June 6, 1969, San Diego: Mets 5, Padres 3 (box score)
The Padres, fresh off a franchise-long six-game winning streak, returned home to face the New York Mets. Joe Niekro toed the slab for San Diego, while the visitors started rookie right-hander Gary Gentry.
Taking advantage of Gentry’s wildness and his team’s shoddy defense, the Padres scored two runs in the first. With Tommy Dean aboard courtesy of a leadoff single, Ollie Brown and Nate Colbert each drew walks to load the bases for Al Ferrara.
Ferrara grounded to first base, but Ed Kranepool couldn’t come up with the ball, allowing Dean and Brown to score. With a chance to bury Gentry, Ed Spiezio popped to short and Cito Gaston struck out to end the inning.
Niekro carried a 2-0 lead into the fourth. Tommie Agee led off that inning with a triple to right and scored on an infield single by the next batter, Wayne Garrett.
The Padres quickly responded, with Spiezio pounding a leadoff homer in the bottom half of the frame. Again, though, there were missed opportunities, and San Diego was unable to parlay two singles and a wild pitch into additional runs.
In the sixth inning, the Mets finally broke through against Niekro. After the first two batters singled, two ground balls and a double off the bat of Kranepool resulted in two runs, knocking Niekro from the game. Gary Ross came in and retired the next two batters to limit the damage and keep the score tied, 3-3.
In the eighth, with Ross still pitching, the Mets scored what proved to be the winning run. With nobody on and two out, Cleon Jones singled to center and stole second. After Ross intentionally walked Kranepool, Mets skipper Gil Hodges sent Art Shamsky to bat for Ron Swoboda. Shamsky responded with a single to right that plated Jones.
The Mets tacked on an additional run in the ninth, to extend their lead to 5-3. The Padres mounted a threat in their final at-bat, but the rally fell short. With runners at first and second, and one out, Chris Cannizzaro and Tony Gonzalez grounded out against reliever Ron Taylor to end the contest.
Trivia: Starting with this game, the Padres proceeded to lose 19 of 21 games. Both wins during that stretch took extra innings to achieve. The Padres failed to win a game in regulation between June 4 and June 27, 1969.
Bonus trivia: Between June 4 and July 11, 1969, the Padres won three games in regulation; all three were shutouts.
Elsewhere in the world: TIME magazine ran a less-than-stellar review of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, noting that “the level of the prose is droningly simplistic” and that “the characterization of the scientists and the lush seem to have been retrieved from the memory bank of some tired computer.” Of Crichton himself, this review asserted that “fiction is his failing.” Hey, if a critic wrote it, then it must be true.
I am old enough to remember the slide but looking at the actual numbers is shock. The Padres were 24-30 at this point and 8 games out. They went 28-80 for the rest of the season!
Yeah, things sure got ugly in a hurry for this team.