Tag: mets

Series Preview: Mets Head To Philly, Home Of Wawa

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Wawa_Market

After a big road series win in Cleveland, the Mets head to Philly where they will try to keep the momentum going. Our offense is finally heating up. Philly just lost 2 out of 3 to the scorching hot Nationals, but they took the series finale in an extra inning walk off win. They beat their former closer Jonathan Papelbon. The Phillies are a young team, but so far this season they’ve shown they aren’t going to just accept the “we’re rebuilding” narrative. They won’t just roll over, so we need to force the issue and take it to them. We need to get some payback after that embarrassing home opening series.

On a related note, I was making my way through New Jersey this weekend, and I stopped off at Wawa for breakfast. I ordered a breakfast sandwich on a hoagie, and it was delicious. I’ve always wondered why Wawa never made it’s way into New York City. According to Wikipedia, in the 1990s the decision was made to abandon the franchised stores in New York as it was “too competitive”. I think Wawa’s approach to expansion really sums up the New York/Philadelphia sports rivalry quite well.

Pitching Matchups:

Game 1: Noah Syndergaard vs. Jerad Eickhoff. Eickhoff was good through five innings against us at Citi Field during the home opener. But we got to him in the 6th and chased him from the game after scoring a few runs. Michael Conforto and Curtis Granderson both hit home runs off of Eickhoff in 2015, and Conforto is actually 5 for 10 overall. He had a big RBI hit against him during the home opener. Unfortunately, the rest of the Mets have not fared so well against Eickhoff in his young career. After that dominant no-decision Thor got against Miami, it would be so nice if we could score him some damn runs.

Game 2: Logan Verrett vs. Vincent Velasquez. Velasquez has been dominant for the Phillies thus far. He’s a 23 year old pitcher the Phillies acquired in the offseason trade of their former closer Ken Giles. So far that trade has looked real good for them. He’s been throwing his fastball extra hard. Mid to upper 90s. He shut us out over 6 innings last week and had 9 strikeouts. He also recently struck out 16 Padres in a complete game shutout. But Logan Verrett was impressive in his first fill in start for deGrom against Miami. And we saw Velasquez once, so hopefully that will help us in this second go round.

Game 3: Bartolo Colon vs. Jeremy Hellickson. Bartolo may have lost to Velasquez last series against Philly, but he dominated in that game. One run over 6 innings with 7 strikeouts. That’s some sexiness right there. Last year Bartolo was 1-1 at Citizens Bank. Hellickson barely went 5 innings in his first outing against the Mets. Yoenis Cespedes and Neil Walker have had some success against Hellickson in their careers. He took his first loss of the season last time out against the Nationals. They rocked him, scoring 6 runs in three innings. Let’s hope we have similar success.

Things To Look For:

David Loves Philly: David Wright has the most home runs by a visiting player in the history of Citizens Bank Park. It would be tough for him to pull a Chipper Jones and name his first born child Citizens Bank. If it’s a boy, maybe he can go with Anthony Thomas Michael Wright and call him ATM for short.

We’re Going Streaking: Lucas Duda had a big two RBI hit in Sunday’s finale against Cleveland, but he’s off to a slow start. He’s hitting .205 with 1 double and no home runs. I can’t wait for Lucas to finally show up in May and hit .875 with 15 home runs. Then he’ll disappear for two months like Keyser Söze, only to reappear for a two week stretch at the end of the season to hit his other 15 home runs. He’s really Mr. Streak.

Fear the Reaper: Yoenis Cespedes is still a little sore after jumping into the stands during the series against the Marlins at home. He DH’d all weekend, but despite his soreness he had a lot of success at the plate going 4 for 12. Travis d’Arnaud got plunked on the elbow on Saturday, and it’s still bugging him. He’s expected back at some point during the Philly series this week. Despite those minor injuries and the Jacob deGrom lat issue, we have been running our full lineup out there to start the season. The gods have blessed us so far with good health, but not really good fortune as far as wins and losses. We need to stockpile the wins now while we have our health for as we all know Valar Morghulis.

Cleveland Rocked: Matz Takes Rubber Game Against Indians

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Final Score: Mets 6, Indians 0

This was hands down the biggest win of the season. We needed to take this series after what the Indians did to Matt Harvey yesterday. We needed to win a series period. Well the Mets offense broke out again, and Steven Matz was able to silence the Indian bats. We managed to beat one of Cleveland’s aces Corey Kluber. Unbelievable. Hopefully this win will give us some momentum as we head to Philly.

