Wilmer Loves Losing His Job

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Look how happy Wilmer is to lose his job to Reyes!

Final Score: Mets 4, Marlins 2

The power of Wilmer Flores, the spark of Jose Reyes, and the grit of Jacob deGrom on the mound helped the Mets take today’s rubber game from the Miami Marlins. It’s really hilarious how Wilmer consistently raises his performance level when he thinks he’s going to lose his job. He caught one whiff of Reyes, and all of a sudden he’s going home run for home run with Giancarlo Stanton. Two multi-home run games in one week for our boy Wilmer? That’s insane.

Happy To Get Canned: Wilmer launched a solo home run in the second inning to give the Mets a 1-0 lead, and he added another solo shot in the fourth inning to make the lead 4-1. Both shots came off Marlins lefty starter Justin Nicolino. Wilmer did hit into a double play with the bases loaded in the fifth inning. Ultimately the wasted opportunity didn’t cost the Mets the game. I suppose Wilmer The Great can’t do everything. Flores said postgame that he’s happy Jose Reyes is here because it makes the team better. And I totally believe he’s being honest. How could he not be excited to have a stable of viable starting infielders? It’s amazing. Right after the game Terry is wondering aloud how in the world he’s going to find playing time for Wilmer and Jose. Ummm Terry I think we’ll figure it out. Is he serious? It’s called a rotation. It’s called depth. You give old man Neil Walker and bum knee Asdrubal Cabrera a day off. They are dying. Michael Cuddyer disintegrated after one half of baseball last season because he was played into the ground. This suddenly deep crop of infielders makes me smile even more than Wilmer when he finds out he’s been demoted.

The Playing Time Usurper: Jose Reyes got the start at shortstop today because Asdrubal Cabrera was up all night dealing with some family matter. Hopefully nothing serious. Anyway he had two doubles. In the third inning, Rene Rivera walked and Jacob deGrom failed to bunt him over. But Reyes doubled and set up second and third for Curtis Granderson who singled in two runs. That made it 3-0 Mets.

My Man: Jacob deGrom is my man. With David Wright seemingly gone forever, deGrom really is my favorite player on the team hands down. He didn’t have his best stuff, and he had to battle today. He got through jams in the first and fifth inning. But he always seems to find his way through 6 or 7 innings and limits any damage. He went 7 innings, gave up 6 hits, 2 runs, walked 2, and struck out 7. Noah Syndergaard is heading to the All-Star Game, Steven Matz is a Rookie of the Year candidate, and Bartolo Colon has been sexier than ever. But my confidence is at its highest when deGrom has the ball.

We Did It Again: Jacob deGrom’s only mistakes were surrendering two solo blasts to Giancarlo Stanton. Remember him? He hit two home runs yesterday. We obviously didn’t learn our lesson about being careful with Stanton. I don’t care that deGrom is an ace. I don’t care that Stanton came up without men on base or that the Mets had a lead. He’s a one man wrecking crew. He scored all the damn runs for the Marlins. Joe Maddon had the right idea earlier this year when he put Bryce Harper on base every time up. Just walk the guy. Pitch around him. Challenging him and consistently getting burned is the definition of insanity. We have an actual choice. Make the right one next time please.

Tomorrow: The Mets start a four game home set against the Nationals tomorrow. Big Sexy is on the mound. I’ll be at the game. We have some nice momentum. Let’s take it to the top team in the NL East. Let’s head into the break scorching.

Mets Let Giancarlo Beat Them For Some Reason

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Final Score: Marlins 5, Mets 2

The Mets let Giancarlo Stanton beat them twice last night for some reason. That’s the story of the game. We let one of the best power hitters on the planet burn us twice. I don’t care that he’s had a bad season. I don’t care that he’s been a non-factor lately. You simply cannot let Stanton launch two dingers against you. And these were bombs with men on base no less. Unacceptable.

Matz and His Mistake: Steven Matz was lights out last night. I said this for Noah Syndergaard on Sunday, but I hope this means the cortisone is working. Whether it’s working or not Terry Collins didn’t give a crap. He saw Matz had good stuff and let him throw a 100 pitches. TC don’t give a damn about dem bone chips. Matz went 7 innings, gave up 6 hits, 2 runs, and struck out 6. The frustrating part was he got lit up by Stanton in the 7th inning. He was so close to the damn finish line. He gave up a leadoff single to Marcell Ozuna and then Stanton took him deep to make it 2-1. He had already given up a damn single to him earlier in the game. I know you don’t want to put the lead run on base, but Chris Johnson stinks. Challenging Stanton more often than not equals home run.

Yo Bomb: Yoenis Cespedes hit a solo home run in the fourth inning. He was the only guy who could hit Wei-Yin Chen. Chen straight up outdueled Matz. He went 7 innings, gave up 3 hits, 1 run and struck out 5. I suppose Chen let Cespedes beat him. But that dinger was in the fourth inning. Remember the bottom of the 7th inning? He walked Yo to leadoff the inning. It wasn’t intentional, but he sure as hell didn’t fall behind and then foolishly challenge him. I wouldn’t want to get rocked by Yo again either. Then he easily retired the next two guys. But the Marlins did luck out because James Loney singled, and Juan Lagares hit a sinking liner to Stanton in right field that he snagged for the third out. On a different day that falls in for a hit and ties the score. It wasn’t the Mets night.

Letting Giancarlo Beat You: The Matz home run to Stanton was less appalling than the bomb surrendered by Erik Goeddel. With two freaking outs, Goeddel hit Christian Yelich with a pitch and gave up a single to Marcell Ozuna. I’m not sure why with two outs the Mets are letting Commissioner Goeddel blow a one run game, but they sure did. Goeddel got behind Stanton and gave up a three run home run on a 3-1 pitch. That made it 5-1. I don’t care what the score is. If you have an open base and the option to walk Stanton and get a fresh count against Chris Johnson, you take it. Call me crazy. Call me stupid. Call me whatever the hell you want. Goeddel getting burned was an absolute lock. I was washing dishes during the at-bat with my iPad set up playing the game next to the sink. Before he even threw the pitch I was already shaking my head. It was so obvious. I can’t believe we gave into the script.

