How quickly the tide turns. One year ago today, we luxuriated in a Washington Nationals collapse. From July 29 to August 29, 2015, the Mets leapt from two games back to 5.5 games ahead in the National League East standings. This season, the Mets have suffered death by a thousand cuts. Matt Harvey’s rib. David Wright’s spine. […]
Category: Articles
Game recap August 28: Nobody wants the Wild Card
In summary: The pitching was good until it wasn’t; the offense was never good. Mets lose 5-1. The good: Robert Gsellman is good! The SoCal native fit in perfectly to the Mets rotation in his first start on Sunday — both the hair and the slider. The hard-throwing righty was the victim of Terry Collins’ […]
Game recap August 27: Home run cycles and playoff dreams
What Happened, In a Sentence The Mets overpowered Philadelphia’s weak pitchers, hitting four home runs in a 12-1 win. Top Hitters Beat Predictable Pitching If I were trying to teach a young pitcher why you can’t just stay away, away, away, I would show them Jeremy Hellickson’s performance against the Mets last night. Hellickson is a […]
Game recap August 26: Silver Slugger Bartolo Colon
Coming off a series win against the Cardinals in St. Louis that kept their wild card chances on life support (rather than in the grave), the Mets started a ten-game home stand against the Phillies on Friday. Bartolo Colon started for the Mets opposite Phillies lefty Adam Morgan. Morgan, you may remember, was on 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 […]
Nobody Believes Yoenis is Staying in New York (Except Me)
This week, Yoenis Cespedes once again reiterated to Matt Ehalt of The Record that he will does not plan to opt out of his Mets contract after the 2016 season, as is his contractual right. He later clarified that while no final decision has been made, he’d like to remain a Met. Cespedes has been […]
Game recap August 24: A flirtatious smile, a hint of hope, a reminder of reality
WHO WON: The red-and-white arched not-Mets WHAT HAPPENED, ALRIGHT, WHO MESSED WITH THE DIAL ON JACOB DEGROM’S BACK? That’s a real question, in case you were wondering, because Jacob DeGrom looked rather…uninspiring. When all was said and done, deGrom surrendered five runs across 4.2 innings, but that just scratched the surface. Three of the 12 hits […]
Last Men Standing: The Mets’ Bullpen
So it’s official—Steven Matz was placed on the disabled list Monday, making him the latest casualty in the Mets’ “dropping like flies” worst-case-scenario played out before our eyes. The good news is that Matz’s official diagnosis was “shoulder tightness” with no structural damage to the shoulder or arm, and with the DL-listing retroactive to August […]
Game Recap August 23: It’s Pronounced “Gazelle, Man”
Executive Summary Robert Gsellman bailed out the injured Jon Niese. Mets 6, Cardinals 3. Discussion and Analysis That the Mets would miss Jon Niese was supposed to be a #HotTake when I predicted it on April 4. Truth be told, despite his reacquisition on Aug. 1, the Mets have not appreciated Niese’s second act: Prior to the game, […]
Sit Syndergaard or Let It Ride?
When Noah Syndergaard broke into the majors early last season, it was a seismic event for the Mets. With him in the shorthanded rotation, given the loss of Zack Wheeler in spring training to Tommy John surgery, the Mets played well enough in the first half to stay competitive and then steamrolled through to the […]