We all knew the bats were eventually going to break out, but we can’t deny that the offensive surge has coincided with Michael Conforto moving to the 3 hole. He’s crushing it. Curtis Granderson walked and Asdrubal Cabrera singled to start the game. And Conforto smacked a double to drive in Grandy right away. Then Lucas Duda drove in two more with a two out single. We got off to a hot start right away, and Conforto was in the middle of it.

In the second inning, the Lord of Light cast the sun upon the Indians. Grandy got a two out triple when center fielder Rajai Davis lost the ball in the sun. Then Asdrubal drove him in with a bunt to make it 4-0. The bunt was a genius move with two outs. He caught Kluber completely off guard. So much so that Kluber threw the ball away trying to make the play at first which allowed Cabrera to get to second base. Conforto proceeded to drive Cabrera in with a double. After the Conforto RBI, the inning seemed like it was about to end when Yoenis Cespedes drove a routine fly to center field. But once again Rajai Davis just never saw the ball, and it dropped which allowed Conforto to score making it 6-0.

Matz did the rest today pitching 7 shutout innings and striking out 9 Indians. It was without a doubt the biggest start of the season from any of our young aces. What an amazing way to rebound after his opening stinker.

Hansel So Hot Right Now: Hansel Robles blew away the Indians in the 8th inning with two strikeouts. He’s been dominant so far this season which is very promising.

Catch The Fever: Travis d’Arnaud got nailed on the elbow yesterday by a pitch. X-Rays were negative, but he’s supposedly in a lot of pain. He definitely won’t play tomorrow, but hopefully Mr. Glass will be back by mid-week. Today Kevin Plawecki got the start and went 2 for 4. He’s batting .333 for the season. Remember when people said he should start in Triple-A for a little more seasoning? What a joke that was. Johnny Monell would be batting .000 if he was our backup catcher. God I hope d’Arnaud is okay because I don’t want to see the terrible Triple-A catching corps at any point this season.

Tomorrow: Now it’s on to Philly with Noah Syndergaard on the mound. Let’s keep this momentum going and have a big week against the Phillies and Braves.

Mets Lose; What’s The Deal With Harvey?

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Final Score: Indians 7, Mets 5

On Saturday, Curtis Granderson led the game off with a home run. In the top of the 8th, Yoenis Cespedes hit a three run bomb. Neil Walker also hit a solo shot in that inning. The home run parade from Friday continued against the Indians on Saturday. With our ace Matt Harvey on the mound, five runs should be plenty to win that game and the series. But it wasn’t because Harvey got smacked up yet again. He’s been following an eerily similar in-game blueprint. He starts strong and tires midway through the game. Harvey was no hitting them into the 5th inning, and then the wheels fell off. The Indians got a couple of runs against Harvey in the 5th and then a few more in the 6th before he was yanked for Rafael Montero. If your starter is giving up five runs, it’s generally loser ball every time. And it certainly isn’t what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing with Harvey on the mound. Also Rafael Montero looked bad in his season debut. He’s gone from top prospect to toilet mop up man.

What’s The Deal With Harvey?: So Harvey’s start to the season is a big problem. Dan Warthen, Terry Collins, and Harvey are all super concerned. Supposedly it’s a mechanical issue from the stretch and Warthen said “Basically, he’s trying to throw hard.” Matt Harvey refuted the notion that he’s suffering from playoff related fatigue. Quite frankly, I don’t buy that. I think Harvey and deGrom have both battled issues that have affected their mechanics, velocity, and performance. And I just refuse to believe that an all time high workload in 2015 has nothing to do with it.

Whatever it is, please keep lighting all your damn candles. Jacob deGrom has the troublesome lat, Zack Wheeler had a “minor” surgery to get some Tommy John stitches removed, and Matt Harvey now has these mechanical “issues”. Meanwhile, Noah Syndergaard is somehow sustaining his 100 MPH fastball and throwing harder than anyone on the planet. We need this rotation intact. We need the Mets pitching universe to remain in a perfect state of equilibrium. Ideally, we could just use stem cells to clone Bartolo Colon and have five 300 pound starters invulnerable to injury. Maybe before he retires, Tolo can put us in touch with one of his friends at the Biogenesis anti-aging clinic and make that happen. But for now, we need our young studs to stay healthy naturally and remain effective. Fingers crossed.