Will The Guys We Paid Perform?: I’ve complained about the performance of Antonio Bastardo and Alejandro De Aza more than a few times this season. They both got into the action last night. Bastardo pitched a scoreless inning and De Aza hit an 8th inning pinch hit solo dinger. De Aza managed to survive yesterday despite the vast majority of people calling for his head when Reyes was promoted. I was not calling for his head. You know what I’d like? How about these two jerks have a big second half? We paid these two guys. They have major league track records. They have historically not sucked. Maybe it’s time they stop sucking. I’m going to hope for that. I’ll never trust them in a big spot because I’ve already seen the ugly stretch. I’ve seen them at their worst. But turn it around. We kind of need them to work out. They were part of Sandy’s plan.

All-Stars: The All Star rosters were officially announced last night. Yoenis Cespedes will start in the outfield and Noah Syndergaard/Jeurys Familia will be on the pitching staff. They are the obvious Mets All Stars. They are the best players on the team. I hope Terry pitches the other NL arms into the ground for a change.

Reyes Return: Jose Reyes returned last night and went 0 for 4 at the plate. He didn’t get a single opportunity at third base. I really only have two points on Reyes. I’m kind of surprised we brought him back so quickly. I figured we’d give him some time to actually learn his new position and get his bat up to speed. Nope. Looks like he’s just going to do that here right when the offense finally got a little momentum. Oh well. I guess ticket sales trumped commen sense. The second point is I’m really surprised people make signs and give him a heroes welcome. It’s one thing to reluctantly accept something you have no control over. It’s another thing to essentially celebrate the return of Reyes like some sort of victory for the team and some sort of personal victory. I understand the nostalgia. I understand people getting excited because they used to root for him. But I’ve actually seen and heard people celebrating the return of Reyes like they won something. As if his return proves some point they personally were trying to make. I’m not sure what that point is and frankly I don’t want to know.

Today: It’s nice to have Jacob deGrom on the mound in a rubber game against a division foe at home. Let’s win today at 1:10.

Just Give Cespedes His Money Now

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On July 4th 2016, Yoenis Cespedes did what he’s been doing for the Mets for over 130 games at this point. He sparked the offense, had clutch hits, and won the team a baseball game. The Mets had arguably their most impressive victory of the season yesterday. Before the end of the third inning, they were down 6-0 to the Marlins. Matt Harvey gave up 11 hits, 6 runs (5ER) over 3.2 innings. He continued what has been an unimpressive campaign in his second season removed from Tommy John surgery.

But despite being down 6-0, the Mets were able to crawl back and eventually win this ball game. Travis d’Arnaud and Curtis Granderson hit solo homers in the fourth and fifth inning respectively. That made it 6-2 Marlins. In the sixth inning, the Mets got to the Marlins bullpen. Travis d’Arnaud hit an RBI single and Kelly Johnson hit into a run scoring double play to make it 6-4. It was at this point that Yoenis Cespedes took the team on his back and contributed the big hits that were needed. In the 7th inning, Neil Walker walked and Yo hit a huge double to make it second and third with nobody out. That set up a James Loney RBI groundout and a Wilmer Flores sac fly to make it 6-6. Then in the 8th inning, d’Arnaud drew a leadoff walk. Juan Lagares then sacrificed him over to second base in what was a close play at first that was originally called safe, challenged, and ultimately ruled a sac bunt. Then with two outs Neil Walker was walked (again), and Yoenis Cespedes crushed a double to score d’Arnaud and Lagares to make it 8-6. The double was Yo’s third hit of the game. 8-6 was the final score.

Almost every member of the bullpen stepped up and combined to toss 5.1 scoreless innings of relief. The bullpen was huge in the effort to bail out Harvey. But there’s just no way the Mets score enough runs to win that game without Cespedes. We could probably say that sentence for a majority of the team’s wins in 2016. I have always been firmly in the “pay Cespedes whatever he wants” camp. But I think considering the MVP level 2016 campaign he is putting together, we’ve reached that point in the season where it’s time to be more vocal about the need to lock him up.

Cespedes is the only true undisputed impact bat (franchise bat? elite bat? choose whichever cliché you want) in this Mets lineup. Without him this team doesn’t make the playoffs last year and is barely a Wild Card contender at this point in the season. I still have no idea why he didn’t receive any market value offers this past offseason. I have no idea why the Nationals didn’t up their offer so it had a higher Net Present Value than the Mets 3 year deal. Part of me thinks Cespedes dealt with a little bit of the Daniel Murphy effect. I’m not trying to compare the actual career production of these two players at all. But I am saying that teams may have been hesitant to pay Murph and Cespedes because of enormous spikes in production relative to their career numbers over the last year or so.

Murph’s 14 regular season home runs last year combined with his 7 postseason home runs certainly represented a spike in power production when you consider his previous season high was 13 (in 2013). When you look at that and then you consider his 14 home runs in 2016 along with his .347/.387/.579 batting line through 81 games, the production starts to become a little more than a product of small sample size. Yoenis Cespedes has had a similar spike in 2015-16. He’s been hitting between .290-.300 for a season and a half at this point and posting an OPS close to .900. He’s on pace for 40 home runs. This is a guy who hit .240 in 2013 and .260 in 2014 and never hit more than 26 long balls before his 35 home run campaign last year. Daniel Murphy is 31 years old and Cespedes is 30. I can understand that teams might be skeptical that these two players will sustain these late career production spikes in the short term and over the course of a long term deal.

I also think regardless of whether you feel it should, the poor 2016 performance by Matt Harvey may impact the Mets decision to sign Cespedes. It seemed unlikely before the season that Matt Harvey was going to sign a contract extension with the Mets because he’s a Scott Boras client, and also because he was under team control for another 3 years. Well based on his performance so far this year, it seems almost impossible that he will sign any type of extension in the near future. He’s certainly not going to lock up a deal with his value at an all time low, and I don’t think the Mets are going to be inclined to pay him right now either.

