Tag: twins

Two Wins, One Blog

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The Minnesota Twins are so horrible that they don’t deserve two full recap blog posts. The Mets swept their doodie squad right out of town. Two wins, one blog. They actually weren’t the easiest wins. We didn’t really dominate in each game. But considering there was a stretch of the season where it felt like we’d never win two games in a row again, I’m still proud that we took care of business against baseball’s worst club.

Saturday’s Game- Final Score: Mets 3, Twins 2. 

Yo Obviously: The Twins took an early lead on a fourth inning solo homer. But Yoenis Cespedes managed to temporarily save the day in the 8th inning with a game tying RBI single.

Grandyman Heroics: In the 11th inning, Hansel Robles let up a solo shot to Byron Buxton to give the Twins a 2-1 lead. Curtis Granderson managed to keep the Mets alive with a game saving opposite field solo shot in the bottom of the 11th. But Jose Reyes struck out with the bases loaded in that same inning which kept the game going. In the 12th inning, Grandy hit the big time walkoff solo shot. His low batting average and terrible numbers with runners in scoring position this season really made everyone forget how big of a contributor he’s been during his time with the Mets. But Grandy is slowly creeping towards the 30 homer mark and helping to boost the Mets playoff chances. He’s also boosting his offseason trade value if the Mets decide to go in that direction.

Need A Zillion Arms: Seth Lugo pitched 5 innings and gave up 1 run. Then 7 relievers combined to pitch 7 innings. Other than the solo shot surrendered by Robles the pen shut down the Twins. These new young starters may not dominate in the same way as Jacob deGrom or Matt Harvey but they keep the Mets in games.

Sunday’s Game- Final Score: Mets 3, Twins 2

Magic Healing: On Sunday the Mets started Lucas Duda at first base despite saying that he would be limited to pinch hitting duty upon his arrival. I love that the Mets activated Duda and expect us to buy the Lucas magically healed narrative. They love playing guys with injuries. It’s their favorite thing in the world. Pray for cracked back Duda.

He Gave Them A Reason: I wrote last week that I had no problem with the Mets starting Jay Bruce instead of Michael Conforto because Michael has essentially done nothing on the field to warrant playing time and Bruce is an established major league slugger. I said if Conforto wanted to play he should compel the Mets with his bat. On Sunday he drew the start along with the rest of the B-squad starters and he had two hits. He had a 2-RBI single in the first inning. You know what? Now if Terry wants to play him at least we can say he had a multi-hit game. At least now we can actually say Conforto is hitting and Bruce is not. Before Sunday, Mikey had 2 hits in September. Hard to make an argument when both guys hadn’t hit a lick all month.

Quick Hook: Gabriel Ynoa delivered a performance similar to that of Lugo on Saturday. He went 4.2 innings and gave up a run. Terry yanked him after he gave up a two out single in the 5th inning. I probably would have let him stay in, but Terry knows he has a bunch of arms in the pen and obviously wanted to lock up that sweep. I’m fine with the quick hook.

Please Be A Surprise Stud: T.J. Rivera had 3 hits on Saturday and 2 hits on Sunday. He hit a solo homer in the third inning that gave the Mets a 3-1 lead. His homer was the difference in the game. I wrote earlier this year that it would be amazing if the Mets had a random breakout candidate that turned out to be a major league stud. I hope Rivera is one of these late blooming surprise stories. I’m starting to think the Mets feel he might be a bigger contributor than they originally anticipated. I’m also still trying to rationalize the trade of Dilson Herrera. So yeah that’s where I’ve landed. I’m hoping they thought Herrera was expendable because Rivera will be great. It’s more likely they dumped Herrera because they are stupid and panicked at the deadline.

Yo Dizzy: Yoenis Cespedes left the game in the 7th inning with dizziness and nausea. I’m guessing the fumes emanating from the stinky Twins finally knocked him out.

Terry Killed Wilmer: Wilmer Flores still can’t swing a bat. His wrist is screwed up. Terry and Tim Teufel destroyed him in that home plate collision game. That was a such a goddamn blunder.

Pray For Matz: The Mets are saying Steven Matz might be available to pitch this week. They’re going to kill him aren’t they? Please don’t hurt him Mets.

Terry Totally Needs 40 Guys: I love how much better this team is now that we don’t play short-handed every single night. Terry crushes managing with a 40 man roster. Hopefully they change the rules so Terry and Co. can play like this for 6 months instead of 2.