Today: We need to beat their ace Corey Kluber in the rubber game today. It’s as simple as that. We are five games behind the Nationals already in the standings. Sigh.

Pray For What Matters: By the way, take everything I wrote above and toss it in the trash. Jacob deGrom is still in Florida but not because of his lat injury. He’s there because his newborn infant is having medical complications. The team said today that the infant is doing much better, but please pray for Jacob, his wife Stacey and their newborn baby Jaxon.

Uribe vs. Tolo: Mets Win Battle Of The Sexes

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Final Score: Mets 6, Indians 5

Jesus Christ we barely pulled that game out in the end. But Big Sexy Bartolo Colon and the Mets take game 1 of this series against Dark Sexy Juan Uribe and the Indians. The offense finally broke out of its early funk. What did I say this week? I said the offense has been unlucky. I said we need to hit more home runs because that’s one of our offensive strengths (genius right?). I said on Wednesday that it looked like the offense was getting quality at bats, and it seemed like we were a couple of big hits away from turning things around. Well tonight the big flies came, and they came in bulk. Terry moved Michael Conforto to the 3 hole in the lineup, and he hit a dinger immediately in the top of the 1st. Boom. Lock him up in that spot forever. In the top of the 5th, Alejandro De Aza hit a home run. He went 3 for 4 in the game. He was a triple shy of the cycle. Boom. Then in the same inning, Conforto singled with two outs and Yoenis Cespedes followed that up with a two run jack. Lucas Duda followed that with a single, and the Indians brought in lefthander Ross Detwiler to pitch. Then Neil Walker, batting righthanded, hit a two run home run to make it 6-1. Ding Dongs all day.

Big Sexy wasn’t at his sexiest but he was sexy enough. He got chased in the 6th inning. His effort wasn’t enough for a quality start, but he got the win. After Antonio Bastardo and Hansel Robles bailed out Sexy, I was all excited to praise the bullpen in my postgame recap. Unfortunately, Addison Reed gave up a two run bomb to Carlos Santana in the 9th inning, and Terry had to summon Jeurys Familia to bail him out. And Familia barely closed the game out. He gave up a 2 out single to Yan Gomes, threw a wild pitch, then a single to Marlon Byrd, and then walked Juan Uribe. But he managed to get Jose Ramirez to fly out. We got the win. Phew.

Terry Puts A Hit On La Familia: Terry should be arrested for attempted murder. He’s trying to kill our arms left and right. He straight up publicly attacked Jim Henderson by bringing him in against the Marlins on Wednesday. And he’s killing Familia. The Mets tweeted out today that since the start of the 2015 season, Familia has four saves of five or more outs. That’s the most in baseball. Umm these pitchers are like cars. They have limited mileage. They are easily burnt out. They have limits. Familia is arguably our most essential and irreplaceable pitcher. Protect him Terry. Actually I’m just going to ask Sandy to force Terry to protect him because that’s our only hope.

Nationals En Fuego: The Nationals are 8-1. They are crushing the NL Least. I thought that was our plan. They aren’t going to stumble this season. We need to start winning to keep up. Two in a row is a good start.

Tomorrow: We need to win this series tomorrow with Matt Harvey on the mound and avoid a rubber game against Kluber on Sunday. Step up Dark Knight. Do it.

Series Preview: From Panic City to Cleveland

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disney-pocahontas
After a disgraceful home stand against Philly and Miami where the Mets dropped 4 of 6, we are off to Cleveland for a little interleague action. The Indians are off to a 4-3 start unlike the floundering Mets. But both teams rank in the bottom five for runs scored. The entire weekend might wind up being a scoreless snoozefest. It’ll just blur into one long excruciating game. On offense Cleveland has a bit of an excuse because Michael Brantley and Lonnie Chisenhall, two of their starting outfielders, have started the season on the DL. And as far as I can tell, they aren’t due back on the big club for this series against the Mets. The problem with Cleveland is they haven’t pitched well so far either. They have a team ERA well over 4 and rank in the bottom 10. Yuck. But pitching is their strength so it’s really just a few bad games and not indicative of their overall talent.