Assuming the Mets financial resources are somewhat limited (which seems to consistently be the case) the team might be more inclined than ever to use their additional revenue to extend Cespedes rather than plan to save funds for a future Harvey deal. Again, the two deals should not be linked because the Mets should spend whatever is necessary to field a winning product. I think in the long run, a winning product should include Cespedes and Harvey. But we must be realistic and acknowledge that any long term contracts they give out will undoubtedly diminish the chances that they give out more of them. If the Mets are actually debating whether to devote future resources to Cespedes or Harvey, 2016 may fully tip the scales in Yo’s direction.

The bottom line is Yo is going to opt out of his contract at season’s end, and I think it’s safe to assume a lot of teams are going to bet on his 2015-16 level of production continuing. I think the majority of teams are going to want to add his franchise bat to their lineup. He’s only enhanced his value this season by showing that he can at least hold his own as a center fielder. The Wilpons need to grab their checkbook, call Roc Nation, and add whatever number of years and dollars he wants to his current deal so they remove the opt out and ensure the Mets keep him in the lineup for the next 6 years or so. I don’t care about the bad back end of the deal. I don’t care that he may throw his back out at the driving range. We need to make this happen ASAP and avoid an offseason bidding war. The guy is a warrior and a star. He’s the heart of the offense, and I want to be able to see him launching upper deck moon shots at Citi Field for years to come.

What Is Happening To The Mets?

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Final Score: Mets 14, Cubs 3

The Mets just inexplicably went from watching the season spiral out of control to sweeping the best team in the National League. That’s the most baseball thing I’ve ever heard. The season is so freaking long and ridiculous.

The Mets Hit Lefties Now?: The Mets were getting shut down by left-handed pitchers all season. Before the game, the Mets had a .693 OPS against lefties which ranked 26th in baseball. But now we can beat Jon Lester? Somehow we chased Jon Lester out of the game in 1.1 innings. We scored 8 runs and hit 3 home runs off Lester despite him having an ERA hovering around 2 on the season. How in the world does a team go from having one of the worst offenses and being unable to hit lefties to crushing one of the best lefties in the game? I’d like to think it’s because we “have the Cubs number” or some BS, but I think it’s just the offense finally breaking out and taking out any pitcher in its path.

The Mets Hit Home Runs Again?: Yoenis Cespedes hit that moon bomb homer on Thursday. Then the Mets hit 5 bombs on Friday. Neil Walker added a jack yesterday. And then today the Mets hit 5 more home runs. The offense goes from lifeless to raining home runs on the Cubs elite pitching staff. Live by the dinger, die by the dinger. The ball is flying out yet again. Curtis Granderson hit a solo shot in the first inning to make it 1-1. Then in the second inning, the Mets chased Lester from the game. Wilmer Flores hit a solo homer to start the inning. Literally seconds before Wilmer hit the blast, I was sitting in my seat at the game ranting about how his power has dissipated this season. So I take full credit for his power resurgence today. Anyway, with one out Matt Reynolds doubled and Rene Rivera hit a two run shot to make it 4-1. Then Lester, like an idiot, walked Noah Syndergaard. Juan Lagares doubled to make it second and third with one out. Grandy, Yoenis Cespedes, Neil Walker and Wilmer Flores then hit consecutive singles to run up the score and make it 8-1. The Flores single finally drove Lester from the game. Later in the game, Wilmer Flores (5th inning) and Kelly Johnson (7th inning) added two run home runs. Rene Rivera and James Loney had RBI singles. In total the Mets had 14 runs on 22 hits. It was the highest hit total the team collected at home since 1981.

Wilmer Flores Is Amazing Now?: Wilmer Flores went 6 for 6 with 2 home runs and 4 RBIs. He tied the Mets single game hit record set by Edgardo Alfonzo in 1999 against the Astros. I was at the Kirk Nieuwenhuis 3 home run game last season. I went from a 2016 Citi Field jinx to inspiring Mets players to set franchise records. Also, Wilmer can totally feel Jose Reyes breathing down his neck. I love that Wilmer’s response to the arrival of Reyes is to step up his performance. The fact that we will soon have Wilmer Flores, Jose Reyes, Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera, Kelly Johnson, and James Loney is fantastic. Hopefully with Nimmo, Grandy, Cespedes, Lagares, and eventually Michael Conforto in the outfield, our team will now just be a straight up regular rotation of major league players. It will keep all these guys fresh. We just spent the weekend watching the Cubs do it. Kris Bryant, Ben Zobrist, and Javier Baez are playing all over the place in Chicago. Willson Contreras is catching and playing outfield. Miguel Montero is catching and pitching! Honestly the rotating stable of position players is the best way to go. It should have been the Mets plan from day one, but better late than never.

Bone Spurs Don’t Matter?: Noah Syndergaard went from elbow bone spurs and getting blasted by the Nationals to straight up dominating again. I guess the cortisone shot has started to take effect. He went 7 innings, gave up 7 hits, 1 run, and struck out 8.

The Mets Beat Elite Teams?: The Mets went from getting dumped on by the Braves to embarrassing the best team in the NL. The Mets really got smoked by the elite teams in the NL Central last year, but had a lot of success against the NL East. So far this season they have had real success against the NL Central, but the results have not been nearly as good against the NL East. The Mets need to improve their performance against their division rivals immediately.

Mop Up Stink Off: As you would expect, Antonio Bastardo and Logan Verrett handled mop up duties against the Cubs. I think at this point they are both low men on the totem pole. Bastardo handled the 8th inning fine, but Logan Verrett gave up a homer in the 9th and threw a wild pitch that led to a second run. He still managed to close the game out though to seal the 14-3 win. Also, Logan Verrett autocorrected to “slogan Verrett” on my phone. I think his slogan for 2016 would be, “Logan Verrett: When the game gets out of hand and you need an arm.”

