Tag: jon niese

Team Platoon Triumphs

On By themetssiahLeave a comment

Final Score: Mets 7, Cardinals 4

With injuries piling up yet again, this time to the rotation, the Mets were able to come through with a big win against the Wild Card leading St. Louis Cardinals. I’ve said many times that Terry and Sandy deserve some blame for many of the problems this team has had in 2016. But the players deserve the blame and credit most of all. And that’s why the Mets players deserve credit for an impressive win last night. It’s one game. They’re 3.5 games back of the Cards now in the Wild Card race. They need to keep winning and make a real statement.

Wounded Soldier: The Mets continue to generate evidence showing they are the most incompetent organization in baseball. Jon Niese stinks. Jon Niese had a knee injury that was known by the organization and the fans prior to last night’s game. The Mets could have easily put him on the DL or skipped his start. Instead they had him pitch, and of course in the first inning Niese had to leave the game with the aforementioned knee injury. He was placed on the DL after the game.

Private Gsellman: The Mets had previously promoted Triple-A starter Robert Gsellman to pitch out of the bullpen which was something he hadn’t done in years. Gsellman was forced to come in and pitch in long relief for Niese. Terry also left Niese in the game long enough to walk the one and three hitters and give up an RBI single to Brandon Moss. Then Gsellman came in and gave up an RBI double to Yadier Molina and an RBI ground out to Jhonny Peralta. Those runs tied the game at 3. Other than letting the Niese inherited runners score, Gsellman went 3.2 scoreless innings, and he was credited with the win.

Platoon Bombers: Before Niese fell apart, Wilmer Flores hit a three-run shot in the first inning. Justin Ruggiano also hit a solo shot in the fourth inning. Both homers came off of Cards lefty starter Jaime Garcia. The Mets lefty mashing platoon squad of Flores/Ruggiano is pretty impressive. As long as Terry makes the right matchup decisions, I’m totally fine with Team Platoon.

Seasoned Veterans: Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera each had 3 hits, and they both had RBI hits in the second inning. It’s nice to have two seasoned vets at the top of the order. All of a sudden with Reyes setting the table for Yoenis Cespedes, it feels like this team can actually score with runners in scoring position. The Mets were 5 for 10 in those spots last night. The Cardinals on the other hand seemingly left men on base every single inning.

The Reserves: Josh Smoker gave up a solo dinger to Randal Grichuk, but other than that the Mets relief corps was stellar. 6 relievers combined to pitch 8.2 innings and give up 1 run.

Field General: In addition to his two hits, Yoenis Cespedes made stellar defensive plays including a home run robbery. He also ran hard and seemingly was limping around again. Terry denied this after the game, but I don’t believe him. Yo is banged up. He’s been banged up all season. The notion that Yo doesn’t play hard or that he selectively hustles is one of the most appalling and fabricated false narratives in professional sports.

Captain Blunder: Speaking of Terry making the right platoon decisions, in the 7th inning with runners on first and third and one out Terry pinch hit for Wilmer Flores. He chose to have James Loney face a lefty specialist instead of having Wilmer face the righty who was already in the game. It was the wrong call because Loney doesn’t hit lefties at all, and also he’s been terrible lately. He promptly hit into a double play. He did add an insurance RBI single in the 9th inning to make it 7-4 Mets, so I suppose he redeemed himself.

Man Down: Yesterday Steven Matz was placed on the DL with shoulder discomfort. Supposedly there’s no structural damage, and he’ll only miss one start. Remember when we were supposed to have 5 young aces? Well we’re down to 2.

Today: I don’t want to say tonight’s game is a must win. But with Jacob deGrom on the mound and Seth Lugo on Thursday, it’s a must win. Carlos Martinez is great too, but the Mets have to find a way to win this game.

Mets Bring Back Niese For Bastardo; Uribe Next?

On By themetssiah1 Comment

The staff of writers that MLB hired to write the Mets 2016 season script are absolutely hilarious. First the Jay Bruce deal nearly falls apart due to medical issues which was obviously the writers way of paying homage to the failed 2015 Carlos Gomez deal. Then the Indians announce that they’ve designated Juan Uribe for assignment, and Sandy indicates the Mets could have interest in bringing him back. And finally for the last laugh, the Mets announce right at the trade deadline that they have re-acquired crybaby former Met Jon Niese for mop-up man Antonio Bastardo.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the Niese deal. Jon Niese is supposed to be a competent back-end starter, and Bastardo is supposed to be a competent situational lefty out of the pen. They’ve both been horrendous this season. It’s just two teams swapping garbage. Maybe Jon Niese takes the fifth spot in the Mets rotation and finishes the season strong. Maybe he comes out of the pen and puts up decent numbers. It certainly wouldn’t take much to outperform Antonio Bastardo. As far as Uribe goes, with the Asdrubal Cabrera injury I absolutely think the Mets should bring him back despite the fact that he’s having an awful season (.206/.259/.332). Why? Because he’s Juan Uribe dammit, and he was part of the 2015 World Series crew. That’s why. We broke up the band. We never should have broken up the band.

