Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Jacob deGrom was brilliant once again and the Mets still somehow found a new and excruciating way to lose. The Mets ace worked in and out of trouble all night, allowing seven hits, none of which were hard hit, and one earned run while striking out a career high-tying 13 Cubs. It was a masterful performance by deGrom, who loaded the bases in the first before striking out two to end the inning, but the offense that’s failed him time and time again was up to the same old tricks Saturday. The only Met run came on a Michael Conforto solo shot off Cubs starter Mike Montgomery in the sixth inning.

In an attempt to win what sure seemed like a must-win game for the Mets, Mickey Callaway burned through his entire bullpen minus Paul Sewald. He was rewarded with clean innings by all of them, minus Buddy Baumann and Gerson Bautista. Baumann was added to the roster as Jerry Blevins insurance, a valid move in theory considering Blevins’ struggles thus far, except for the fact that he’s much worse than Jerry Blevins. Bautista throws a 100 mph fastball and, well, that’s about it. His secondary offerings leave a lot to be desired and while the young flamethrower deserved a chance, it’s apparent he’ll require some more seasoning in the minors. The Mets need to work with the 23-year-old on his slider and changeup if they ever plan for him to be a bullpen mainstay.

Kevin Plawecki got his first career start at first base and it went just as well poorly as one might’ve imagined. In an attempt to hide Adrian Gonzalez against left-handed pitching, the Mets chose to call-up old friend Jose Lobaton in order for Plawecki to get starts at first. Yes, the same Plawecki who owns reverse splits (.228/.321/.311 vs RHP, .196/.277/.290 vs LHP) and whose only value to the organization comes from his work behind the plate is now part of a platoon at first base. Plawecki was 0-5 while the Mets still chose to pinch hit Gonzalez and Jay Bruce against left-handers. It’s not like the Mets have a right-handed hitting first baseman in the minors who destroys left-handed pitching, so the move at least makes some sense. What was that?  You mean to tell me they do have a righty first baseman prospect who tees off on lefties and is close to major league ready? Yet they still somehow believe this current roster configuration gives them the best chance to win? Welcome to the Mets, my friends.

OTHER METS NEWS

Prior to Wednesday’s game against the Braves, the Mets announced a flurry of moves, the most controversial of which was the stunning decision to designate P.J Conlon for assignment. Now, Conlon’s no world-beater, but he’s flashed potential as a bullpen piece in the Jerry Blevins mold and surely could have provided some value as some much-needed depth. With a fastball that barely touches 90 mph, Conlon relies on a good changeup and a funky delivery that has proven effective once through the order. Although he had minor league options, the Mets chose to designate him to free up a 40-man spot for Scott Copeland, a 30-year-old reliever who was on turn at Binghamton.

It was a puzzling move that lacked comprehension: teams don’t cut pitchers with minor league options who can provide value in the big leagues, especially when said team is in constant need of pitchers. Except that’s inexplicably exactly what the Mets did. I theorized in Week Five of the Prospect Watch that the Mets had no idea what they had in Conlon and apparently they didn’t have any interest in finding out.

The corresponding move for Conlon was Copeland, who threw all of 22 pitches Thursday before he himself was designated for assignment. He struck out two in one inning of relief and was a fresh arm for a bullpen in dire need of one. Mets brass somehow concluded that Jose Lobaton’s presence was again required on the active roster, so the only logical move was to designate Copeland. So they could carry three catchers. Who all can’t hit.

Did you think it couldn’t get any worse? Because it’s about to get worse. Mickey Callaway told reporters Friday night that the Mets had only three available relievers in the bullpen: Paul Sewald, Tim Peterson and Jeurys Familia. If the Mets didn’t need Lobaton to complete the Jose, Jose, Jose bench, they could’ve held on to Copeland, who’s been stretched out as a starter with Binghamton. It simply would’ve made too much sense though, so Copeland was sent packing while Callaway overworked Sewald, Friday night’s losing pitcher.

I’m assuming you thought that this was the end of the rant. Well guess what, I’m here to tell you this isn’t the end of the rant. What could possibly be worse than this you might ask? Well by designating Conlon, the Mets ensured he’d have to pass through waivers in order to remain with the organization. The Dodgers, an organization seemingly always in need of pitchers, claimed Conlon Saturday. Which means the Mets gave up on an intriguing 24-year-old left-handed pitcher for 22 pitches from Scott Copeland. Not 22 starts from Copeland, nor 22 innings. 22 measly pitches!