Hot Notes From The Game: I saw a guy at the stadium with a Tsuyoshi Shinjo #5 jersey. Then on the way home I saw another guy rocking a Shinjo jersey on the subway. I had no idea there were that many Shinjo jerseys in circulation, but what a classic. I also saw a guy with a custom #25 jersey that said Last Name “BA”. Bad ass? Big Al? I honestly couldn’t crack the case on that one. Before first pitch, I was sitting near the right field line watching Rene Rivera toss the ball around in the outfield. Rivera has such a big fat catcher’s body. I had trouble telling the difference between Rivera and Dan Warthen purely based on their frame.

Paul Newmo: I keep trying to figure out a doppelgänger for Brandon Nimmo. Is it young Paul Newman? Nimmo has gangly teeth so he’s not quite at the movie star dreamboat Newman level. But I think it’s kind of uncanny.

Tomorrow: The Mets now have three games against the Marlins and four against the Nationals before the All-Star Break. They really need to run off a bunch of wins and head into the break hot. Need to beat the NL East.

Sex Machine Takes Out Arrieta

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Final Score: Mets 4, Cubs 3

I really couldn’t be more elated to see that the Mets have something on Jake Arrieta. He’s arguably the top pitcher in the game, and the Mets just keep on beating him. They make him look human. I don’t get it. I’m not going to dig deep into the reasons behind it. All I know is we beat him again and took 3 out of 4 against the super hyped up Cubbies. The Stinko rock bottom Mets that got swept into oblivion by the Nationals just came home and embarrassed the NL juggernaut Cubs. You really can never tune out when it comes to baseball. This series is actual proof that when you least expect it, your team can turn things around. Hopefully it’s a permanent turn and not an aberration.

Neil Walkyear: Neil Walker set the tone for the game right away. He kept the team’s power weekend going with a two run blast in the first inning. As I said yesterday, his June disappearance really hurt this squad. If his ding dong stick is back, then the Mets offense will certainly be partially back.

Big Sex Machine: The success of Bartolo Colon is truly mind blowing. The guy just paints the corners, pitches to contact, and gets outs. That’s it. He went 6 innings, gave up 4 hits, 3 walks (unusual), 2 runs and struck out 5. He seemingly got the Cubs to hit key groundouts whenever he needed one. He made one big mistake in the fourth inning when he surrendered a two run bomb to Anthony Rizzo to make it 2-0. Sometimes all that contact can burn him. But it was just another robotic quality start. He outdueled Jake Arrieta. Arrieta only went 5.1 innings, gave up 8 hits and 4 runs! Unbelievable.

D’ArNeed Him: In the fourth inning, Asdrubal Cabrera singled with one out and Alejandro De Aza walked with two outs. Is De Aza heating up? Probably not. Still destined to be cut. Anyway, with two on and two out Travis d’Arnaud hit a little bloop pop up that landed between the center fielder, shortstop, and second baseman. It was the perfect lucky little dinky BS hit that the Mets never get. Luck! BABIP! Hooray. That made the game 4-2.

Chances: The Mets had opportunities in the fifth and sixth inning to score more runs. In the fifth Brandon Nimmo and Neil Walker singled to get on base. And nobody could drive them in. Both were left on base. Then in the sixth inning, De Aza and d’Arnaud singled with one out and Juan Lagares hit into a double play. Men left on base. What else is new? But this time it didn’t burn us. The gods smiled upon us this weekend.

Commissioner: In the 7th inning, Erik Goeddel gave up a solo blast to Ben Zobrist with two outs to make it 4-3. The Mets should have just signed Zobrist, Daniel Murphy and traded for Neil Walker. Just corner the second base market.

Battle Of The Addisons Part 2: In the 8th inning after surrendering a leadoff single, Addison Reed struck out the damn side. He struck out his same named nemesis Addison Russell to end the inning. The guy has been dynamite this season. God I hope he keeps it up for the long run. Anyway, Jeurys Familia retired the side in the 9th inning without the tightrope act. Having an elite lockdown closer is arguably my favorite thing about this team.

Sore What?: Bartolo said after the game that he’s dealing with some left leg soreness. Ummm what? He battled a sore back earlier this year and now a leg. But the soreness doesn’t actually affect his play. It’s really hilarious that the 43 year old guy on our roster is by far the most durable.

Time To Gamble: So before this series the Mets were going off at 18 to 1 to win the World Series. I think it’s time to lock in that bet. I went from writing them off in Washington to gambling the big bucks on them to win it all. That’s how things go in the Panic City casinos.

Draw The Line: So I’ll be at today’s game watching Noah Syndergaard. The Mets are 0-4 in games I’ve attended this season. I think I need to actually draw the line at 8. If the Mets go 0-8 in games where I’m at the park I don’t see how I can keep showing up. Too risky.

The Bombs Are Back In Town

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Final Score: Mets 10, Cubs 2

The Mets hit home runs again? Is this happening for real? The calendar flips from June to July, and now the Mets have seemingly rediscovered their power stroke. The Mets hit 5 home runs last night. The game may have had two rain delays, but the weather gods could not stop the Mets.

Dingers In The Rain (Act 1): The Mets power surge started in the second inning when James Loney and Asdrubal Cabrera hit back-to-back solo blasts off of Jason Hammel to make it 2-0 Mets.

Rain Delay: The tarp came out after the second inning, and I thought for sure that would be the end of the night for Jacob deGrom. He was dealing right out of the gate. Originally, I was pissed they even started the game because of the possibility that the rain could jeopardize deGrom’s outing. But the Mets brought him back out after a delay that lasted over an hour. The Cubs brought Jason Hammel back out there too. I guess I missed the memo that says it’s okay to bring starters back out after long rain delays.

The Lone Man: James Loney hit a pre-rain dinger, and once the game got started again he added a two out two RBI double in the third inning after Neil Walker singled and Yoenis Cespedes walked. He went 3 for 5 in the game with 3 RBIs. He’s hitting .297/.345/.495. Yeah I’d say the decision to take a flier on him has worked out thus far.

