Toronto had passed them for second place. In either case, New York would control their destiny in September, playing the Red Sox and Blue Jays thirteen times in the latter part of the month.

If I told you the Yankees would go 11-2 in those key thirteen games, we would assume this was yet another Bronx stretch drive for the books. That’s exactly what happened, but New York played so poorly in the first part of September, that they were 10 ½ games back by the time the schedule stretch began. A four-game sweep in Fenway to conclude the season was completely meaningless.

The final record of 90-72 and the ultimate second-place finish was a disappointment, but the bigger problem was that the September fade was the sign of things to come. 1986 was the last time in the decade the Yankees won 90 games. They continued to decline before bottoming out in 1990 with a 95-loss season.

The Seasonal Narrative Of The 1986 Cincinnati Reds

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The 1986 Cincinnati Reds began the season with a lot of hope. The previous September, player-manager Pete Rose had broken Ty Cobbs’ career record for hits and the team played well down the stretch to take a surprising second-place finish. In ways both good and bad, the 1986 MLB season was a rerun. The Reds continued to show promise, but again started slow and their second-place finish didn’t have them in serious contention much of the year.

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Pitching was the problem. The team was ninth in the league in ERA and no one was able to step up as an ace. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The Reds made significant deals to bring in Bill Gullickson from Montreal and John Denny, the 1983 NL Cy Young Award winner, from Philadelphia. Gullickson pitched pretty well, winning 15 games with a 3.38 ERA. Denny was adequate, winning 11 and posting an ERA of 4.20. But there was no staff ace and the bullpen wasn’t deep.

Tom Browning joined Gullickson and Denny in the “pretty good” camp, with an ERA of 3.81 and getting 14 wins. The rest of the rotation was a problem. Mario Soto had been one of the NL’s top pitchers in the early part of the decade, including a runner-up finish to Denny in the Cy Young voting of 1983. But Soto, renowned for his great changeup, lost it in 1986, finishing with a 4.71 ERA and his career ended a couple years later.

Rose had a reliable closer in John Franco and 24-year-old Ron Robinson was incredibly versatile out of the pen, with his 14 saves and 10 wins being key to holding the staff together. Ted Power did a mix of starting and relieving and finished with a 3.70 ERA.

If the pitching was held back by a lack of star power at the top, the same could not be said of an offense that was the key to Cincinnati’s ultimate second-place finish.

The brightest star in both Cincy and one of the best young players in all of baseball was 24-year-old leftfielder of Eric Davis, and he could do it all. “Eric The Red” finished with a stat line of .378 on-base percentage/.523 slugging percentage. He hit 27 home runs and stole 80 bases. And he essentially carried the Reds’ offense to be the third-most productive in the National League.

Davis got help from the other end of the career spectrum. Dave Parker was 35-years-old and he still hit 31 home runs and drove in 116 runs. Another key veteran was third baseman Buddy Bell, who finished with a .362/.445 stat line at age 34.

Further help came from centerfielder Eddie Milner who slugged .446. Rose was also breaking in two young shortstops and trying decide which way to go between Kurt Stillwell and Barry Larkin. Stillwell got most of the at-bats in 1986, but Larkin would eventually win the job. Good call—he made the Hall of Fame while Stillwell was traded to Kansas City and not heard from again. 1986 was a learning year for both.

Rose also sought to wake up the echoes of the Big Red Machine’s glory days by re-signing old teammate Tony Perez, now 44-years-old. Rose also played himself in 72 games, at the age of 45. Neither had anything left in the tank.

The Reds started the season 4-3, but then lost three straight to the Astros. It started a 3-16 stretch when Cincinnati lost six of seven to Houston and five of six to the New York Mets, the two teams that would ultimately end up in the National League Championship Series. The Reds fell as many as ten games back and when Memorial Day rolled around they were 16-23 and in last place, though having crawled back to within six of the lead.

After losing three straight in Los Angeles, with Franco coming on twice in tie games and losing both, Cincinnati was again in a double-digit hole in the NL West (the Reds, along with the Astros were in the West prior to the realignment of 1994).

