Saturday Seasons 1987 Mets: Big Hits, Broken Arms, and Terry Pendleton’s September Bomb

If you’re a Mets fan of a certain age (read: old enough to know that “streaming” isn’t Netflix, it’s what happens when your doctor frowns at your prostate exam results), the year 1987 will always feel like the start of a very long hangover. It wasn’t just the year after the ’86 miracle — it was Year One of what has now become 37 straight seasons (and counting) without another World Series championship. The champagne stains from the ’86 World Series were barely out of the carpet at Shea when we all started talking dynasty. Davey Johnson’s crew was young, brash, loaded, and ready to run the ’80s the way MTV ran music videos.

Instead, the sequel turned out to be a little less Fatal Attraction and a little more Ishtar — both huge in ’87, one a smash, the other a legendary flop.

The front office decided not to bring back Ray Knight, World Series MVP and resident clutch-machine. They slid Howard Johnson into third base, and HoJo rewarded them in a big way—36 homers, 32 steals, and the kind of breakout year that set him on the path toward becoming a future Mets Hall of Famer.

The bigger move was shipping Kevin Mitchell to San Diego for Kevin McReynolds. McReynolds was good—29 homers, 95 RBIs—but with all the charisma of Bob Newhart calmly explaining the infield fly rule.

The ’87 Mets didn’t just hit, they bludgeoned. Strawberry went 39–104 with 36 steals. HoJo joined him in the rare 30–30 club, the first infielder ever to do it. Keith Hernandez hit .290 with that perfect mixture of RBI and mustache wax. Lenny Dykstra was still a line-drive machine before turning into well whatever he turned into. Even the bench was absurd—Mookie, Teufel, Magadan, Mazzilli—everybody hit like it was home run derby.

The 1987 Mets hit like Saturday Night Live in 1987—flashy, fast, and impossible to ignore—but the pitching staff kept sputtering like a season cut short by a writers’ strike.

Here’s where the dynasty train jumped the tracks. Dwight Gooden missed the first third of the season after testing positive for cocaine during spring training and entering a rehabilitation center on April 1. He didn’t make his first start until June 5, yet still managed to win 15 games with a solid 3.21 ERA. Bob Ojeda, the Mets’ opening-day starter, began feeling pain in his pitching elbow in April. An inflamed ulnar nerve, aggravated by bone chips, required surgery in May, and Ojeda missed the rest of the season. Ron Darling posted a 4.29 ERA, which in 1987 felt like a mortgage rate. Rick Aguilera was diagnosed with a sprained ligament in his right elbow in May, sidelining him for much of the season. He returned in late August and pitched well in his first start back against the Dodgers, but the injury limited him to just 18 appearances. Terry Leach became the ultimate utility pitcher, going 11–1, but if your team’s MVP is Terry Leach, well, do I need to say more ? And the bullpen? Overworked and underwhelming. Roger McDowell and Jesse Orosco looked like they’d aged ten years since the champagne showers of ’86. (By the way save this paragraph, sub out some of the names with Griffin Canning and Aj Minter for when we recap 2025)

The St. Louis Cardinals were the thorn in the Mets’ side in the ’80s, like gum on the bottom of a brand-new pair of Nikes. After a sluggish May left the Mets below .500, they clawed back into the race by midsummer. By Labor Day, it felt like destiny—New York closing in, St. Louis wobbling.

Then came the showdown in September at Shea. In July, the Cardinals had a 10½-game lead over the Mets. By September, that margin had shrunk to just a game and a half, setting the stage for a three-game series at Shea Stadium that no fan would ever forget.

Game 1 turned into the kind of heartbreak that defines a season. For the first eight innings, the Cardinals’ offense was nearly nonexistent—their only hit a seemingly harmless Vince Coleman bunt single in the sixth. But that bunt set off a chain reaction: Ron Darling, who had held the Cards hitless, injured his thumb trying to field it and eventually had to leave the game. Randy Myers retired the Cardinals in the seventh, and Roger McDowell tossed a scoreless eighth. Shea Stadium was ready for the kill.

McDowell walked Ozzie Smith to open the ninth, and after a groundout by Tommy Herr moved Smith to second, Dan Driessen struck out for the second out. It seemed over. But then Willie McGee singled home Smith, and up stepped Terry Pendleton. Concentrating on the batter, McDowell delivered a sinker. Pendleton fouled it off. He stared at the 410-foot sign in center, then took the next pitch and crushed it over the fence to tie the game at 4–4.

Jesse Orosco gave up a pair of runs in the 10th, and the Cardinals, who had been one out from losing their division lead, seized the moment. After the game, manager Whitey Herzog’s understated comments captured the surreal tension: "I figured this one was in the sack… We haven't done that since the All-Star break. If they'd scored another run or two, we would have been out of it."

The Cardinals won Game 2 the next night, but David Cone stopped them in the finale. By then, it was too late. St. Louis went on to win the division—and eventually the pennant—while Mets fans were left to rue what might have been.

By the time the season ended, the Mets had 92 wins…three short of St. Louis. Three wins shy of a dynasty’s second act.

If you needed a distraction from the 1987 Mets, The Simpsons made their debut on The Tracey Ullman Show, while Dirty Dancing reminded us that nobody puts Baby in a corner unless, of course, that corner was the NL East standings. On the airwaves, The Bangles were ruling with “Walk Like an Egyptian,” which was exactly how the Mets rotation looked trying to patch things together with Don Schulze and John Candelaria. Meanwhile, on the world stage, Reagan and Gorbachev were performing the Cold War two-step, and in Queens, Stan Lee officiated Spider-Man’s “wedding” at Shea—proof that only in the ’80s could Spidey get hitched between innings.

The 1987 Mets were better offensively than the champs of ’86. But pitching wins titles, and without Doc at full Doc, Ojeda, or a rested bullpen, it wasn’t to be.

Still, let’s be clear: 92 wins is no small thing. This wasn’t collapse, it was attrition. Injuries, overwork, bad timing. And yet if Pendleton doesn’t hit that homer, if Aguilera doesn’t get hurt, if Ojeda stays healthy , this article might be talking about the late ’80s Mets as a dynasty instead of a near-miss.

Instead, 1987 became Year 1 ALC—After Last Championship. We didn’t know it then, but we wouldn’t sip champagne again for a long, long time.

⚾ Next Saturday: 1988—the year the Mets should have been back in the World Series, and instead met a little something called Kirk Gibson.