September 29, 2007, was no day of infamy for the New York Mets. That was a day later. Game 161 of the 2007 season was anything but a disaster. On a Saturday afternoon in front of over 54,600 fans in the paid attendance, John Maine pitched one of the best games that wouldn’t end up mattering in Mets history.
The day began with the Mets trailing the Philadelphia Phillies by a game in the NL East. Philadelphia would end up losing, setting up for a nail biter the next day.
It wouldn’t have been possible if not for how Maine pitched. On 115 pitches over 7.2 innings, Maine delivered an inspiring outing that might just be the Endy Chavez catch of Mets regular season starts by a pitcher.
Before the Mets collapsed, we got the John Maine Game
Maine had a no-doubt dominant day, and yet his strikeout to walk ratio wasn’t overpowering. Multiple full counts throughout the day, 9 in fact, he tossed 68 strikes and another 47 balls.
Maine got the best of most of those batters who drove him to 3 balls. Two walks allowed, he struck out a whopping 14 Florida Marlins. Florida managed only one hit, the final batter Maine faced when a weak ground ball to David Wright off the bat of Paul Hoover didn’t have enough mustard to get to him on time to lead to a ground out. The infield single spoiled what could have been the first no-hitter in Mets history.
The pitching performance was the star of the show and yet the offense clicked just as well. A 13-0 win featuring two home runs from Lastings Milledge, a 3-hit game from Luis Castillo, and 19 total hits, it was looking like the collapse wouldn’t go into full effect.
The infamous 7 game lead with 17 games left became a stalemate for a day thanks to Maine and the Mets hitters. The team managed to score in every inning but the fourth, spreading out the wealth to back up Maine.
The game took 3 hours and 3 minutes to complete despite all of the scoring on behalf of the home club. What should have been a season-saving performance ended up practically forgotten.
History repeated itself somewhat in 2025 when Clay Holmes and three Mets relievers combined to allow 1 hit to the Marlins. The victory kept them tied for the final Wild Card spot only for the Mets to blow it the next day, game 162.