Dingers In The Rain Act 2: In the fourth inning, Wilmer Flores walked, Travis d’Arnaud singled, and deGrom sacrificed them over to second and third. Brandon Nimmo then launched a three run shot to make it 7-1. In the fifth inning Yoenis Cespedes added a solo dinger and Asdrubal Cabrera hit a two run blast to make it 10-1. It was his second dinger of the game. That was really all the scoring the Mets needed.

Rain Delay 2.0: Other than a solo blast he surrendered to Kris Bryant, deGrom had a great night. He went 5 innings, gave up 3 hits, 1 run and struck out 7. He got pulled after the second rain delay. Jerry Blevins, Hansel Robles and minor league call-up Seth Lugo combined to pitch four innings (1 run) to close out the game. All these rain delays brought back memories of the July 30, 2015 game against the Padres. I’ll never feel confident in the Mets chances of winning during a rain delay ever again. I’m scarred for life.

The Hot Guys: Everyone got involved for the Mets last night. Nimmo, Cabby, and Loney. Oh and Yoenis Cespedes was 2 for 4. Yo had two hits and the Mets won the game because duh. They win when Yo goes.

Asdrubal and Neil: I mentioned this earlier in the week but look how much Neil Walker and Asdrubal Cabrera disappeared in June.

Neil and Asdrubal are going to have to pick it up big time now that the calendar has flipped to June. Last night was a good start.

Jesus Is Good Again?: Brandon Nimmo went 2 for 5 with his big 3 run shot. He also made a stellar play in the field. I also noticed he’s a big Jesus guy. He did an awful lot of pointing to the man upstairs on his big hits. I suppose that’s good. Daniel Murphy was a godly man, and I think we’ve felt his absence this year. Hopefully Nimmo can help get us back in the good graces of the Lord.

Baseball Is So Ridiculous: Every single Mets fan had their nooses ready for this weekend. The Mets season was spiraling out of control. And now here we are two days later and we’ve snagged two games from the freaking Cubs. We can’t beat the Braves. But the Cubs? No problem.

Today: Let’s see if we can beat Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester. I’ll be at the park on Sunday jinxing the hell out of the Mets. So I hope we win tonight.

Sandy and Matz? Respect 

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Final Score: Mets 4, Cubs 3

Before last night’s game even started, the media talked to Sandy Alderson about the state of the team. I respect the hell out of what Sandy said. Sandy basically said there’s no savior coming. He said there’s no Yoenis Cespedes on the horizon. There’s no big trade or trades that will help the Mets salvage this season. Sandy put the onus on the players on the current roster. Sandy essentially said “step the hell up”. Which is what I’ve been preaching for a while. I really respect Sandy doubling down on the roster he built. It may come back to burn him. But in my opinion he’s saying the right thing.

Matz Respect: Before the game, it was being widely reported that Steven Matz was considering surgery to get that bone spur removed from his elbow. Apparently the Mets convinced him to battle through the injury. They gave him the anti-inflammatory injection. Now, it goes without saying that nobody should ever trust the Mets medical advice. He shouldn’t pitch if he’s risking any long term damage. That being said, I respect his decision. I respect that he went out there and gave the Mets a chance to win. He basically abandoned his slider because it puts the most strain on his elbow. I’m not sure if his approach is sustainable, but I respect him for not giving up on us.

Steven Matz went 5.1 innings, gave up 7 hits, 3 runs, walked 3 and struck out 6. He certainly wasn’t at his best. In the first inning, Kris Bryant hit a 2 run jack off of Matz. Matz tried to get a 1-2 pitch down and in, and he left it over the plate. Bad pitch. Great hitter. In the 6th inning, he left another pitch out over the middle and Javier Baez made him pay with a solo blast that made it 3-0 Cubs. Once Matz’s pitch count got over 100, Terry decided to yank him. It worked out because Erik Goeddel gave the Mets 1.2 innings of solid relief.

Yo Bomb: In the bottom of the 6th inning, Yoenis Cespedes did his job as team spark and crushed a moon shot homer off of John Lackey. It went to the upper deck in left. It was over 450 feet. Absolute bomb. The Mets didn’t score anything else that inning, but I think it woke the team up.

Finding Nimmo: So I think the Cespedes homer helped wake the team up, and also the Cubs bullpen was dog crap. Travis d’Arnaud hit a one out single off of Lackey in the 7th inning. D’Arnaud had two hits in the game. He needs to get things going for the Mets to have any chance of competing this summer. Anyway, Cubs reliever Joel Peralta came in and promptly walked Alejandro De Aza. I don’t care that De Aza had a nice AB. Inexcusable walk by the Cubs pen. Then last night’s leadoff hitter Brandon Nimmo came to the plate. Nimmo had a fantastic AB against Peralta. He got the count to 3-2 and managed to rope one up the middle to drive in d’Arnaud and get De Aza to third base. I can’t even remember the last time the Mets had a clutch hit, but this one was as clutch as they come. That made the score 3-2 Cubs. Then Joe Maddon brought in Pedro Strop and the Cubs essentially gave the Mets the lead. With De Aza on third and Nimmo on second, Neil Walker hit a ball to second baseman Javier Baez. Baez threw the ball to third base to try and get Nimmo, and he made a terrible throw that missed Bryant’s glove. De Aza scored and Nimmo scored and that made it 4-3 Mets.

The Bridge: Addison Reed came in for the 8th inning and gave up a single to Willson Contreras. He struck out the next two batters, although he did toss a wild pitch along the way that allowed Contreras to get to second base. Then in the “Battle of the Addisons”, Reed walked Addison Russell and Terry pulled him from the game. Luckily, Jerry Blevins came in, retired Jason Heyward and preserved the lead.

Thank You Jeurys: Jeurys Familia did his 2016 tightrope routine. He walked leadoff man Miguel Montero and gave up a double to Ben Zobrist. Then he struck out Kris Bryant for the first out. He walked Anthony Rizzo intentionally to load the bases. Then Familia got a strikeout followed by a pop out to end the game.