The week before the All-Star break finally brought some really good results. The Reds went to Shea Stadium in New York and unloaded on the great Mets’ pitching staff, scoring 23 runs and sweeping a three-game series. Pitching took over when the road trip continued in Montreal. Gullickson and Denny had strong outings, Cincy took three of four and by the break they were sniffing the .500 mark, having reached 41-44 and only 5 ½ games back.

In late July, the Reds were 47-49 and 6 ½ games back. A road trip to the West Coast all but destroyed realistic hopes of an NL West title. They lost seven of nine and dropped 9 ½ games out. The team surged in August, going 17-8, and was over .500 by Labor Day at 66-64. They were up to second place. But the odds of catching Houston were still very long, with a seven-game deficit.

On September 8, the Reds had one last shot at a miracle push. They would go to Houston for two games and then host a return visit from the Astros for a three-game set. It would take at least four wins to even keep the race interesting and maybe even a sweep. But there was still a puncher’s chance.

It didn’t take long for hopes to be squelched. The offense mustered only three hits off Nolan Ryan in a 3-1 loss. The following night, with Browning was in a scoreless duel with soon-to-be NL Cy Young winner Mike Scott. In the sixth inning, Browning was touched for four runs, the game got away and ended 9-2. To add insult to injury, the Astros also swept the return trip in Cincinnati as the potent Reds’ offense could only score five runs in the three games.

Once again, when the pressure was off, Cincinnati was able to get a nice little run, winning twelve of their final sixteen games. The final 86-76 record was heartening, given the team was still just two years removed from being one of the National League’s worst. But the pattern of playing their way out of the race before rushing in to finish second was a pattern that would continue for two more years until the Rose era finally came crashing down.

How The 1986 New York Mets Ran Away With The NL East

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The 1986 New York Mets came into the season having knocked on the door in 1984 and 1985. Davey Johnson took the managerial reins for ’84 and promptly turned a losing team into a contender. After a second-place finish that year, the Mets again finished second in 1985 after a riveting race with the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1986, the Mets left all comers in the dust in a dominant regular season.

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They won 108 games and were the National League’s best in most every significant statistical category. They scored the most runs, and were tops in on-bae percentage, slugging percentage and batting average. They were third in home runs. The pitching staff was dominant, the best in the league in ERA.

Dwight Gooden was only 21-years-old and coming off an amazing Cy Young year in 1985. Gooden wasn’t quite that good in ’86, but he still won 17 games with a 2.84 ERA. Ron Darling won 15 games with a 2.81 ERA. Bob Ojeda, acquired in an eight-player deal with the Boston Red Sox prior to the year, was actually the best of a great group, with 18 wins and a 2.57 ERA. Sid Fernandez was the weak link—he “only” had a 3.52 ERA and sixteen wins.

These four arms went to the mound a combined total of 128 times. It covered up for a bullpen that was good, but not deep. Roger McDowell and Jesse Orosco were a righty/lefty combo at the end of games. They combined for 22 wins and 43 saves. Doug Sisk was solid in setup work, with a 3.06 ERA. Otherwise, the only other arm was Rick Aguilera and he spent as much time as a fifth starter as he did in the pen, making twenty starts and finishing with a 3.88 ERA.

The lineup was keyed by 24-year-old rightfielder Darryl Strawberry. The “Straw” hit 27 home runs, drove in 93 runs and posted a .358 on-base percentage.

A feisty 23-year-old centerfielder named Lenny Dykstra had a stat line of .377 on-base percentage and some surprising pop with a .445 slugging percentage. Another little sparkplug was second baseman Wally Backman and his .376 OBP.

There were excellent veterans in catcher Gary Carter (24 home runs/105 RBI), first baseman Keith Hernandez (.413 on-base percentage) and third baseman Ray Knight (.351 OBP). The one disappointment in the veteran group was leftfielder George Foster. A part of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine in the 1970s, Foster had hit 73 home runs the previous three seasons with the Mets. But his production tanked at age 37, signaling the end of his career and he had to be released in August.