Pitching Matchups:

We’ve lucked out on this trip to Cleveland since we miss Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, two of their top 3 young studs.

Game 1: Bartolo Colon vs. Cody Anderson

Cody Anderson is one of Cleveland’s young starters, but a slightly less heralded one. He debuted in 2015 and made 15 starts. He went 7-3 with a 3.05 ERA. He throws a low 90s fastball with a slider and a change-up. He’s not a strikeout pitcher. He’s been a very effective middle of the rotation starter for the Indians in his young career. He’s never faced the Mets.

Bartolo is so sexy. But as a warning, Marlon Byrd is 6 for 14 with 2 bombs against him and Mike Napoli and Rajai Davis are 3 for 11. So not only does Cleveland have guys who have faced Sexy, but they have had some success against him. But again, he’s so sexy.

Game 2: Matt Harvey vs. Josh Tomlin

Tomlin was 7-2 with a 3.02 ERA in 10 starts for the Indians in 2015. Very few Mets have faced him. Curtis Granderson is 2 for 7 against him and Alejandro De Aza is 3 for 11 with a home run.

The Mets desperately need a big start from Matt Harvey. He’s kept the team in his two starts thus far, but he’s been nowhere near dominant. It would be nice if he had a big day against an Indians lineup that has struggled.

Game 3: Steven Matz vs. Corey Kluber

Steven Matz draws 2014 Cy Young winner Corey Kluber. He’s the big dog. He’s a popular preseason Cy Young pick in the AL. Over 450 innings pitched in the last two years. He’s 0-2 on the season. On Opening Day he got hit a little bit by the Red Sox, tired in the 6th, and got chased from the game. He gave up 4 earned runs over 5.1 innings pitched and took the loss to David Price. He went much deeper against Tampa Bay in his second start, but in the 8th inning with 2 outs he gave up a two run home run to Logan Forsythe and that was the difference in the game. A number of Mets have faced him. Yoenis Cespedes is 4 for 12 with a home run against him. Asdrubal Cabrera is 1 for 5 and Curtis Granderson is 1 for 3. Alejandro De Aza has seen him a lot but he’s 3 for 23. Yikes.

Steven Matz can’t pitch much worse than he did in his first start of the season. Matz has the composure of a veteran. I’m optimistic he’ll get back out there and give us a quality outing.

Things To Look For:

Baseball’s Sexiest Matchup: Bartolo Colon vs. Juan Uribe may be the sexiest matchup in the game today. Juan Uribe is 4 for 14 in his career against Bartolo. When Tolo delivers his first pitch to the Hog Show it is going to be electric.

Panic City’s Newest Resident: Terry Collins managed the final game of the Marlins series like it was the World Series. He threw Jeurys Familia out there for a 5 out save. That’s bananas in the second week of the season. He said it was a “huge win” and a game “we had to have”. He said he wanted to change the perception that “there’s no energy here”. Well for starters, it’s obvious Terry reads the New York Post and all the other media outlets that pump up the hysteria. He’s such an old man. Just watching Fox News and bugging out on his couch. Screaming to his wife about anything and everything, “I told you!! Didn’t I tell ya?” I can’t believe Terry officially moved to Panic City and the season is eight games old. It’ll be interesting to see if Terry operates in a similar fashion going forward. Clearly he’s already feeling the pressure of great expectations.

Road Dogs (Hopefully): Well we really sucked at home. We sucked big time. Now we embark on a 9 game road trip to Cleveland, Philadelphia and then to play the awful Braves in Atlanta. Cespedes crushed it on the road in 2015 to the tune of a .320 average. Curtis Granderson and Travis d’Arnaud also hit much better on the road. Let’s hope a little vacation sparks the bats and maybe some of these batted balls with men on base will start finding holes. Hopefully.

Fingers Crossed for deGrom: Jacob deGrom is supposedly throwing a bullpen session tomorrow. If he feels okay he will probably make his next start. If not he’s going on the DL. Light your candles for the big man. We need him.

Mets Salvage Finale; Learning To Score Again?

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You’re doing it Mets!!!

Final Score: Mets 2, Marlins 1

First off, the game ball goes to Logan Verrett for his exceptional pinch start in place of Jacob deGrom. He was dominant, and all his pitches looked great. His slider was nasty. I love our pitching depth. We are so #blessed in the pitching department.