And that brings me to the only real point of this post. If the Mets bring back Kelly Johnson, Jon Niese, and Juan Uribe during a 2016 season where Daniel Murphy is on pace to win the NL MVP, then Sandy and the front office owe the fans a public apology. I don’t care that we essentially stole Neil Walker for Niese. Bringing back a bunch of players six months after you let them go means you exercised poor judgment in the offseason. Whatever. Let’s see what happens.

All I know is Jon Niese better get Edible Arrangements for all the defensively challenged Mets infielders he insulted on his way out the door. The best part is Niese missed the stretch of the season where we had improved defense up the middle. Niese joins the team a couple days after Cabrera strains his patella tendon. Now he’ll be looking at old Wilmer Flores at short all over again. Plus Jay Bruce is joining our stable of poor defensive outfielders. Niese is going to be rolling his eyes non-stop as we boot balls all over the field. Welcome back crybaby Niese!

Mets Drop Doubleheader; Wheels Are Falling Off

On By themetssiah5 Comments

Final Scores (For both pathetic games): Pirates 3, Mets 1

Yesterday, the Mets disproved the popular notion that doubleheaders are fun. They are in fact sad.

Game 1: It was literally the exact same story in both games. Steven Matz battled. In the first inning, he gave up a leadoff triple to Josh Harrison, and Harrison wound up scoring on an RBI single by David Freese. After giving up back to back singles to start the third inning, Matz got a strikeout, and then got Jung Ho Kang to hit into a double play. In the 5th inning, Josh Harrison hit a leadoff single and stole second base. Then Andrew McCutchen drove him in to make it 2-0. But Matz managed to wiggle out of that inning and limited the damage. He admitted he had nothing in this game, but he still went 5 innings and gave up only 2 runs while striking out 8.

Steven’s performance on the mound just didn’t matter. The Mets had no offense to speak of. Jon Niese shut them down over 7 scoreless innings. They loaded the bases with two out in the fourth inning and Michael Conforto struck out. He’s been awful lately. It’s bad. Steven Matz tripled with one out in the 5th inning, and the Mets couldn’t get him home. What a joke. Curtis Granderson hit a solo home run in the 8th inning. I’d like to celebrate it, but Grandy has been terrible. He’s batting .200. It’s a problem.

Game 2: Jacob deGrom experienced the exact same lack of support in game 2. He battled through 6 innings and gave up 3 runs with 9 strikeouts. He gave up a single to Jordy Mercer in the second inning and then a double to Sean Rodriguez. Cole Figueroa followed that with an RBI ground out. Chris Stewart then singled on an infield ground ball that was deflected by Asdrubal Cabrera. That run made it 2-0. The game felt over as soon as the Pirates took the lead. That’s just the way it is with the Mets offense lately. DeGrom gave up a fifth inning RBI double to John Jaso that made it 3-1. Jacob pitched fine. The Mets just can’t score. They had four damn hits. Kevin Plawecki hit an RBI single in the fifth inning. They had no other opportunities. Everyone is either injured or ice cold.

Déjà Vu Kinda: I cannot believe the 2016 Mets regular season is 2015 Déjà vu all over again. Well it’s kind of Déjà vu. It’s the same in the sense that we are decimated by injuries and the offense is historically incompetent. The difference is last year before the season, I said with confidence “umm hello, we need an impact bat. Why didn’t we get one?” I knew and most fans knew that without that bat we’d be screwed. And of course as soon as we landed one the season took off. This spring training, I said “umm hello, we can’t depend on David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud for anything at all. They are hurt every season. And we have no backup for Lucas Duda so he better not get hurt.” I think those things were fairly obvious before the season started. The problem is the impact bat solution was fairly straightforward and the solution for injury prone regulars is not straightforward at all. As much as depth is important, it’s challenging to build a team through external acquisitions where you carry extremely talented replacements for key regulars. The primary way to account for the injury prone regulars problem is by having a stacked farm system with a bunch of internal solutions. It’s a major luxury and not many teams have it.

