Mark Simon, ESPN Staff 10y

Plenty of good moments for a 79-win team

What were the moments and stats that will be best remembered from the 2014 season for the Mets? Here’s one man’s list.

April 5- Ike Davis hits a pinch-hit walk-off grand slam as the Mets rally to beat the Reds, 6-3 for their second win of the season.

Stat to Remember: The Mets traded Davis to the Pirates 13 days later and this turned out to be one of the most important moves of the season as Lucas Duda became the everyday first baseman. Final tally for 2014: Duda 3.7 WAR, Davis -0.2 WAR

April 25- The Mets turned a 3-2 deficit with two outs in the ninth inning into a win on Omar Quintanilla’s game-tying hit and Curtis Granderson’s walk-off single. The win put the team three games over .500 at 13-10.

Stat to Remember: Granderson’s season had a lot of fits and starts. But he did edge out Lucas Duda for the club lead in Win Probability Added, which measures context-based performance (in other words, he had a decent number of key hits).

May 11-12- The Mets rallied from 4-1 down in the ninth inning to beat the Phillies 5-4 in 11. Daniel Murphy and Juan Lagares had the key RBI in the tying rally. Ruben Tejada’s hit won it in the 11th.

The next day, the Mets rallied from a 7-4 deficit in the seventh inning to win at Yankee Stadium, 9-7. An Eric Young home run cut the lead to one run. Chris Young’s home run in the eighth put the Mets ahead for good.

Stat to Remember: Derek Jeter hit .364 in regular-season games against the Mets, the second-highest batting average by anyone with at least 200 career at-bats against them. Rico Carty remains the all-time leader at .380.

June 1- Lucas Duda’s 11th inning homer put the Mets ahead of the Phillies and they’d hang on for a 4-3 win. It was the second in a pair of consecutive extra-inning wins over the Phillies. They’d won the previous day on David Wright’s 14th-inning hit.

Stat to Remember: The Mets relished playing the Phillies, winning 13 of 19 games against them to match the most wins they ever had in a season against them.

June 19- Zack Wheeler goes the distance with a three-hit shutout of the Marlins as the Mets win, 1-0. It was the best start in a turnaround from a slow start. Wheeler went 8-3 with a 2.71 ERA in his last 16 starts after posting a 4.45 ERA in his first 16.

Stat to Remember: Wheeler’s biggest area of growth for 2015: getting deeper into games. He lasted beyond seven innings only twice all season.

June 24- In his first game back after being sent to the minor leagues, Travis d’Arnaud hits a three-run homer as the Mets pound former prospect Scott Kazmir and the Athletics, 10-1.

Stat to Remember: d’Arnaud was hitting .180 at the time of his demotion, but after being recalled, he hit .272 with 10 home runs and 32 RBIs in 69 games, showing the potential that prompted the Mets to trade for him.

July 25- The Mets scored three runs in the top of the ninth inning against former closer Francisco Rodriguez to beat the Brewers 3-2. Duda’s two-run homer was the decisive hit.

Stat to Remember: This came in the middle of arguably the best stretch by a Mets hitter all season, during which Duda had 10 hits, six home runs, 10 runs scored and 12 RBIs in nine games (during which the Mets went 6-3).

August 2- The summer of Jacob deGrom reached its peak in a pitchers duel with Jake Peavy, in which each took a no-hitter into the seventh inning (Peavy’s bid was for a perfect game). The Mets would score four runs in the seventh inning and hang on for a 4-2 win.

Stat to Remember: deGrom’s 1.99 ERA from June 21 on was the third-best in the National League, trailing only Clayton Kershaw (1.41) and Edinson Volquez (1.85).

September 15- deGrom tied a modern major-league record by striking out the first eight batters of the game and finishes with 13 strikeouts in an eventual 6-5 loss to the Marlins.

Stat to Remember: deGrom’s 9.24 strikeouts per nine innings ranks eighth in Mets history for a single season among those pitchers who qualified for the ERA title and is second-best for a Mets rookie, trailing only Dwight Gooden’s 11.4 in 1984.

September 27- Duda poked a two-run, two-out home run off the foul pole to give the Mets a 2-1 win over the Astros. It marked only the second time they’d ever won a game on a walk-off home run when trailing and being shut out (the other was in 1963).

Stat to Remember: Arguably the most fun thing about the 2014 Mets is that you had to watch them until the last out. They won six games in which they trailed entering the ninth inning, the most of any National League team.

Those are our choices. What are yours? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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