Moment Number Seven: 16 Inning Game Ends After Beltran's Blast

In what turned out to be his first of two walkoffs during the 2006 season Carlos Beltran ended an exciting 16 inning game on May 23rd. In a game that included 15 walks, 28 strikeouts, 17 runs, 14 pitchers, 5 home runs, 27 hits, and 23 men left on base the Mets left with a depleted bullpen, but a W in the win column.

After Steve Trachsel allowed six runs over five innings (glad he's gone, huh?) the Mets managed to stitch together 11 more innings of two run baseball, with the only two runs allowed coming in the seventh inning, both by Aaron Heilman. Trachsel's counterpart, recently traded Gavin Floyd, pitched five innings of five run baseball, before Ryan Franklin (the Phillies were using a closer by committee at the time due to an injured Tom Gordon) gave up three runs in the eighth which led to eventual extra innings. The story of the game was Ryan Madson's effort out of the bullpen. Madson, in what turned out to be his second best game of the season, pitched six shutout innings before allowing a walkoff home-run in his seventh inning of work to Carlos Beltran in the bottom of the sixteenth inning.

However, for Met fans nobody cared about Madson's extraordinary effort out of the bullpen, all they cared about was Carlos Beltran, and the new Mets that they would get to know and love over the next few months. Certainly this game at the end of May was a foreshadow to how the Mets would bounce back through adversity all season long, until the last pitch was thrown. As Gary Cohen said during Beltran's blast "and we're going home!" and the Mets were determined all season to make sure their opponents would be saying the same thing come playoff time.