Fire: Steven Matz was ready to charge the mound last night when Lackey almost hit him with a pitch in the fifth inning. Nimmo was jacked up when he won his battle against Joel Peralta and smacked that clutch hit in the 7th inning. Addison Reed was ready to punch a wall when Terry pulled him in the 8th inning. Jerry Blevins was screaming and shouting when he got the last out in the 8th. Familia’s head was about to explode when he closed the game out. I’m sure these guys are jacked up for the Cubs. There’s no doubt about it. But they have to be jacked up to turn this season around too. They knows what’s up. They feel our pain. I hope they keep this fire all weekend.

Today: Jacob deGrom goes tonight. Let’s win two games before Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester take the mound. Right the ship baby. Score runs please.

De Aza And Murph: The Curse Reminder Game

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Final Score: Nationals 4, Mets 2

At this point, the Mets 2016 season has hit “rock bottom” too many times to even count. The term “rock bottom” has lost all meaning. But the outcome of this game goes much deeper than a simple loss. The recap is quick and simple. Daniel Murphy hit a solo home run off of Logan Verrett in the second inning to make it 1-0. Jayson Werth added a sac fly in the third inning and Murph added a two run shot in the 8th inning off of Sean Gilmartin to make it 4-0. The Mets never had a real opportunity off of Max Scherzer in this game. Scherzer was pulled in the 8th inning after going 7.1 scoreless innings and striking out 10. In the 9th inning, Yoenis Cespedes singled and James Loney hit a two run home run to make it 4-2. Yeah that’s right. James Loney our 2016 cleanup hitter launched a home run.

METS Disease: This wasn’t just some pitchers duel with a few key home runs. This game served as a reminder for all Mets fans how real the franchise curse is. It reminds all Mets fans how real METS disease is. We watched both phenomena happening simultaneously on the field. It’s been genuinely hard to watch Alejandro De Aza step into the batter’s box in 2016. He’s hitting .158/.208/.232 on the season. He is arguably the best example we have in 2016 of what METS disease can do to a player. De Aza is a man who once had major league skills and abilities and now he has none of the above. De Aza came to the Mets with a career .263/.326/.398 batting line. In his career he had success against right handed pitching to the tune of a .743 OPS.

All those skills and credentials became meaningless once he signed with the Mets. As soon as his pen hit the dotted line of his Mets contract he was instantly infected. Alejandro was no different than Chris Young or John Mayberry Jr. These were all players with decent major league resumes. They had known skills. They were versatile outfielders brought in to play a bench role. But with the Mets they couldn’t even make contact in batting practice. With METS disease you inexplicably lose your skills or you lose your health. In rare cases you lose them both at once (e.g. Michael Cuddyer). In last night’s game, De Aza came to the plate in the 8th inning with men on second and third and two outs. He struck out against Shawn Kelley in pathetic fashion. De Aza will suffer the same fate as Chris Young and Mayberry. He will be released mid-season. Goodbye Alejandro. Take some time off to recover from the METS and go rejuvenate your career somewhere else.

Mets Curse: The Daniel Murphy storyline is where we had the opportunity to see the Mets curse happening live. For Mets fans, his success is the least surprising thing of all time. The Mets spent the better part of two years trying to trade Daniel Murphy for a mid-level prospect. Gary Cohen once went on TV and referred to Murph as a “net negative”. We all know what Gary meant. Murph was an above average major league hitter, with limited power, and was an absolute liability at every single position. He cost the Mets games with defensive gaffes all time time. Sure we all saw him carry the team to the World Series with tons of dingers. But we also saw him Murph it up defensively in the World Series. We all knew Murph never hit more than 14 homers. Murph never posted an OPS higher than .770 in a season where he had more than 500 ABs.

Murph was an average to slightly above average hitter. That’s not an opinion. It’s a fact based on his pre-2016 career numbers. We all watched the guy for 7 years. Well he’s not average anymore. He’s having an MVP season. He’s now an MVP candidate and a Met killer for life. That’s not natural. No I’m not attributing it to steroids. It’s just the Mets curse. It’s the way things work. We’ve seen it all before. And now the curse is manifesting itself yet again in the form of Daniel Murphy.

The Takeaway: The only takeaway I have is to never forget. Never let a World Series run or some run of short lived success fool you when it comes to the Mets. The Fans Remember. We must remember the team that we root for and everything that goes with it. It’s not a matter of the fans being cynical or pessimistic. We’ve all seen METS disease and the Mets curse play out a million times in a million different situations. It’s not pessimism. It’s realism.

Today: The Mets open a home series against the Cubs today. Don’t be fooled. Don’t think for one second that anything that happened in the 2015 playoffs will have any impact on how this weekend series will play out. The season is unraveling. It’s all unraveling. The sky is falling. The Cubs are going to dance on our pre All-Star break grave.

It’s Time To Step Up Or Watch The Season Burn

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Recap: The Mets lost last night 5-0 to the Nationals. Matt Harvey started the game and gave up a run in 3.2 innings before an 85 minute rain delay ended his start. The one run was too much. The Mets don’t score runs. There’s nothing to recap other than the Mets loaded the bases with one out in the 6th inning when it was 3-0 Nationals. Oliver Perez managed to strike out James Loney and got Wilmer Flores to fly out. Yeah it’s funny that former Met Oliver Perez got big outs. Ha ha freaking ha. You can literally insert any pitcher in that scenario, and he’ll retire Loney and Flores. That’s just 2016 Mets baseball. The other notable news was Curtis Granderson was pulled from the game with calf soreness and Hansel Robles took a comebacker off of his calf. Two more injuries. Toss them in the goddamn body pile. It sure feels like Logan Verrett and the Mets are going to get swept today by Max Scherzer and the Nationals. The season was spiraling out of control long before this series. The Mets are 5 games out of the division. Now they are officially .5 games out in the Wild Card race.

I really don’t have any coherent points to make. So this post will just be me complaining about a bunch of stuff.

Rain Men: Screw the Nationals for starting that game last night knowing rain was inevitable. Screw the umpires for stopping it, and then re-starting it. Everyone responsible for the decision making that went into that horrendous 5 hour stretch of start and stop baseball should burn in hell.