The offense was pathetic again. It’s painful to watch us hit. But…we finally got a clutch hit! We only got one, but one clutch hit was all we needed today. The hit came in the 7th inning. Wilmer Flores singled and advanced to second base on a wild pitch. Asdrubal Cabrera singled to get him to third base. Juan Lagares grounded out softly to the pitcher who got the out at first base. But then Kevin Plawecki came through with a clutch hit to score Flores and Cabrera. Jesus Christ it felt good. Plawecki then copied Lucas Duda from yesterday and got thrown out trying to make it a double. But the runs scored.

The offense really stinks man. We blew chances again. In the 4th, we had two singles to start the inning from Curtis Granderson and David Wright. And Neil Walker singled to load the bases with one out. But Wilmer Flores and Asdrubal Cabrera couldn’t do anything. In the 9th, we got two men on with one out, but Alejandro De Aza lined into a double play. We have been so scoring impaired.

In the 8th inning, Yoenis Cespedes jumped into the stands in an attempt to catch a foul ball and speared a bunch of fans. For a guy who allegedly “doesn’t hustle”, he was hustling like it’s October. If you spent five minutes in Panic City with me you would understand why he’s going so hard. Everybody was ok. Thank the old gods and the new. Then Terry brought in Jeurys Familia for a 5 out save. Again, everyone just pretending it’s October. The Marlins scratched out a run when Familia gave up a hit to Justin Boar which scored one of the runners he inherited. But that was it. We salvaged a game in this abysmal three game set at home. Hooray.

The Jerry Manuel Managing Excellence Award: In the 7th, Terry pulled Verrett with a reasonable pitch count and brought in Jim Henderson. The same Henderson who is coming back from shoulder surgery and had a career high pitch count yesterday. I have to believe Carlos Torres and Pedro Feliciano both felt a disturbance in the force when TC brought in Henderson. As you would expect, Henderson had nothing in the tank and gave up a single and two walks before being pulled for Hansel Robles. Hansel Robles and Jerry Blevins somehow managed to maneuver us out of the inning and save the team from Terry’s mind blowing blunder. I thought it was simply going to be the offense that blew this game, but Terry decided to toss his hat in the ring.

Wilmer At First Base: Wilmer Flores made a gorgeous play at first base in the 5th inning. He looked good out there which is reassuring considering this was his first career major league start there, and he barely spent any time at the position this spring. Also, on a related note, the Pirates designated first basemen and outfielder Michael Morse for assignment. If he becomes available at the league minimum, the Mets should take a flyer on him instead of bringing back Soup.

Let’s Just Wait: I want to try and draw conclusions about our offense. But it’s just too early to do that. I think we are just starting in a collective unlucky funk, and it’s as simple as that. It certainly doesn’t mean our offensive scheme will eventually operate flawlessly. But we need a larger sample size to draw a real conclusion.

Tomorrow: We are off tomorrow. Then on to Cleveland to face their elite pitching. That could be trouble.

Shameful Mets Do Nothing To Support Dominant Thor

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Shame, Shame, Shame…

Final Score: Marlins 2, Mets 1

This was by far the Metsiest game of the season. It was really the first game where we had a bunch of opportunities to score and straight up squandered every one. Noah Syndergaard had one of the best starts of his career. He went 7 innings with 12 strikeouts and only 1 walk. He got every big K he needed all game long. But we failed to give him any support. It was an utterly disgraceful performance by our offense.

And as I said, we had many opportunities. In the first inning we got a leadoff double from Curtis Granderson. David Wright walked. Then Yoenis Cespedes struck out, but Lucas Duda picked him up by slashing an RBI single. Unfortunately bonehead Duda got thrown out trying to advance to second base. It was a terrible baserunning blunder. Neil Walker grounded out to end the inning, and we ended up with one pathetic run to show for getting the first two batters on base.

In the second inning, Michael Conforto got a leadoff walk. Travis d’Arnaud got a 1 out single. Thor sac bunted them both into scoring position. Then Grandy walked to load the bases. And after doing so much last night, Captain Wright couldn’t get it done. He flew out, and we wasted another early opportunity. We blew our chances against the Marlins ace Jose Fernandez when he was visibly struggling with his command on the mound. Absolutely unforgivable.

