Eric Bruntlett Can’t Catch Us Now

Maybe you remember The Game-Ending Unassisted Triple Play Game, or TGEUTPG. If a game earns its name from a particular event within, it stands a pretty good chance of maintaining notoriety, with “notoriety” in this case being used correctly.

TGEUTPG concluded with Luis Castillo on second base, Daniel Murphy on first, and Jeff Francoeur batting in the bottom of the ninth inning at Citi Field in one blink and then all of them out the next. Francoeur shot a liner up the middle. The runners took off. Stepping into the picture was Eric Bruntlett, who, unlike the aforementioned players, wasn’t a member of the New York Mets. The second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies grabbed Francoeur’s liner; stepped on second to erase Castillo; and then tagged an unelusive Murphy. There we had it: an unassisted triple play to end the game at Phillies 9 Mets 7 on August 23, 2009.

The significance of TGEUTPG nearly sixteen years later is apparent only if you keep the table that I keep. Under the table’s heading LAST TIME THE METS WERE THIS MANY GAMES UNDER .500, I have charted the most recent instance that the Mets were precisely one game beneath the break-even point as a franchise; two games beneath the break-even point as a franchise; three games beneath the break-even point as a franchise; and every juncture on down until I can tell you the last time the Mets were 503 games beneath the break-even point as a franchise. Five-hundred three games below .500 is the low-water mark for this exercise. It was reached on September 25, 1983, at Wrigley Field after the Cubs conked the Mets, 11-7. It had been 11-3 heading to the ninth, but George Foster and Gary Rajsich homered; Wally Backman tripled in Brian Giles; and Junior Ortiz doubled home Backman. That’s a helluva rally under most circumstances.

Most circumstances haven’t reflected well on the Mets’ all-time record. Through that Sunday afternoon in Chicago, the Mets had posted 1,493 wins in their nearly 22 years of existence against 1,996 losses. The Mets had been falling from .500 from the end of the ninth inning on April 11, 1962, first without interruption — the Mets were 0-9 after nine games of life — and then as a rule. That will happen when you don’t win more games than you lose in any of the first seven seasons that you play ball.

And even when you begin to get it together in your eighth season, I mean really get it together as the Mets did in their eighth season of 1969, you still face quite a climb upward. Because you don’t win ’em all, you can register only net gains. The Mets netted +38 in their first world championship year of ’69 when they finished out their schedule at 100-62. The Mets netted +54 after going 108-54 in their second world championship year of 1986. Those are impressive gains. But those great years and the very or pretty good years in their proximity couldn’t make up the torrent of ground that was lost early on when the Mets were going 40-120 (-80) and 51-111 (-60) and so on, especially when you eventually cease to be great, very good, or pretty good, and begin to backslide.

As of August 23, 2009, the Mets were in the early stages of what grew into a substantial backslide. That was the first year of Citi Field, the year when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The franchise had made net gains via annual won-lost records for the preceding four seasons, the final four seasons at Shea: 83-79; 97-65; 88-74; 89-73. It didn’t always result in postseason opportunity (or postseason satisfaction), but things appeared on the right track for the long term.

On May 31, 2009, a Sunday at Citi, the Mets beat the Marlins, 3-2. There were no triple plays, though the Mets turned one DP and weren’t harmed by hitting into two. When the game was over, the Mets’ record sat at 27-20, a good start to what had been a shaky season to that point. Maybe this team was resilient enough to overcome the injuries that had befallen Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes, among others, not to mention the distant dimensions of their new home. Too many of the longballs the Mets were hitting at Citi weren’t flying over fences. They hadn’t played that well on the road, either, but here they were, seven games above .500, not to mention a half-game out of first place. Maybe everything would work out for the 2009 Mets.

Nothing worked out for the 2009 Mets. That much was evident by August 23. Delgado was out for the year. Reyes was out for the year. Carlos Beltran had missed the previous two months. Even iron man David Wright was in the midst of sitting out a couple of weeks after he took a Matt Cain fastball off his batting helmet. From the game of June 1 to the moment Bruntlett tagged Murphy for the TP (u), the Mets had gone 30-47. The wrong direction continued to beckon for the remainder of 2009, a season that saw the Mets plunge to 70-92, commencing a six-year run of records when the club never reached 80 wins.

If you view Mets baseball as a vast expanse rather than as a string of anecdotes, ending a game by hitting into a triple play, unassisted or otherwise, turns out not to be the most portentous event to occur on August 23, 2009. Losing to the Phillies that day left the Mets, as a franchise, at 3,642-3,956, 314 games below .500. There’d be bad times ahead. Then good times ahead. Then a mix of bad times and good times. Add them all up, and the New York Mets wouldn’t again be as close to .500 overall as they were on August 23, 2009, for almost sixteen years.

But they got there on Sunday, June 8 of the current campaign, in Colorado.

The Mets had been working their way back from this moment for nearly sixteen years.