Big Injuries: In 2016, the Mets have dealt with the annual injury plague on our house. The 2016 injuries have somehow been worse than the 2015 plague, and that’s saying a lot. David Wright is out forever. Claimed by METS disease too soon. Lucas Duda is supposed to return in roughly a month from his cracked back. Yeah right.

Death Count: The following players are on the disabled list, have missed time due to injury or are struggling due to injury: David Wright (DL- back, neck), Juan Lagares (DL- torn thumb), Zack Wheeler (DL- elbow), Lucas Duda (DL-cracked back), Jim Henderson (DL-shoulder), Travis d’Arnaud (spent most of the year on the DL because of his brittle bones), Steven Matz/Noah Syndergaard (Elbow bone spurs. They need their elbows no?), Michael Conforto (wrist), Jacob deGrom (lat), Matt Harvey (pee problems), Wilmer Flores (I don’t even remember. Hamstring I think.), Hansel Robles (ankle, comebacker off the calf), Neil Walker (back spasms), Asdrubal Cabrera (back spasms), Yoenis Cespedes (hip, ankles, everything). I could be missing people. They’re all hurt. Every last one of them.

Repent and Pray: The only people that have escaped the plague are Jerry Blevins (who broke his arm twice in the same place in 2015) and Bartolo Colon who just took a comebacker off his thumb like a week ago and is a 43 year old HGH fueled monster. All we can do to stop these injuries is repent for our sins and pray for mercy. What other options do we have? Animal sacrifice? Hunger strike? I really have no answers.

Players That Must Step Up:

Travis d’Arnaud: He’s missed almost this entire season due to his pathetic glass bones. He’s hitting .206 with a .520 OPS. He can’t throw out anyone on the base-paths. His absence from the lineup due to injury as well as his lack of production when he’s in the lineup has been a major factor in the demise of our offense. Wake the hell up Travis or get the hell out of town.

Wilmer Flores: I am so sick of the Wilmer apologists. He was useless and hurt in April and May. Then when Wright went down, he briefly got hot to start June. Now he’s stumbling in the second half of the month. So many people saying “Oooh Wilmer is holding his own at third base.” Give me a break. Wilmer’s been so great that the Mets just signed Jose Reyes and crowned him the new utilityman knowing he has no major league experience at any position other than shortstop and 43 games at second base in 2004. Sign the Cuban third basemen Yulieski Gourriel. David Wright with half a neck and a mangled spine was twice the player Wilmer Flores is.

Michael Conforto: He’s young, but after April he evaporated at the plate in his sophomore campaign. The Mets shouldn’t have counted on him in 2016, but they did. Now he needs to get his act together in Vegas. Not in two months. Not in one month. He needs to get it together in like two weeks. He needs to be back in the lineup and producing as soon as the All-Star break is over. Otherwise the season is over.

Curtis Granderson: We all knew Curtis was going to regress from his 2015 form. After a horrendous May he’s turned his season back around in June. But the Mets need even more from him. No more months like May with a .190 average and a million strikeouts. We need him to produce all summer and in big spots. Somebody in this lineup other than Cespedes has to produce for Christ’s sake.

Alejandro De Aza: Ohhh the poor baby De Aza doesn’t get enough ABs so he’s sad and rusty at the plate??? I honestly think we should give him 20 more ABs, and then we should cut him. .165 average and a.458 OPS? Is this real life? Get him off the team. Completely turn it around now or get the hell off my team.

Antonio Bastardo: Let’s be clear on this. Antonio Bastardo the 8 year veteran major league reliever does not suck. Antonio Bastardo the 2016 Mets reliever does suck. He’s having the worst year of his major league career. He’s horrendous. Another clear case of METS disease. We paid him to be one of our setup men. He has a 5.28 ERA. His strikeouts per 9 are down from his career number and his walks per 9 are way up. He stinks. He better turn it around now or he’ll be mopping up out of the pen for the next year and a half. Kill him Terry! Pitch him into the ground. Make him throw 100 bullpen sessions as punishment for his horrendous performance.

Matt Harvey: Matt Harvey had an atrocious April and May. Sure he has a 2.83 ERA in June, but he’s still 0-3 for the month. He needs to replicate his June success the rest of the way. No more setbacks. No more down months. The Mets can’t afford any more performance dips, especially considering the elbow issues Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard are now dealing with. The Dark Knight has to lead the rotation. He needs to give the Mets regular quality starts. I swear if he gives consistent quality outings, I won’t mind when he takes the L because the Mets failed to score him a single run. If he’s destined to lose 15-20 games in 2016 that’s fine by me as long as he gives the team a chance to win each time out.

Neil Walker: I don’t care what Neil did in April. What’s with this .596 OPS in June? How about a little consistency man. And the more inconsistent Neil is, the more I have to hear about Daniel freaking Murphy. I’m so sick of hearing how we never should have dumped Daniel Murphy and how he was the heart and soul of the team and blah blah blah. Murph would be hitting .275 if he was here and making errors every other day. He wouldn’t be an MVP candidate for the Mets. Frankly he’d probably be on the DL. The Mets problems in 2016 are a little more complex then “we got rid of Murph and now we lack passion”. Yeah people actually say that.

No Magic: Let’s be clear. The Yoenis Cespedes 2015 magic run is not happening this year. I’ve been saying this for weeks now. Last year we lacked depth, and we lacked the big time bat in the middle of our lineup. When the team collectively recovered from the injuries and added Cespedes it cured all our ills. This year is different. We have a bunch of legitimate major leaguers in our lineup right now. Neil Walker, Travis d’Arnaud, Asdrubal Cabrera, Curtis Granderson, Yoenis Cespedes. These guys are all here and playing daily. The mix hasn’t been working. This crew has to get it done. If the guys we have don’t step up (and soon) then we’ll be writing off the season in August.