Today: Noah Syndergaard takes the mound against the Braves today. Let’s go 10-3 and win 90 games! 90? Forget 90 let’s win out. No excuses. These teams all stink.

A Day Of Resurrection

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Final Score: Mets 3, Twins 0

The Mets hit a couple of homers, Bartolo was dominant, and they beat the terrible Twins. That wasn’t really surprising at all. The shock of the day came before the game when the Mets announced that Jacob deGrom will start Sunday’s game, Lucas Duda/Juan Lagares have both been activated out of nowhere, and Steven Matz will throw a bullpen session this weekend and look to start soon. In all my years as a fan, I’m not sure I ever remember an injury resurrection day of this magnitude. I half expected David Wright and Michael Cuddyer to show up at Citi Field riding a tandem bike, ready to play ball. Insanity. I’m pretty sure they all did what I said weeks ago. They all smell the playoffs, and they had Ray Ramirez give them the pain numbing shot. Cortisone showers for everyone!

It’s Always Been About Dingers: In the actual game last night Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera hit back to back solo homers in the 3rd inning off of young stud prospect Jose Berrios. Team Power. That’s what we’ve been about since Opening Day. That made it 2-0 Mets. Yoenis Cespedes added an RBI single in the 7th inning. His RBI made up for an error he committed earlier in the game. The error didn’t end up mattering. Against a team like the Twins you get plenty of mulligans.

Big Boy: Bartolo Colon pitched 7 scoreless innings and gave up just 3 hits. Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia closed the game out. Those three guys have arguably been the most dependable arms on our team this season. Sign Bartolo this offseason and keep him here. We’d be lost without Big Sexy.

Cabrera Cramp: Cabrera came out of the game last night with a leg cramp. Now he has the bad knee and his other leg is cramping. He needs a cortisone shower big time. We need to rest him as often as we can afford to do so.

Ricco Not So Suave: The Twins want to interview our boy John Ricco for their front office. Ricco not so suave. They should hire Ricco as GM and Wally Backman as manager and create the island of Mets front office misfit toys. And obviously somehow make Jeff Wilpon the owner of the Twins. Please God take Jeff away from us.

Today: Ervin Santana and Seth Lugo face off tonight. Let’s see if Seth can keep him momentum going on the mound. Also Ervin Santana followed me on Twitter. He follows like 150 thousand people. He must have some insane account that randomly follows people. Or maybe he googled “Best and sexiest Mets blogger in the business” and The Metssiah was obviously the number one result.

My Best Guess: Predicting the 2016 MLB Playoffs and Player Awards

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Major League Baseball has such parity. Sure we can probably narrow down the field of competition to around 15 teams before the season even starts. Roughly half the league is actually competing for a championship. But that’s a hell of a lot better than the annual three team dance in the NFL or the one team in the NBA that has a chance to win (I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with Olden Plate Warriors). Jayson Stark from ESPN (and Winterfell) writes a brilliant annual column showing how the parity in MLB compares to that of the NFL. It really gives you an idea of how even the MLB playing field is, and how hard it is to predict the outcome of the season. Honestly, if you want the real crystal ball just look at the Vegas lines. Vegas knows better than me or any of the other baseball writers. That being said, if you want some of my magic insight, here are my playoff and player award predictions for 2016:

The Metssiah’s Player Award Predictions:

AL MVP: Manny Machado. Yeah I didn’t pick Mike Trout. I’m crazy!! Machado had a breakout season last year, he’s young, and he’s part of a beastly lineup. Plus my scouts (google images) say Machado’s head looks enormous this spring. Maybe he’s been getting his swoll on this offseason. I’m no phrenology expert, but big head equals big season.

AL Cy Young: Chris Archer

AL Rookie of the Year: Byron Buxton

NL MVP: Bryce Harper. Again. That being said, Yoenis Cespedes is going off at 25 to 1 in Vegas for MVP. I like that sweet action.

NL Cy Young: Max Scherzer. Yeah I’m betting against my boys, but I’ll say Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard finish 2, 3 and 4 respectively so I feel better about the betrayal.

NL Rookie of the Year: Corey Seager. But Steven Matz will probably be in the conversation.

