Mid Nineties New York Born Mets Relief Pitcher : Mike Remlinger (1995)

Michael John Remlinger was born on March 23rd, 1966 in Middletown, New York. He attended high school in Plymouth, Massachusetts & then went to Dartmouth College.

The six foot left hander is just one of two recent major league players to come out of Dartmouth. Remlinger was selected as a first round draft pick of the San Francisco Giants (16th pick overall) in 1987.


In his first season at A ball he went 6-3 & then did not post another winning minor league record until 1995. He got a June call up back in 1991 debuting with a three hit shutout against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He went 2-1 into mid July before being sent back down. Later that winter he was traded to the Seattle Mariners along with Kevin Mitchell for Dave Burba, Bill Swift & Michael Jackson.

Two years later he signed with the New York Mets as a free agent. In 1994 he went 2-4 with a 3.14 ERA in twelve games at AAA Norfolk.

In 1995 he made the club out of Spring Training & pitched on Opening Day at Colorado against the Rockies.

His Mets debut was not a good one, in the 13th inning he gave up a double to John Tatum tying the game in which the Mets had just taken a lead. In the top of the 14th Joe Orsulak doubled home Ricky Otero to give the Mets another lead. But in the bottom of the 14th after allowing a single & having another runner reach base on an error,

Remlinger served up a walk off HR to Dante Bichette. He would pitch in just five games for the Mets, going 0-1 with a 6.35 ERA allowing four earned runs in 5.2 innings. On an early May road trip to Cincinnati he was traded to the Reds fr minor leaguer Cobi Cradle.

Remlinger pitched three seasons with the Reds going 8-18 in 1997 as both a starter & reliever. The next year he made 28 starts falling to 8-15 (3rd most losses in the NL) with a 4.82 ERA, throwing one shut out. On November 10, 1998 he was Traded along with Bret Boone to the Atlanta Braves for Rob Bell, Denny Neagle and Michael Tucker.

In 1999 he helped the NL Champion Braves coming out of the bullpen, by going 10-1 with 21 holds & posting a 2.37 ERA in 73 appearances. He was the losing pitcher in Game #4 of the NLCS against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium.

In the 8th inning he allowed Roger Cedeno to steal second base & then walked Melvin Mora. He was relieved by John Rocker who allowed each runner to steal their next bases, & then gave up the game winning hit to John Olerud.

The runs were charged to Remlinger who got the losing decision. Overall he appeared in five of the six games posting a 3.18 ERA. He pitched five successful seasons in Atlanta getting to four post seasons & making one All Star game (2002).

He was one of baseballs top middle reliever set up men in a few of those seasons.

In 2002 he was 7-3 with a 1.99 ERA making 73 appearances. That off season he signed a deal with the Chicago Cubs going 6-5 getting to another post season.

Post Season: He appeared in five games of the NLCS, including closing out the famous eight run 8th inning in Game #5, against the Florida Marlins.

While pitching for the Cubs in 2003 he salvaged pieces of the bat used by Sammy Sosa which was found to have cork inside of it. He recently auctioned the pieces off.

He pitched in Chicago from 2003-2005, also pitching in Boston for a brief eight games in 2005. He ended his career back in Atlanta In 2006 going 2-4.

In his 14 year career he was 53-55 with a 3.90 ERA, striking out 854 batters walking 430 in 879 innings while making 639 appearances (140th most games all time).