Long Season: I’m really sick of hearing about how long the season is like I don’t understand the law of averages. Yeah it’s a long season. I get it. People are saying that like the Mets are destined to play .650 baseball in August and September like they did last year. Umm what in God’s name would give anyone the impression that this team is destined to start winning and winning consistently? If the Mets turn the season around, I’m sure Team Long Season will throw “I told you so” in the face of every resident of Panic City. It won’t change that for May and June this team has been unwatchable.

Today: Salvage a game against the Nationals. Please beat Mad Eye Max Scherzer. Then we have the Cubs for four games? Jesus Christ.

ElbowSpurGate: It’s All Unraveling 

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The game is always secondary with the 2016 Mets. The injury plague has finally spread to the starting rotation. It was announced yesterday that Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard are both pitching with bone spurs in their pitching elbows. Double spur Monday may be the new low point of the 2016 Mets season. There’s no structural damage in their respective elbows. But that doesn’t really matter. They are pitching in pain, and the only way to end the pain is for them to have surgery to remove the spurs. For the record, Thor denied that he had a bone spur when asked by the media. He straight up said it’s a fabricated story. But that’s just something the God of Thunder would say to maintain his image. It’s clear Thor plans to just bathe in cortisone all year, fight through the pain, and get surgery after the season. Matz is apparently in significantly more pain, and the Mets front office braintrust will meet this week to decide if in-season surgery is the right move. Ultimately, Matz and Thor will be fine. Right? After all, Mets head trainer Ray Ramirez has been working with a brain spur for years.

Game Recap:

Final Score: Nationals 11, Mets 4

As far as the game goes, what can I say. We got blown out. I’m kind of surprised the Mets came out flat tonight after that inspiring split against the Braves aka the worst team in the National League. Watching the 2016 Mets is like pitching through a bone spur in the elbow. Always uncomfortable. Often painful. Not gonna end well.

Early Lead: The game started on a positive note when the Mets got out to an early lead. Early lead? Yeah early lead. Don’t get too excited, it didn’t last at all. In the first inning, Curtis Granderson led off with a single and with one out Yoenis Cespedes singled him to third. Then Neil Walker hit a sac fly. Sac fly? Yeah sac fly! Hooray!!!! Then in the second inning, Brandon Nimmo and Travis d’Arnaud hit back to back singles with one out. And with two outs Grandy hit an RBI single. A two out run scoring hit!!! That made it 2-0. In the third inning, Walker singled, James Loney doubled, and Wilmer Flores singled to drive them both in making it 4-0 Mets. With Thor on the mound, it felt like 4-0 would be enough for a guaranteed win. Nope!

Thor: Let’s be clear about the elbow spur problem. I’m sure it is bothering Noah. He denied it was a problem post game, but athletes tend to lie about injuries. It is known. But it sure as hell didn’t stop him from throwing 100 MPH consistently. That being said, he just got smacked around. He went 3 innings, gave up 7 hits, 5 runs, 3 walks, and he allowed 5 stolen bases. He gave up 5 runs in the third inning. Ben Revere led off with a single and stole a base. Bryce Harper hit an RBI single and stole a base. It’s honestly too painful to even recap all the run scoring hits.

The Contingency Plan: Thor was pulled after three innings with the score at 5-4 Nationals. At least the Mets have a great long man in Sean Gilmartin to bail out the starters when they have a rough day. Right? Wrong. Gilmartin gave up 7 hits and 5 runs in two innings. The Nats scored 11 unanswered runs. If this wasn’t the most embarrassing loss of the year it certainly was a nominee for the award.

Stolen Bases: The Nationals ran all over Thor as every team has all season long. He’s allowed 28 stolen bases on the season. That’s double any other guy in the league. Yeesh. Elbow spur aside, what the hell is Noah Syndergaard doing? What are the Mets doing? How are they not prioritizing holding people on as part of practice and as part of every game plan. At this point Rene Rivera has to be Noah’s personal catcher. But it’s not even about the catcher. Thor doesn’t even give his catcher a chance to throw people out.

Don’t Ignore The Wasted Chances: Listen the Nationals took a dump on the Mets last night. They scored 11 runs on 17 hits. But let’s not ignore that the Mets had 14 hits and 4 runs to show for it. They smacked around Nats starter Joe Ross to the tune of 10 hits. But they didn’t capitalize on all the opportunities. That’s just Mets baseball in 2016.

Loney Horrendous: In the fifth inning with runners on first and third and one out, James Loney fielded a ball at first base and made a mistake trying to get the lead runner going home instead of getting the easy out at first. The runner scored on the fielder’s choice. Loney had an ugly night defensively. Whatever. Everyone had an ugly night.

I Turned It Off: I turned the game off when the score reached 11-4. It was my first straight up boycott game turn off of the season. It was just too ugly to keep watching. In my opinion, Terry should have brought in Antonio Bastardo as soon as Thor left the game and made him pitch the rest of the night as punishment for being so crappy this season. Pitch him until his arm falls off. Hell Terry does it with everyone else. Might as well wreck Bastardo for our own good.

Pitching Depth: I wrote about this weeks ago. I said we can’t trade Zack Wheeler because we need all these arms. The only way we survive this season and the seasons to come is with our unrivaled pitching depth. The only guy we have that seemingly can’t be stopped is Bartolo Colon.

It’ll Be Okay (I Think/I Hope): I will say this. Pitchers fight through elbow soreness, bone spurs, bone chips, fatigue, and every other problem under the sun year after year. Remember Jon Niese and his annual elbow/shoulder problems? It was an early summer tradition. I’m not trying to belittle the problem that Thor and Matz have, but I do think it’s possible they can fight through the issue. I also think it’s hilarious that both Matz and Thor came out the gate so strong and before the end of June their arms are barking. They are such young studs. It’s a long season fellas. Rest up and keep those arms strong. The full year grind is intense. Pray.

Gurriel: The Mets watched the new Cuban third baseman Yulieski Gourriel (legally changed to Gurriel) workout yesterday. Sign him. Do it.

Today: Don’t worry, I’m sure Matt Harvey will save the Mets tonight. I never thought I’d type something like that and mean it 100% sarcastically.