The only NY Mets player to lead the league in runs scored

When Carlos Beltran crossed the plate 127 times in 2006, he set a new mark for the most ever by a New York Mets player. Amazingly teamed up with Jose Reyes who scored 122 runs that same year, a new standard in excellence was set when it came to scoring runs.

As remarkable of a total as it was for Beltran, he wasn’t the league leader. Chase Utley scored 131 runs for the Philadelphia Phillies. 

Despite some big offensive seasons from Beltran, Reyes, and even David Wright, none of them ever led the league in runs scored. Only one player ever did. He had to share the title with two others as the league’s most prolific run scorer of 1989.

Howard Johnson is the only Mets player to lead the league in runs scored

The 1989 season was one of those monster seasons put together by Howard Johnson that almost seems lost to time. The 1989 Mets failed to make the postseason. They didn’t know it yet but their reign atop the National League East was already over.

Johnson wasn’t a complete “every other year” type of player but seemed to really turn things up a notch in 1987, 1989, and 1991. He hit 30+ home runs in each of those seasons. His 1991 campaign was his best in terms of home runs, RBI, and even runs scored, posting 38, 117, and 108 of them respectively.

But it was in 1989 when Johnson scored 104 runs when he tied for the league lead alongside Will Clark and Ryne Sandberg. The first of two All-Star appearances for Johnson, he’d finish fifth in the NL MVP vote while earning a Silver Slugger. Clark (second) and Sandberg (fourth) finished ahead of Johnson in the MVP vote with ex-Mets player Kevin Mitchell taking home the award.

HoJo spent more than half of his season batting fifth for the Mets, adding to the impressiveness of this accomplishment. He started 84 games in that spot of the order, scoring 58 runs. Along with driving himself in with 36 home runs, Kevin McReynolds knocked Johnson in 22 times with Darryl Strawberry in second with 18. Everyone else had 3 or fewer runs batted in which sent Johnson into the answer to a Mets trivia question.