 

The Metssiah’s American League Playoff Predictions:

WC Game: Rangers over Blue Jays

ALDS: Royals over Rangers and Astros over Yankees

ALCS: Astros over Royals

 

The Metssiah’s National League Playoff Predictions

WC Game: Nationals over Pirates

NLDS: Cubs over Nationals and Mets over Giants

NLCS: Mets over Cubs

 

World Series Prediction: Mets over Astros

 

Also, for my previously published divisional predictions see these posts:

American League East

American League Central

American League West

National League East

National League Central

National League West

My Best Guess: Predicting the 2016 American League Central

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(This is one post in a series of posts where I will be predicting the outcome of each MLB division. The final post will include full 2016 MLB postseason predictions.)

The 2014 Royals lost in the World Series to the Giants, but they brought back roughly the same team in 2015. The robot projection computers have disliked the Royals the last three seasons. They disliked them before their 2014 World Series appearance. They picked against them in the spring of 2015. For some reason, the robots are still picking against them in 2016. Jesse Spector wrote a great article attempting to explain why this is the case. Although the robots are self-aware, they don’t yet know how to love, and they clearly don’t know how to detect the Royals “it factor”. It seems resilience, determination, and experience “Do not compute”. I think despite the skepticism of the robots, most experts predicted they would make the playoffs in 2015 by winning the AL Central. Then of course, we saw that they didn’t just make the playoffs. They got back to the World Series and won it all. Despite all their spending, the Tigers struggled with injuries and bad luck in 2015. The Indians have a young pitching staff that rivals the Mets staff, but they are lacking in the offensive department. The White Sox spent a bunch of money on free agents prior to 2015, but their season turned out to be a mess. The Twins didn’t spend anything per usual and were mediocre. Here’s what I see in 2016:

AL Central: 1) Kansas City Royals (x) 2) Detroit Tigers 3) Cleveland Indians 4) Chicago White Sox 5) Minnesota Twins

You can’t bet against Kansas City. They are young, they just won the World Series, and they have repeat potential. I know they lost Ben Zobrist. I know they lost Johnny Cueto. But Ian Kennedy can eat innings, and they were never wowing anyone with their rotation anyway. They have the same pesky grind it out offense, and an even better pen with Joakim Soria back in the fold. They’ll take the division again. 

Detroit sucked last year. But they had injuries, an awful bullpen, and bad luck. I like what Jordan Zimmerman and Justin Upton do for their rotation and lineup respectively. Cameron Maybin had a career year in 2015. Maybe he figured something out. Francisco Rodriguez can still finish games with the best of them which will help their pen which was dogshit last season. I see them getting more production from Victor Martinez this year. And my boy Michael Fulmer is going to come up and have an impact in their rotation or bullpen. The Mets have been breeding strong arms, and this guy is supposedly the real deal. That being said, the Tigers will be behind the other Wild Card teams and miss the playoffs. 

Cleveland has that deadly rotation with Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, and Carlos Carrasco. A sort of Mets lite rotation. But they didn’t fix their problems on offense in my opinion, and Michael Brantley could be out for a stretch to start the season due to offseason shoulder surgery. I suppose they did add former Mets Juan “Hog Show” Uribe and Marlon “Biogenesis” Byrdman. But they needed a big bat. They pulled a Mets 2014/2015 in the offseason. We added old deteriorating Michael Cuddyer last offseason, when we really needed an actual big bat. Then we got Yoenis Cespedes midseason. Maybe they will do the same thing and have a big second half.

The White Sox are completely out. Sell sell sell! They are going to blow it all up midseason. White Sox Executive Vice President Ken Williams better pick up a copy of Windy Shitty: Theo Epstein’s Guide to Tanking in Chicago. They had a mediocre pitching staff last season and big time problems on offense. And a roll of Todd Frazier duct tape mixed with some Brett Lawrie crazy glue ain’t gonna patch the holes in this sinking ship. Plus DH Adam LaRoche just pulled a Michael Cuddyer by surprise retiring with money still on his contract. No matter how quickly they patch them holes they just keep opening up. Maybe they will spend that extra LaRoche money on another big bat to keep patching their crummy lineup. But I think it’s more likely they are posting a “Chris Sale for Sale” sign at the trade deadline. Book it.

Minnesota was .500 last season. They supposedly had an extremely “lucky” season by all advanced metrics and standards, and it still wasn’t good. They added a first basemen from Korea Byung-ho Park but not much else. I don’t expect much from them.

Other Divisional Predictions:

American League East