We’ve Got Nothing: To further emphasize that point, all you need to do is look at the Cubs. Outfielder Jorge Soler just got hurt for them and they put him on the DL. So what are they going to do? They are dipping into their farm system and calling up Albert Almora another top 100 prospect who plays the outfield. When the Mets dip into their farm system their fingers wind up in an ice cold bowl of Soup. The point is, the only real way to prepare for injuries to regulars you depend on like Wright and d’Arnaud is by having big time minor league talent at Triple-A. The Mets unfortunately lack position players at Triple-A in areas of need. Dilson Herrera is a top second base prospect. The Mets can’t squeeze him in to help. Period. There’s no where to put him. Same goes with Brandon Nimmo. He’s crushing it right now in Vegas. He’s an outfielder. There’s no room at the inn folks. I guess we could bench Granderson considering he’s batting .200. But there’s no chance that happens. The season will be up in flames in late August before the Mets consider benching an outfielder that helped get them to the World Series and makes 15+ million dollars. The Mets may need to find a way to turn Brandon Nimmo or Dilson Herrera into players that fill positions of need. I don’t want to trade them and the front office probably won’t because they don’t live in Panic City like I do. But there’s no room for these guys right now, and we need help.

Let’s Put This To Bed: In April/May when the Mets had that stretch where they led the league in home runs, fans were panicking that the Mets were dependent on the home run. An equal number of fans were calling these fans out for being idiots, and they were regularly reminding everyone that home runs are the best method of scoring in baseball (like that takes a goddamn rocket scientist to figure out). Well now we can see what the Mets real problems are. The Mets offensive struggles are due to injury and the lack of any quality depth. They have nothing to do with a dependence on the home run. That being said, even when the Mets were hitting lots of home runs, they still ranked very low in overall runs scored. In conclusion, you can hit a lot of home runs as a team while simultaneously having a fundamentally flawed offense that lacks quality depth and the ability to consistently score runs. The Mets are living proof of that right now.

Shut Up About Conforto: Michael Conforto is in a slump, and this isn’t about him facing left-handed pitching. The guy is a young player, and he’s slumping. Period. He’ll turn it around. It may take him a while. He’s super young and growing pains were bound to happen. This is baseball.

My Thumb: Juan Lagares said it will probably be a couple more days before he tries to swing. He added that surgery is not a definite plan even after the season. At this point, I’m just going to add a daily reminder to all my posts that playing short handed is dumb.

Bastard: Antonio Bastardo surrendered a solo blast to Jordy Mercer in the bottom of the 6th inning of game 1 of the doubleheader. He now has a 4.13 ERA. I think we’re starting to see why the Pirates didn’t have a tribute video for his return to PNC Park. I think we’re starting to see why he was sitting on the free agent scrap heap late in the offseason. Meanwhile Tyler Clippard is dominating in Arizona. Ehh Eric Campbell, Ty Kelly, Antonio Bastardo. Juan Uribe, Kelly Johnson, Tyler Clippard. Tomato, Tomahto.

The Pitchers Are Better Again: When Matz hit that triple in game 1, I imagined Eric “Taxi Squad” Campbell watching it from his hotel room and realizing he should probably just stay there for game 2. Remember last season when our pitchers were objectively better hitters than our top backup position players for like two months? Well it’s happening again.

The Plan: What’s the plan? The plan is to batten down the hatches and wait out this offensive funk until fresh supplies arrive. Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Conforto, Asdrubal Cabrera, and hopefully Curtis Granderson won’t be in funks forever. We have a lot of injuries, but these veterans must perform. They will eventually. Until then, we watch these awful games and survive off of Spam and cans of beans (James Loney and Wilmer Flores). The ship will be righted. I think.

Today: Wow we really can’t beat the Pirates. They swept us last season, it feels like they are going to do the same thing in this series. It’s okay. Let’s take a deep breath. We still hold a wild card spot. We still get to play the NL Least all the time. We’ll just keep beating the bad NL East teams and hopefully at some point we can beat some other teams. Any team other than the Phillies, Marlins, and Braves will do. Noah Syndergaard faces top Pirates pitching prospect Jameson Taillon today. I picked up Taillon in fantasy for next week. I’m expecting the Mets to get shutout as are all residents of Panic City. Poor Thor. Can we get him a run or two?