In the third inning, the wind stole a leadoff home run from Cespedes. He tossed his bat and started admiring it, and it died right at the wall. Mother Nature is so cruel. She stops the rain so we can watch Thor dominate, but her wind kills our best chance at a second run.

The Marlins tied the game in the 4th inning. It all started on a ground ball by Marcell Ozuna to second basemen Neil Walker in the hole between 1st and 2nd that led to a close play at first. Unfortunately Duda’s foot came off the bag during the stretch and the challenge led to the first base runner. Then the Marlins grounded into a couple of force outs. But with two outs they got two straight singles by Justin Bour and Derek Dietrich that led to their run. Thor managed to strike out Adeiny Hechavarria to end the threat.

In the bottom of the 6th, we had another opportunity when Mattingly yanked Jose Fernandez from the game. Cespedes got a leadoff hit. Duda struck out like a jerk, but then Walker singled. And of course Michael Conforto followed that up with a big fat double play. Some people wondered why Juan Lagares didn’t get a pinch hit opportunity against the lefty Craig Breslow, but you keep Conforto in the game there. I don’t want to hear about hitting splits and crap.

In the 8th inning, the Marlins finally took the lead. Dee Gordon led off with a 16 pitch AB that included fouling off 11 straight pitches before flaring a little BS hit off of Jim Henderson. Then after getting one out, Henderson walked a couple to load the bases and Jerry Blevins gave up a sac fly to give the Marlins the lead for good.

And that was it. The Mets didn’t do anything on offense the rest of the way. We went out with a pathetic whimper.

World Series Throwback: In the 7th inning, Asdrubal Cabrera made an amazing play on a ball Ichiro hit in the hole at short and threw to first but Ichiro beat the throw. But Derek Dietrich, who had been on second base, sprinted home and Duda in a World Series déjà vu moment made the throw home. But this time it was on time and on target to the plate. Better late than never (inserts gun in mouth).

We Are Struggggling: Lose two series against NL Least teams at home? Check. On the verge of getting swept by the Marlins at home? Yup. This is a brutal start. You know who’s not off to a brutal start? Daniel Murphy and the Nationals. We better shape up because the race for the division is 162 games. They all count. Hopefully this is a blip on the radar. But getting a dominant performance from our ace and then not scoring any runs to support said ace was the groundhog’s day story of pre-Cespedes 2015. We definitely cannot allow that to be the 2016 narrative for any extended stretch of time. If that happens then we stink.

Everyone’s A Damn Psychic: I saw literally a billion of the same tweet. “Umm friendly reminder, I told you Thor was going to win the Cy Young this year.” Thanks for your bold prediction everyone. You all really went out on a limb predicting that a guy who dominated in the 2015 playoffs and throws 100 MPH is going to win the Cy Young award.

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Hit Some Dingers: Umm I don’t mean to get all scientific here, but we have two home runs this season. That’s our team number. That is not enough. We are really struggling to get anything going on offense. We have so many accomplished hitters, I can’t imagine this drought goes on all season long. I certainly hope it’s not some sort of fundamental flaw in our offensive dynamic. Best not to think about it. After all, do you want to know the terrifying truth about the Mets, or do you want to see them sock a few dingers?

Tomorrow: We have a day game to close out the series with Logan Verrett on the mound. Jesus Christ can we salvage one game? Please?

Local “Scout” Calls For Steven Matz Demotion

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“Send him down to Triple-A,” said Queens native and alleged former major league scout Bill Johnson of Steven Matz. As he put back his eighth beer at the Citi Field McFadden’s after the game, Bill went on to say, “Matz got crushed tonight, and he’s just too green!! He looks like a boy. How can a 24 year old bum who lives with his parents expect to make it in the major leagues?”

When asked how we could possibly justify demoting Matz after one bad start considering his exceptional playoff performances, Mr. Johnson dismissively waved his hand and said “Ehhhhh.” He then proceeded to go on a rant about how pitchers in his day used to “go the whole 9” and “never had no damn surgeries.” When Mr. Johnson was pressed by a nearby woman to reveal what MLB team he used to scout for, he leaned in close to her and said, “any team you want sweet heart,” before tilting his head back and laughing maniacally. Bill then stumbled away from the bar to the men’s room and engaged in a conversation at the urinal with another man about how “hopeless” this generation of young people is.

