Bob P
April 23, 2003
In this game Tim Bogar hit two homers, one over the fence and one inside the park. It was the only two-homer game of Tim's Met career, and the only four-hit game of his Met career. He also had two doubles in the game and wound up driving in four runs and scoring four.

The starter and winner in the game was Bobby Jones, who was making his major league debut. Jones allowed 5 runs and 7 hits in six innings, but just one of the runs was earned.

(Note: sarcasm ahead) The victory improved the Mets record to 40-76 and brought them within 33.5 games of the first place (and eventual World Series losing) Phils.

Phil Thiegou
September 25, 2003
Bob is right on the money on his accounts of this game. This was my first away Mets game. lt felt weird rooting for the Mets in someone else's house, especially in '93 when the Mets REALLY REALLY sucked. 0ne of the few bright spots for that game was seeing Bobby Jones' major league debut and seeing Tim Bogar hit an inside the parker. He broke his hand sliding in to home on that play and ended his impressive rookie season. Literally another bad break in that horrendous season.

Ed K
July 17, 2007
According to the game log, this is the last game that Tim played in 1993 for the Mets but he was back on the team in 1994. Did he get hurt or something else happen?

Dave VW
February 3, 2023
Tim Bogar plays the game of his life, helping Bobby Jones win his Major League debut. As alluded to by previous commenters, Bogar swats two home runs in the game, in the process becoming (what I believe to be) the only player in Mets history with an inside-the-park HR and regular HR in the same game. He also doubles twice (both times off the wall, so he came mere inches away from a 4-homer game in theory), giving him 12 total bases for the contest. At the time, that was one off the Mets record, but it did set the record by a second baseman (Edgardo Alfonzo beat it when he set the team record with 16 in a game at Houston in 1999). He also became the third of four (as of 2023) in Mets history with two doubles and 2 homers in a game, joining Tim Teufel (1987), Gregg Jefferies (1989) and Rickey Henderson (1999). But to answer Ed, and to reiterate what Phil wrote, Bogar hurt his hand sliding into home on the inside-the-parker during his final at-bat, causing him to miss the remainder of the season.

What makes Bogar's performance even more remarkable is the fact that he wasn't even in the original starting lineup. He was only inserted when Jeff Kent was scratched prior to game start with sore ribs. Speaking of injuries, Bonilla was playing with a sore thumb that bothered him most batting right-handed -- though you never would have known it as he hit two homers from that side of the plate the previous game. But on a swing and miss in the first inning, Bonilla really seemed to aggravate it and decided to bat lefty vs. the southpaw Danny Jackson. That went as well as you could have expected, as he struck out swinging a few pitches later. But I give kudos to Bobby for staying in the game and gutting it out. With the season all but over, he easily could have decided to call it a day (and a year), but at the time he was one of (I believe) only 4 to have played in every game in 1993, along with Dykstra, Jeff Bagwell and Jeff Conine. However, that thumb probably didn't help him in the field, as he committed a couple of errors. In fact, the Mets had 4 errors in the game, making Jones' job even tougher in his debut.

Jones certainly wasn't overpowering, but got strikeouts when he needed it most. He made Mariano Duncan his first ever strikeout victim on one of his patented 12-to-6 curveballs to end the 3rd, and, in the 5th, a Bonilla error and a Kevin Stocker single put runners on first and second with no one out, but Jones came back to get pinch-hitter Ricky Jordan looking and then Dysktra swinging on three pitches. Unfortunately, another Bonilla error and a John Kruk double followed, cutting the Mets lead to 5-4. As the previous game told us, no lead was safe, so it was nice to see Bogar get those three runs back with a bomb of a home run in the top of the 6th. The Phils tacked on another run in the bottom of the 6th on yet another RBI hit from Kim Batiste, but the combination of Dave Telgheder, Pete Schourek and Jeff Innis shut the Phillies out over the final 3 innings to give Jones a win in his debut.

Meanwhile, Phillies' starter Jackson was renowned for his success against the Mets, but was battling sore ribs himself and wound up giving up 5 runs, the most he gave up in 18 career starts vs. the Mets. Some of that damage he only had himself to blame for, as in the 3rd inning he had a chance to escape a jam but dropped a throw from Kruk while covering 1st base on a Bonilla grounder. That allowed Bogar to score, and then he walked Gallagher and gave up a 2-run double to O'Brien, who was consequently thrown out at third trying to stretch it into a triple. That gave the Mets a 4-0 lead they'd never relinquish. And though the Mets made their fair share of miscues in the game as well, they also flashed some nice leather. Kevin Baez, who committed the tide-turning error the previous night, made some really nice plays at shortstop to make up for it, and Bogar made a tough catch in foul ground on a Dykstra popup in the 3rd where he came real close to an ugly collision with Burnitz.

Though these were dark days, it was at least nice to see the young guys making an impact and showing maybe there was a shimmer of hope for better days ahead.