Houston Astros: Five most devastating series in astros history

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The Series With the Greatest Game Ever Played – 1986 NLCS

While I was alive for this series, I was two years old. So again, research and clip watching was necessary. And man am I glad I wasn’t around for this one either.

This is a series that the Astros one hundred percent should have won as they had bona fide aces in Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott as their one and two starters. For those who may be even younger than me, this was like having Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling from the 2001 Arizona Diamonbacks championship team on your roster.

With those two as your starters, you were guaranteed to win at least three games in a series. Heck, those two pitchers could win the four games you need to advance just by themselves. That’s how dominant Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott were.

Up until 1985, Mike Scott had been an average pitcher. What changed was that he added a split finger fastball to his repertoire and that one addition led to him becoming one of the most dominating pitchers in the game.

in 1986 he won the NL Cy Young Award with a 2.22 ERA and 306 strikeouts in 275.1 innings. He clinched the National League West pennant for the Astros throwing a no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants and was straight crushing the Mets in this series.

Scott was dominating the series to such a high degree that even though the Mets had a 3-2 series lead, many considered game six to be a game seven for both teams because if the Mets lost, Mike Scott awaited and had already won two games with the following stat lines:

Game one- Nine Innings pitched, zero earned runs, five hits, one walk, 14 strikeouts.

Game four- Nine innings pitched, one earned run, three hits, zero walks, five strikeouts.

Now you see why the Mets were so desperate to win game six.

The series featured two walkoff wins by the Mets including game five which went to extra innings. It set the stage for game six to have enough drama for an entire seven game series much less a single game.

Many considered game six to be a game seven for both teams because if the Mets lost, Mike Scott awaited.

The Astros took a 3-0 lead in the first inning and it stayed that way until the top of the ninth. Bob Knepper had been pitching a shut out up to that point and was left in to finish the game. And you can’t blame manager Hal Lanier for not pulling him. Knepper had only thrown 88 pitches to that point giving up two singles and a walk while striking out six.

This wasn’t a Pedro Martinez in 2003 ALCS situation where Grady Little left in his clearly exhausted starter who had thrown over 110 pitches to that point. Knepper had been efficient only once having an at-bat last more than five pitches throughout the course of the game.

The Mets rally happened fast though. Knepper’s next 13 pitches yielded a Lenny Dykstra triple, a Mookie Wilson run scoring single, a Kevin Mitchell ground out, and a Keith Hernandez run scoring double chasing Knepper from the game with a now tenuous 3-2 lead. The Mets would scratch a third run across on a sacrifice fly sending the game to extra innings.

Things only got weirder from there.

Both teams were relatively quiet offensively with no real threats on the base paths until the top of the 14th inning when the Mets scored a run and had a chance for more with runners on second and third with only one out. But the Astros escaped, then tied the game in the bottom of the 14th with a Billy Hatcher solo shot.

The 15th inning went by without incident, and then the 16th inning.

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The Mets scored three runs in the top of the 16th as Astro reliever Jeff Calhoun could not locate a pitch to save his life. He walked the first batter he faced (Wally Backman), throwing two wild pitches in the process during which the runner on second, Ray Knight, moved to third base on the first wild pitch and scored on the second one. Another wild pitch put Backman at second base and he then scored on the subsequent single by Lenny Dykstra. The same Lenny Dykstra who started this whole mess with his lead off triple in the ninth.

The Mets are winning 7-4 going into the bottom of the 16th. It’ll take a miracle right?

The Astros almost got it as they plated two runs in the bottom half of the inning and had the tying run on second with the winning run on first and Kevin Bass at the plate. This was the only season in Kevin Bass‘ career that he was an all-star. He was second on the team in home runs with 20 and had a .311 batting average. This could really happen.

But it was all for naught as Bass struck out and the Mets went on to win the World Series where they would mount one of the most famous rallies in all of baseball and make Bill Buckner‘s life hell for the next 18 years.

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Houston Astros: Five most devastating series in Astros history

By Joe Fernandez | Jun 23, 2017

The Series With the Greatest Game Ever Played – 1986 NLCS