1999 National League Wild Card tie-breaker game
The 1999 National League Wild Card tie-breaker game was a one-game extension to Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1999 regular season, played between the New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds to determine the winner of the National League (NL) wild card. It was played at Cinergy Field in Cincinnati, on October 4, 1999. The Mets won the game, 5–0, with starting pitcher Al Leiter pitching a two-hit shutout. As a result, the Mets qualified for the postseason and the Reds did not. The game was necessary after both teams finished the season with identical win–loss records of 96–66. Some described the Mets as collapsing late in the season while the race between the Reds and their division rival Houston Astros was close enough to create the possibility of a three-way tie. The Reds won a coin flip late in the season which, by rule at the time, awarded them home field for the game. Upon winning, the Mets advanced to NL Division Series (NLDS) where they defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3 games to 1. They then advanced to the NL Championship Series (NLCS) but were defeated by the Atlanta Braves, 4 games to 2. This game counted as the 163rd regular-season game by both teams, with all events in the game added to regular-season statistics. Background The Mets spent 34 days of the 1999 season leading the NL East Division, but—following a seven-game losing streak from September 21–28 along with an eight-game winning streak by their division rival Atlanta Braves from September 19–28 — the Braves took a commanding 8-game lead in the division that they did not relinquish. Meanwhile, the Reds and Houston Astros were in a close race for the NL Central Division. The Astros led the division for much of the season, but did not lead by more than three games after August 1 except for one day. Ultimately, the Astros won the division with a 97–65 record, one game ahead of the 96–66 Reds. The Astros won their 97th game on the final day of the season. If Houston had not won that game, the Astros, Reds, and Mets would have instead been in a three-way tie for both the NL Central and the wild card spot. Bob Costas suggested that MLB was lucky to avoid this situation as he believed they had "no reasonable tiebreaker" to deal with it. Had this three-way tie arisen, the Mets would have won the wild card while the Astros and Reds would have played a tie-breaker for the Central Division title (as the tiebreaker counts as a regular season game, the Reds/Astros loser would have moved to 96–67, game worse than the Mets). The Mets' losing streak late in the season led Jayson Stark to label them a "sinking ship" in a column on September 30. However, the Mets broke this streak with a win over the Braves and dominant pitcher Greg Maddux and then, following a loss, swept three games from the Pittsburgh Pirates to end the season, tying