Mets/Matz Get Devoured By Marlins

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Final Score: Marlins 10, Mets 3

Steven Matz looked great in the first inning. Really great! And that was about it. In the second inning, the Marlins blasted him. The inning started with two straight walks to Martin Prado and Chris Johnson and Matz was certainly getting squeezed a little bit. Keith and Ron were definitely getting on the home plate umpire for sure. But it didn’t end up mattering that much because Matz just kept giving up hit after hit. J.T. Realmuto got a single to load the bases. Then 8 hitter Adeiny Hechavarria singled to drive in two. After the pitcher bunted successfully, Dee Gordon singled in another run. After Marcell Ozuna popped out Christian Yelich singled to drive in two more. And to cap it all off, Giancarlo Stanton hit a 2 run bomb to make it 7-0. That was really the game. We scored a few in the 4th inning after a mini-rally. Yoenis Cespedes had an RBI single. They gave us a run on a wild pitch. Asdrubal Cabrera drove in our third run on a fielder’s choice, but again none of it ended up mattering.

Matz had a huge layoff before this start. I blame this crummy start on the MLB scheduling people and the bullshit first week full of days off that they gave us. I intend to write a sternly worded letter to the MLB offices. But Matz also stunk this spring, and he’s a rookie. So who the hell knows what to expect. We definitely don’t have the best team ERA in the NL anymore I can tell you that much.

The bottom line is our pitchers got rocked tonight. No way around that. And both teams played sloppy awful baseball tonight. Mistakes on both sides. But as George Contanza’s boss Mr. Kruger said many times, I’m not too worried about it. Why? Because generally speaking, so far this season our issues haven’t been about lack of effort or sloppy play. The problem has been almost exclusively the lack of offense. We only scored three runs tonight. Even if we got a quality start out of Matz, that may not have been enough to win. And the reason I’m not worried about the lack of offense is because it’s been the result of bad luck. Our team BABIP has been .235. BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) is the metric that tells you how often batted balls that aren’t home runs fall for hits. Essentially it’s the hitting luck metric. Typically 30% of balls in play fall for hits. We’re at 23.5%. Our BABIP is good for 28th in the league.

You can read about the metric here. But long story short, we’ve been unlucky thus far on offense. It’s been apparent from watching. Everything we hit finds a glove. At first I chalked it up to the Royals being the luckiest team on the face of the earth. But it continued against Philly and again tonight. Cespedes roped a ball that was caught by the second basemen in the 4th inning. And the game ended on a ball that was roped by David Wright that the shortstop snagged. Now it hasn’t all been bad luck. As I said in the series preview, Travis d’Arnaud and Curtis Granderson haven’t done much of anything so far. But bad luck has had a lot to do with our lack of offensive results. My point is the pendulum always swings the other way, and it will swing in our favor soon enough.

Other Notes:

Cabrera Bailed: Asdrubal Cabrera was mysteriously double switched out of the game in the 5th. There was no explanation from the booth regarding why. Terry said he wasn’t injured after the game. I’m guessing he got sick of our poo poo play and just bounced. He probably figured most of the crowd already left, and he could grab the 7 train unnoticed.

Murph King of the Dinger: Daniel Murphy hit another home run for the Nationals tonight. He’s going to punish us so bad when we play the Nationals. I can’t believe we refused to pay him and broke up the damn band. But whatever, we have to trust Sandy. At least for a few more weeks.

Soup Keeps The Highlights Coming: Eric Campbell struck out tonight and his bat went flying into the crowd. At this point the man is more than an auto-strikeout. He’s a freaking personal injury lawsuit waiting to happen. Maybe the Wilpons will become concerned about the litigation risk and banish him to Vegas. And for God’s sake if you’re going to fling your bat wildly at least fling it into the outfield and nail Giancarlo Stanton in the knee or something.

Papa deGrom To DL?: We used the entire bullpen tonight. We need fresh arms. Our choices are to put deGrom on paternity leave or put him on the DL. We’re hesitating to put him on paternity leave because if we do, then we can’t backdate any potential DL stint. I think at this point we should DL him and hope his lat is better next week. Pray.

Tomorrow: Noah Syndergaard vs. Jose Fernandez should be a real pitching showdown tomorrow. Unfortunately it’s going to get rained out. But be sure to head out to Citi Field for the 3 hour rain delay and spend $500 dollars on food so the Wilpons can buy back Piazza’s 9/11 jersey.