Johnson was able to fill in the gap though. Mookie Wilson provided the speed, with 25 steals. Kevin Mitchell provided some thunder, with a .466 slugging percentage. Danny Heep was a steady contributor off the bench with a .379 OBP. There were simply no weaknesses on the 1986 New York Mets.

After losing three of their first five games to the Phillies and Cardinals, they Mets took off. They won eleven straight, including a four-game sweep in St. Louis. By May 10 they were 20-4. Before the spring was over, they won seven of eight against the Astros and Reds, who would end up 1-2 in the NL West. On Memorial Day, the Mets were soaring at 27-11. They were four games up on the Montreal Expos and the rest of the division was submerged under. 500.

New York kept it rolling, sweeping the defending NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers three straight out of the holiday. In early June, they took two of three from the Phils and swept the Pirates four straight. The record reached 43-16 and the lead was bumped to 10 ½ games. There was a brief dip where the Mets lost five of nine, including four of six to the Expos. But in late June they ripped off another sweep of the Cardinals and won three of four from the Astros. Even though they lost three in a row to the Reds and the lead was “cut” to 9 ½ games, June 30 was the last time New York’s divisional margin was less than ten games.

At the All-Star break, the Mets were 13 ½ games ahead of the Expos and 17 ½ ahead of the Phillies. But all of baseball was only wondering now how this team would fare in the playoffs. As it turned out a four-game series in Houston turned out to be a sneak preview of what was ahead in October.

After winning the opener 13-2 and losing 3-0 on Friday, the Mets and Astros played two wild games over the weekend. On Saturday, New York trailed 4-0 in the ninth inning to eventual Cy Young winner Mike Scott. They got home runs from Dykstra and Strawberry and tied the game before McDowell gave up a home run in the bottom of the ninth in the 5-4 loss.

Sunday was more of the same. The Mets were down 4-2 in the eighth and then scored three times, with Hernandez and Mitchell each going deep. In the bottom of the eight, Sisk and Orosco melted down, gave up four runs and New York was back in an 8-5 hole. Undeterred, the Mets used three hits, a walk and a hit by pitch to tie the game at 8-8 in the ninth. McDowell pitched three shutout innings and helped extend the game to the 15th, but he eventually gave up the winning run and lost 9-9.

The Mets had lost three of four, but they had proved they could rally against the Astro bullpen. It’s something that would save them in October.

After that series, it was just about formally clinching the NL East. The lead was twenty games in late August and the Mets went on a 15-3 run through a soft part of the schedule. The clinching itself ran into some snags. New York came into second-place Philadelphia needing one win to wrap it up and lost three straight. They went to St. Louis, scene of their heartbreak in 1985 and lost again. The Mets were able to clinch a tie the next night, but the Phillies also won and delayed the celebration.

On September 17, in the afternoon at Wrigley Field, New York made it official. Gooden tossed a complete-game six-hitter, the Mets won 4-2 and the champagne could start flowing.

It was a good thing the Mets fans had such an easy run through the regular season, because their stress levels would be tested to the max in October. They were helpless against Houston’s Scott in the NLCS, losing to him in Games 1 & 4 and making no bones about their desire to avoid facing Scott again in Game 7. It took rallies off the bullpen in Games 3 & 6, the latter a stunning 16-inning affair reminiscent of the July series to avoid that and wrap up the pennant.

And the World Series with the Red Sox would have live in on baseball lore thanks to Bill Buckner’s infamous error in Game 6. What should be noted is that to make that moment possible the Mets had to come off the mat after losing the first two games at home. In the sixth game itself, trailing 5-3 in the 10th inning with two outs and none aboard, they had to muster three straight hits to set up the Boston implosion. And in Game 7, New York had to rally from an early 3-0 deficit.

The 1986 New York Mets spent the regular season showing their greatness. In October they showed their resilience.