When the Mets completed their season sweep of the Rockies by pummeling their asses with baseball bats, 13-5, it brought the 2025 Mets’ record — the one of most interest in the present day — to 42-24. The Mets lead second-place Philadelphia by 4½ and their other traditional nemesis, fourth-place Atlanta, by fourteen. The Nationals, who are in next at Citi, are the division’s third-place team, and their double-digits in back, too. Everything’s coming up Metsie, which you know if you watched them in Denver this weekend, particularly in the finale, which featured six Met home runs and a four-inning save. Two of the Met homers were off the bat of Pete Alonso, which gave the bat’s user 243 for his career, one more than Wright totaled, or second-most among all Mets ever, leaving him within nine of Darryl Strawberry for ownership of a glittering milestone. Veteran Jeff McNeil also hit two, with next-genners Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez slugging the others. Juan Soto didn’t go deep, but he did reach base six times (three hits, three walks). Tylor Megill went five innings for the win. Paul Blackburn sopped up the rest to earn his first MLB save.

Even if we allow ourselves to remember the 12-53 Rockies are making the 40-120 Mets of 1962 look like the 108-54 Mets of 1986, it was still an impressive showing by an impressive 2025 Mets team. Five and two on the road trip. Twelve and three over the past two-plus weeks. And, in case you’re wondering, 1,216-1,216 following Francoeur’s liner into Bruntlett’s glove (and 4,858-5,172 since Richie Ashburn stepped in to lead off against Larry Jackson 47 years, four months, and a dozen days before that).

For the first time since the close of business on August 23, 2009, the Mets, as a franchise, are precisely 314 games under the break-even point. The losing that picked up steam as the 2009 Mets rolled downhill has finally been nullified. It’s not as if they’d been on a sixteen-year losing streak, exactly, but on a net basis, despite some legitimate spikes in the right direction, they lost more than they won over the course of 2,431 games, at no point winning more than they won from August 24, 2009, forward and inclusive.

On the 2,432nd day, the Mets got it all back. They weren’t only clobbering the Rockies on Sunday. They were statistically kicking Francoeur’s ball out of Bruntlett’s glove. The ball is tricking into the outfield! The Phillies are phlummoxed! Castillo scores! Murphy right behind him! Here comes Frenchy!

Technically, the unassisted game-ending triple play remains on the books. Cosmically, the call has been reviewed and overturned.

In that table I keep, certain long-term inflection points have stood out, dates when we can see with hindsight that the Mets definitively stopped losing more than they won, or stopped winning more than they lost. The former is preferable to the latter. Both have happened and made their impact felt.

• Once they got it together in 1969, the Mets as a franchise relentlessly gained ground on their dismal beginnings until one day in June of 1972 when they would plateau without knowing it.

• Then, despite a memorable positive blip down the stretch in 1973, losing overtook winning for the long haul. More losing than winning became the overarching trend from June of ’72 through that September afternoon at Wrigley mentioned above as 1983 was winding down.

• From the ashes of 1983, until July of 1991, the trajectory pointed skyward, like it would pierce the clouds and never end.

• It ended; without warning, one loss became another and the historical progress that buoyed us reversed itself until nadiring in April of 1997.

• A long-term bounceback, encompassing high ups and low downs, brought the Mets to May 31, 2009, and that win against the Marlins when everything seemed fine and dandy.

• Time revealed everything in 2009 to be cruddy and miserable. A ten-season net-negative spiral — with two playoff spots and a pennant tucked within — ensued until the Mets had fallen 381 games below .500 on July 12, 2019.

• It may not have always felt like it on a continual basis these past six years, but the Mets have been on the rise ever since, going 456-389 between July 13, 2019, and June 8, 2025, which brings us to the present.

This has been a franchise in search of an enduring era for quite a while. A good era, of course. There have been good seasons since 2009’s darkness set in. There have also been dreadful seasons to make you forget how good the Mets have managed to be in relatively brief bursts. The composite record doesn’t lie. Across 64 seasons and counting, the Mets as a franchise haven’t sustained a winning record. Ever. They’ve never been at, never mind above, .500 as a franchise. It doesn’t matter within the confines of an outstanding individual season, but over time, it tells you something about what you’re spending your years rooting for and contributes to a sense of wondering what it’s all been for.

We are, this year, rooting for a team at the top of its game, a team continuing to rise, a team poised to shatter the grass ceiling of its checkered past. Its past, as illustrated in its all-time record of 4,858-5,172, indicates how hard it is for the Mets to win more than lose and keep winning more than losing. You never know when the losing will begin to prevail anew. You never want to know.

The best way to avoid knowing is to keep winning like the Mets have been winning.

METS LONG-TERM FRANCHISE UNDER-.500 INFLECTION POINTS

Most recently 1 game below .500: April 11, 1962
(Closest Mets have ever been to .500)

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Most recently 277 games below .500: September 3, 1966
Most recently 278 games below .500: June 6, 1972

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Most recently 283 games below .500: July 15, 1972
Most recently 284 games below .500: July 21, 1991

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Most recently 296 games below .500: August 12, 1991
Most recently 297 games below .500: May 31, 2009

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Most recently 313 games below .500: August 22, 2009
Most recently 314 games below .500: June 8, 2025

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Most recently 381 games below .500: July 12, 2019
Most recently 382 games below .500: May 17, 1998

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Most recently 403 games below .500: April 26, 1997
Most recently 404 games below .500: September 15, 1986

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Most recently 503 games below .500: September 25, 1983
(Furthest Mets have ever been from .500)

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NOTE: The longest active span of .500 baseball the Mets have played dates to August 28, 1967. The Mets have played 9,098 games since then and have logged a record of 4,549-4,549, including Sunday’s 13-5 victory over the Colorado Rockies.