Series Preview: The Fish Have Arrived

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I fully expected to go into this series against the Marlins feeling confident after taking 2 of 3 from the Phillies over the weekend. Well that didn’t happen at all, and now I’m frightened by the invasion of the fish. They just split a weekend series against the Nationals in Washington. One game of the three game set was rained out. That’s a hell of a lot better than dropping a series to the Phillies at home. But they are still 1-3 because they lost two games to the Tigers to start the year. We get to face their top arm as well and lose Jacob deGrom on Wednesday due to his lat soreness. The Marlins big bats are off to a hot start. Dee Gordon starting right where he left off last season hitting .421 so far. Christian Yelich and Martin Prado have been raking as well. And Giancarlo Stanton is always a monster.

Pitching Matchups:

Game 1: Jarred Cosart vs. Steven Matz

Cosart had 3 starts against the Mets in 2015 with 3 no decisions. One was a brilliant 8 inning 2 hitter in Miami against our punchless lineup in April. In the other two starts he went 5.1 and 4.2 innings and didn’t fare as well. Asdrubal Cabrera is 3 for 9 against him in his career, Yoenis Cespedes is 2 for 6 with a dinger, Michael Conforto is 2 for 2, Lucas Duda is 2 for 6, Wilmer Flores is 4 for 10 with a dinger, and Juan Lagares is 3 for 7. Matz faced the Marlins once in Miami in September last year. He went 5.1 innings and gave up 2 runs. We could really use a big time start from our fourth ace tomorrow. We need to get off to a good start in this series and stop this brief skid. I guess that’s why it pays to have all these stoppers in the rotation.

Game 2: Jose Fernandez vs. Noah Syndergaard

In his first start of the 2016 season, Fernandez got roughed up a little bit by Detroit giving up 5 runs over 5 innings, but he struck out 13. The Mets don’t have a lot of career plate appearances against Fernandez because of all the time he’s missed recovering from his Tommy John surgery. In fact, we didn’t face him in 2014 or 2015. But he’s a beast, and he’s back to throwing 98 MPH. Thor dominated in his first start against KC. He never faced the Marlins during his rookie 2015 campaign. Thor vs. Fernandez is going to be must see TV assuming it doesn’t get rained out.

Game 3: Adam Conley vs. Logan Verrett

We were originally supposed to face Wei-Yin Chen in this game, but he was struck in the elbow by a liner on Opening Day against the Tigers. So his start is supposedly being pushed back. Since Conley is a lefty, I’m guessing we’ll see Lagares in this game and possibly Flores. Hopefully we don’t have to see Eric Campbell. Conley started against us once in September last year. He pitched 7 shutout innings in New York and got the win. Logan Verrett pitched 5 innings and gave up a run against the Marlins in September last year when we were conserving the innings of our big dogs. Hopefully he can come out of our pen and step up for Jacob deGrom. He doesn’t project as a frontline starter, but it’s nice to have guys like Verrett, Sean Gilmartin, Robert Gsellman, and Rafael Montero who can step up in a pinch with a start. As we all know, our pitching depth is our strength.

Things To Look For:

Offense: Umm maybe we should start hitting. I will certainly be looking for more offense. I think everyone will be looking for our offense. I know it’s cold, but I believe it was a French philosopher who once said “I hit, therefore I win.” Regarding the cold weather this weekend Cespedes said, “This is not a time to be playing baseball. It’s a time to be home sleeping.” While I’m totally a believer in winter hibernation, I definitely think Cespedes better get used to the weather pretty quickly. After all, October tends to be pretty damn chilly.

The Pen Is Mightier Than Expected: Until Sunday, the Mets pen hadn’t given up an earned run. Jim Henderson has looked great. They’ve all seemingly shaken off their spring rust and started strong. Will it continue? Is it sustainable? We shall see.

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Grandyman MIA: After being our MVP in 2015, Curtis Granderson has been MIA in the leadoff spot to start the season. He’s a career .238 hitter in April, so I guess you could call him a slow starter. It’s not going to be easy getting things going against Jose Fernandez and then the lefty Conley on Wednesday. But we need him. He was our constant on offense in 2015. He’s our table setter. Let’s hope his boy hitting coach Kevin Long gives him some good advice before the series starts. That is assuming Long isn’t too busy chasing Marlins hitting coach Barry Bonds for an autograph.