Piazza began a furious, but ultimately futile comeback with a two-run homer that caromed off the left-field foul pole. Unfortunately, they started hitting after the Yanks had built a 6-0 cushion against starter Mike Hampton as well as relievers Glendon Rusch and Rick White. It wasn’t until he was out of the game that the Mets began hitting. “The Rocket” proceeded to have a typically vintage outing: eight shutout innings, two hits, no walks, and nine strikeouts. The only thing as lousy as Clemens’ excuse was that he was inexplicably allowed to remain in the game. About as believable as him claiming he never used steroids. He thought the jagged piece of wood was the baseball. On the field to umpires and after the game to the media, Clemens cried confusion. He was as much perplexed as he was angry. Clemens flung the meat part of the bat back in Piazza’s vicinity.Ī bewildered Piazza walked towards Clemens as the benches cleared. The meat part of the bat ended up in Clemens’ grasp. Piazza swung at a Clemens pitch and broke his bat on a foul ball. It’s been relived and replayed countless times over the past two decades. What occurred with two outs in the top of the first, with Piazza up and Clemens the starting pitcher, is not lost on Mets and Yankees fans alike. If that didn’t offer enough drama, Game 2 brought about the pinnacle of the Clemens-Piazza saga to the ultimate stage. The Fall Classic opened to a thriller in the Bronx - marked by Mets baserunning blunders and a late Yankee rally that ultimately led to a 12th-inning walk-off. That’s when Clemens fired a pitch that nailed Piazza just above the brim of his helmet, concussing the perennial All-Star backstop and prompting very strong ill feelings. The intensity of this duel ratcheted up exponentially on July 8, 2000. He hit four home runs, each of them with import. ![]() Against a pitcher who would strike out more than 4,000 batters over his big-league career, Piazza struck out twice. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only.It would’ve been hard for anything to exceed the hype of the first All-New York World Series in 44 years, but the personal confrontation between the Mets’ power-hitting catcher and the Yankees’ most renowned starting pitcher did just that.įew hitters gave Roger Clemens as much trouble as Mike Piazza. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. Some defensive statistics Copyright © Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith.įull-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Much of the play-by-play, game results, and transaction information both shown and used to create certain data sets was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet. Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Logos were compiled by the amazing .Ĭopyright © 2000-2023 Sports Reference LLC. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. ![]() We present them here for purely educational purposes. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC.
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