HBP and ROE stats are through July 28, situational batting stats through July 29. During the Mets’ nearly unbeatable start to the season, I wrote about how the team’s pitching staff contributed, in part, by ensuring opposing runners who reached base rarely scored. Since then, the pitching has split between generally successful starts (a 3.74 […]
Author: Brian Duricy
The 2018 New York Mets In: “Double-Play Trouble!”
Statistics as of Thursday, June 28 My ideal reading of this article’s title would be to have it punctuated by that frantic swirling noise serving as the transition between scenes in classic superhero shows and/or contemporary scenes paying homage to them. Should you have participated, that’s likely one of the few Mets-related moments you’ve had […]
Jose Bautista and the tale of two teams
In 2011, Jose Bautista led all of baseball with 9.98 BWARP and tied with Matt Kemp for the best TAv with a Mike Trout-esque .357. Since then, there’s been the bat flip that served as yet more proof that sports can induce chilling, inspirational moments, and a series of above-average seasons before the aging curve […]
What the Mets are lacking in speed, they’re making up for in skill
Statistics accurate through April 23 games The day before the Mets began their 2018 campaign, first base coach Ruben Amaro Jr. told Newsday of the team’s plan to improve upon a skill that eluded them during 2017: smart baserunning. “You don’t have to have great speed to be a great baserunner,” he explained, and – save […]
Stranded: The (Early) 2018 New York Mets
Statistics accurate through Monday, April 9 games. Setting: Nationals Park, April 5. It’s the bottom of the sixth inning, and the visiting New York Mets are leading 4-2 over the Washington Nationals. The Mets, owners of a 4-1 record, have earned cautious optimism, but the specter of things going just wrong enough still looms. Cast: Jacob […]
Game Recap September 22: This Team Really Wants the Playoffs
One of the prevailing memes of the latter portion of this 2016 MLB season has been that nobody seems to want to win the National League Wild Card spots. The New York Mets, who we counted out of the playoffs in a staff post less than a month ago, clawed their way back into contention […]
Game recap September 1: The Christian Yelich Show
Some team sports are more dependent on individual performances than others. Baseball, pitchers aside, is much more of a holistic endeavor than, say, watching LeBron James carry a “Who’s Who? No, Really, Who?” lineup to deep playoff runs in multiple seasons. But on certain nights, all roads lead through one player’s singular performance. For the […]
Game recap August 25: Got the Wild Card teams right where they want them?
Sometimes baseball is hard to write about. This needn’t be because the game was uneventful – sometimes there’s just no clear thread linking the innings together, linking the plate appearances to one another with some sort of purpose. You’d think that in a game with 15 runs and one team continually breathing down the necks of […]
Game Recap August 11: Which Team Was 47-66, Again?
“I’m not…going 7-9, or 8-8, or 9-7…or 10-6, for that matter!” So prophesied Los Angeles Rams head coach Jeff Fisher during an episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks. Mediocre records rarely make the playoffs; this is virtually tautological: if you have fewer wins, you won’t advance to the postseason. Currently, New York Mets fans can empathize […]
Game Recap August 4: Of RISP and Reward
The Subway Series began with the New York Yankees sellers at the trade deadline and the New York Mets buyers, despite their records just two games apart. The Yankees took two of the first three games despite scoring one fewer run over this span thanks to Mets pitching giving out on the team when they […]