It’s hard not to feel bad for Seth Lugo every time he goes out to pitch. The 27-year old journeyman missed two months with a partial UCL tear in his throwing elbow. He didn’t get a big signing bonus, and this is just his first year in the big leagues. If Lugo shuts down his […]
Author: Noah Grand
Mariners series preview July 28-30
The Mets didn’t hold a press conference to announce they would be sellers at the trade deadline, then spend a month looking for a trade partner. They just privately worked the phones. The team entered Thursday night’s game with a 1.5 percent chance of making the playoffs and five teams to leapfrog; trading away players […]
Game recap July 22: The Wilmer Flores Walkoff
Mets brought 15,000 Noah Syndergaard bobbleheads to Citi Field last night. If fans were fortunate enough, they could sit in line for hours waiting for the gates to open and actually get rewarded for it. Of course, there weren’t enough bobbleheads to go around. All those fans stuck in line arrived to a stadium ill-prepared […]
Where Zack Wheeler keeps going wrong
“Just throw strikes, kid. We can’t afford to give out any free passes! Throw strikes and the rest will work itself out.” This sounds like basic advice to give to a pitcher like Zack Wheeler, who has the seventh highest walk rate of any National League pitcher with at least 70 innings pitched. Before Wheeler’s […]
Game recap July 15: Here we go again
It’s hard to overstate just how weird this series is for savvy Mets fans. The Mets entered the series with a 3 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds. If the Rockies won the series, this may be enough to sway ownership and the front office to trade impending free […]
Game recap July 8: At least Jay Bruce can hit
Despite all the confusion about whether the Mets are officially sellers yet and Michael Conforto’s place in the lineup, I thought Saturday’s game would be a respite. Adam Wainwright is now a below replacement level pitcher. The Mets should be able to pound their former tormentor. Even if the pitching and fielding collapse, it never […]
Game recap July 1: Bobblehead magic
If Friday night’s win was the kind of baseball game we want to remember, Saturday’s 7-6 win against the Phillies is the kind of win we want to forget. The Mets hit nine extra-base hits and needed everyone to overcome three errors, a starter who couldn’t get through the fourth, and Jose Reyes running his […]
Game recap June 24: Jacob deGrom, the last true bright spot
Jacob deGrom entered Saturday’s game against the Giants striking out more batters than ever before, but most metrics place this as his worst season with the Mets. How can both of these things be true? It’s not just an issue of deGrom having two bad starts and then being an ace during his last three outings. […]
Dodgers series preview June 19-22
At least the Mets won a game before their cross-country flight; I imagine it would not be fun to get swept, then fly for five and a half hours. It will be interesting to see how much things have settled down between the Mets and Dodgers since Chase Utley broke Ruben Tejada’s leg in the […]
Game recap June 17: As good as over
Back when Davey Johnson was managing the Nationals to their first playoff appearance, they played a bunch of close games with the Mets. But those games never felt too close. Those Nationals were one of the league’s best run prevention teams. Washington has acquired more talent since 2012, but one look at their bullpen and […]