Remembering Mets History: (2010) Mets Play Fourth Longest Game In Team History

Saturday April 17th, 2010: At 3:15 PM, Jerry Manuel's New York Mets took the field to play Tony La Russa's, St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium, in St. Louis. 

43,709 attended the game but how many were still there when the games ended six hours & fifty three minutes later after 10 PM? 

This was to be the fourth longest games in Mets history which ended after twenty innings. The game would feature a Mets record nine pitchers & twenty four players overall.

Starting Lineups

	New York Mets				St. Louis Cardinals
1	Jose Reyes	SS		1	Skip Schumaker	2B
2	Luis Castillo	2B		2	Ryan Ludwick	RF
3	David Wright	3B		3	Albert Pujols	1B
4	Jason Bay	LF		4	Matt Holliday	LF
5	Jeff Francoeur	RF		5	Yadier Molina	C
6	Fernando Tatis	1B		6	David Freese	3B
7	Rod Barajas	C		7	Felipe Lopez	SS
8	Angel Pagan	CF		8	Colby Rasmus	CF
9	Johan Santana	P		9	Jaime Garcia	P

Johan Santama would have a good outing throwing seven shut out innings striking out nine batters while allowing just four hits. Ryota Iqarashi & Pedro Feliciano both pitched 1.1 innings each.

Fernando Nieve put in 2.1 scoreless getting relieved by Hisanori Takahashi who got the Mets to the 14th inning holding the Cards scoreless.

A young Jenry Mejia who had just debuted a couple of weeks earlier would give up three hits but also held the Cards scoreless.

Raul Valdes who pitched 38 games for the Mets in 2010, then tossed two more scoreless.

Nine Cardinal pitchers held the Mets scoreless until the 19th inning. Jose Reyes lead off with a walk & was sacrificed over to second. David Wright walked & Jason Bay was hit by a pitch.

then St. Louis pitcher Joe Mather served up a sac fly to Jeff Francoeur. It seemed that maybe this one would be over.

But in the home 19th, Mets pitcher Francisco Rodriguez, walked Ryan Ludwick & gave up a double to Albert Pujols. Then Mets nemesis Yadier Molina singles to tie the game & give K-Rod a blown save.

In the top of the 20th Angel Pagan led off with a base hit & Mike Jacobs followed with another. Pagan alertly got third & would score on Jose Reyes sac fly. This time Mike Pelfrey was brought in to close it out & that he did earning the only save of his career.

The 2010 Mets ended the season in fourth place at 79-83, it was the final year Jerry Manuel was the helm getting replaced by Terry Collins in 2011. The front office also changed as Sandy Alderson took over for Omar Minaya.