{"id":2731,"date":"2017-04-11T06:32:34","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T12:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2017-04-11T06:41:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T12:41:33","slug":"tic-tac-toe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2731","title":{"rendered":"Tic Tac Toe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During Sunday&#8217;s victory over the Braves, an\u00a0unusual and perceptive notice popped up in my feed. In the bottom of the first inning, Jay Bruce reached on an error, Neil Walker singled and Lucas Duda followed with a base-on-balls, setting up the following bases-loaded situation as described here by TJ:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">19-20-21 in reverse sequence as baserunners for the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Mets?src=hash\">#Mets<\/a>. Gotta be a rare occurrence right? <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EliasSports\">@EliasSports<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 TJ (@TJtheHeadphoned) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TJtheHeadphoned\/status\/851231209762041857\">April 10, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/19.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-102\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/19.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"42\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/20.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-103\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/20.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"55\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/21.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-104\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/21.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"41\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a>Not to speak for Elias Sports, but I&#8217;d bet it is. I&#8217;ve played around a little bit trying to determine whether the Mets ever had an all-ascending uni number starting lineup (haven&#8217;t found one yet) and I can recall lots of notable sequential teammates but this question never occurred to me and figuring out would be a task, which is why I&#8217;m opening it up to you guys out there.<\/p>\n<p>My first thought on this matter was the possibility of the 16-17-18 combo of Gooden on third, Hernandez on second and Strawberry on first, which had lots of opportunity to happen. Their teammates on the &#8217;86 champs Wally Backman, Kevin Mitchell and Gary Carter, had a whole season of opportunity to pull this one off too, but also hard to envision a scenario where Backman stops at third. Foster-Gooden-Hernanez\u00a015-17 would be a less likely\u00a0scenario but I don&#8217;t want to rule it out yet.<\/p>\n<p>Looking further into the likely possibilities would also require an examination of the 1969 World Champs, who had Agee, Jones and Clendenon stacked up 20-22 (Tim Foli, No. 19 in 1970-71, could be another engine in this train). Back when numbers were lower and retirements fewer we can envision scenarios of Ashburn on first, Throneberry at second and Bouchee or Harkness on 3rd, but I got no idea.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone brave enough to\u00a0dive into this please speak up!<\/p>\n<p>Following is my list of notable Mets teammates wearing\u00a0consecutive numbers, though by no means\u00a0an exhaustive list of all possibilities over the years:<\/p>\n<p><strong>6 numbers:<\/strong><br \/>\n1986: Foster 15, Gooden 16, Hernandez 17, Strawberry 18, Ojeda 19, Johnson 20<br \/>\n1987\u201388: Aguilera 15, Gooden 16, Hernandez 17, Strawberry 18, Ojeda 19, Johnson 20<br \/>\n1989: Darling 15, Gooden 16, Hernandez 17, Strawberry 18, Ojeda 19, Johnson 20<\/p>\n<p><strong>5 numbers:<\/strong><br \/>\n1989: Gooden 16, Hernandez 17, Strawberry 18, Ojeda 19, Johnson 20<\/p>\n<p><strong>3 numbers:<\/strong><br \/>\n1968\u201371: Seaver 41, Taylor 42, McAndrew 43<br \/>\n1969\u201371: Agee 20, Jones 21, Clendenon 22<br \/>\n1975\u201377: Kingman 26, Swan 27, Milner 28<br \/>\n1986: Backman 6, Mitchell 7, Carter 8<br \/>\n1992: Gooden 16, Cone 17, Saberhagen 18<br \/>\n2015-17: Matz 32, Harvey 33, Syndergaard 34<br \/>\n2016-17: Bruce 19, Walker 20, Duda 21<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/56.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-142\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/56.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"56\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a>Goodbye and good luck to Ty Kelly, the reserve we were discussing below, and who was claimed off waivers by the Blue Jays yesterday. This Ty was no Cobb, but I liked having on the team.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During Sunday&#8217;s victory over the Braves, an\u00a0unusual and perceptive notice popped up in my feed. In the bottom of the first inning, Jay Bruce reached on an error, Neil Walker singled and Lucas Duda followed with a base-on-balls, setting up the following bases-loaded situation as described here by TJ: 19-20-21 in reverse sequence as baserunners &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2731\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Tic Tac Toe&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[411,626],"tags":[515,225,736,329,506,710],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-met-mysteries","category-useless-milestones","tag-darryl-strawberry","tag-dwight-gooden","tag-jay-bruce","tag-keith-hernandez","tag-lucas-duda","tag-neil-walker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2733,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/2733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}