NY Mets: Roger McDowell and his unique 1986 statistics

Roger McDowell’s 1986 season with the New York Mets includes some unique statistics.

The 1986 New York Mets were a fun team for all fans to enjoy even beyond just the usual starting nine. The roster has plenty of unsung heroes we don’t remember nearly as much as the biggest names on the team. One of them is relief pitcher Roger McDowell.

McDowell fit in well with the 1986 team. His eccentric nature and practical joker reputation made him an ideal relief pitcher for a wild team in the mid-1980s. Statistically, he had a year just as unique.

The first thing that stands out to me from McDowell’s 1986 season is the 14 wins he mustered up solely as a relief pitcher. It’s not something you see every day. Back then, before relief pitchers were specialized and limited in how much work they could do, it did happen.

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However, to have 14 victories, it’s quite amazing. This was more than Rick Aguilera had in his 20 starts and 8 relief appearances. It was also one shy of Ron Darling and his 15 wins in 1986.

It does make sense, though. McDowell pitched in 75 games for the 1986 Mets. This was more than any other pitcher by quite a lot. Even Jesse Orosco only managed to sneak into 58 games.

It’s with Orosco that McDowell shared a specific duty. In 1986, the two combined to save 43 games for the Mets. Amazingly, McDowell had 22 compared to Orosco’s 21. We remember Orosco best as the closer of the 1986 squad largely because he was the man who threw the last pitch of the World Series.

However, in the regular season, it was McDowell who saved and finished more games than anyone else.

Lost in Mets history is the fact that McDowell actually received MVP consideration in 1986. In a very distant 17th place with only five points for the award, McDowell placed higher than teammates Lenny Dykstra and Bob Ojeda. It was the only year in McDowell’s career where he even so much as sniffed an opportunity to win the league’s MVP.

The year McDowell had in 1986 was far from an all-time great season by a relief pitcher in franchise history. Seasons by Orosco, Tug McGraw, and even Jeurys Familia beat what he did in this championship-winning campaign. What made it special was how often McDowell found himself in the middle of decisions, often for the best.

This wasn’t a case of Anthony Young somehow losing games at a rapid pace in the early 1990s. McDowell was winning games in relief, shutting the door in others, and stepping on the mound in nearly half of the games played all year long.

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Across those 128 relief innings in 1986, McDowell managed to do more than provide the team with a bridge to victory. He managed to get into the game and actually leave as the winner.