Photo credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports

The Mets fell to 27-27 with a desultory display against the Cubs on a foggy night in Flushing where outfielders lost balls in the haze. It was a fitting backdrop behind the team falling to .500, as it’s not clear if the Amazins are coming or going; after all, the best news coming out of the organization today was that David Wright played a game of catch.

Coming in to last night’s game, Brandon Nimmo had the second-highest WAR on the Mets roster at 1.5 (trailing only Jacob deGrom’s 3.4). Nimmo was the first Met run (in the eighth inning, homering to center), while Kyle Schwarber — who trails Nimmo’s WAR (1.4) — was in the middle of all the Cubs’ scoring this night.

It was the tale of two bullpens, as the Mets took a page out of Tampa Bay’s book, with reliever Seth Lugo taking the mound to start with the Mets rotation reeling from injuries. Lugo turned in four stellar innings to start the game, surrendering only three hits and shutting out Chicago after 60 pitches.

Hansel Robles made a mess of things in the top of the fifth. After walking Kyle Schwarber to lead off the inning, he managed to retire the next two hitters before Ben Zobrist hit a two-run homer over the 380-foot sign in right center field, putting the Cubs ahead. Jerry Blevins came in in the top of the sixth and got two outs before surrendering a double to Baez and RBI hit to Schwarber. Buddy Baumann allowed another run in the seventh and loaded the bases before being replaced by Scott Copeland, who promptly struck out Javier Baez. Gerson Bautista surrendered a run in the top of the ninth.

For the Cubs, Jose Quintana was solid, sprinkling three hits over six innings, surrendering no runs. The only threat came in the third, when the Mets loaded the bases to no avail. Other than Nimmo’s home run in the eighth, the Cubs bullpen was flawless until the ninth, when Pedro Strop walked Michael Conforto and Jay Bruce with two outs. Brandon Morrow got Amed Rosario to ground out for the final out.

The Mets take on the Cubs tonight at 7.10 p.m. at Citi Field. Tyler Chatwood (3-4, 4.10) will take the mound for the Cubs, against Zach Wheeler (2-4, 5.40).

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

Vargas Did What?

Given their crumbling depth in the starting rotation, you would think that Mickey Callaway would squeeze every inning he could out of his starters. Wednesday, he did the exact opposite. The wildly inconsistent and ineffective Vargas took the mound and came out firing. The lefthander shut out the Braves across five frames, surrendering two hits and one walk, and striking out two. At only 65 pitches, the expectation would be that Vargas would go deep into this game. Instead, Mickey Callaway opted to pull him after the fifth, giving an early hook to his pitcher throwing on just three days rest. The result is not all bad, however. Allowing Vargas to leave on a high note may instill some confidence and lead to more productive outings going forward.

The Magnificent Amed Rosario

Amidst his early-season struggles, many doubts arose surrounding the viability of Rosario’s future. A consensus top prospect, the impatience was semi-warranted. You either have it or you don’t. The good news is that Rosario really seems to finally be putting everything together. In the last seven days, the 22-year-old is batting .357/.400/.571 with a home run, four RBIs and two stolen bases. That includes the two huge extra base hits he chipped in last night — a triple in the seventh and a double in the ninth. Both resulted in Rosario coming across to score two very important insurance runs. He also made a sparkling diving stop to begin a 6-4-3 double play and get Jeurys Familia out of a tumultuous eighth inning.

We’ve Found Nimmo

This almost hurts to write for two reasons. First, I’ve been a big supporter of Jay Bruce and have continually advocated for him to remain in the lineup and work out of his slump. Second, I was completely in favor of shipping Brandon Nimmo to Pittsburgh in exchange for Andrew McCutchen. Well, it’s safe to say I was dead wrong. From the moment spring training kicked off, Nimmo has looked like a quality big leaguer that deserves the opportunity to play every day at the major league level. There is no reason to leave Nimmo on the bench just on his plate discipline alone. To make matters sweeter, it looks like his bat is coming around now too. Over his last eight games, Nimmo has posted a .333/.444/.733 slash line with two home runs, five RBIs and two stolen bases. In four at-bats, Nimmo notched two hits Wednesday — a bloop single that drove home Rosario in the seventh and a line drive doubles over the head of Nick Markakis in the ninth. Those two RBI knocks proved critical and he is now up to a scorching hot .970 OPS on the season. Could we possibly see Brandon Nimmo make an appearance at the All-Star game this July?

Joey Bats Hits Balls Hard

Sandy Alderson already pulled a rabbit out of his hat by turning Matt Harvey into Devin Mesoraco. Now, after plucking Jose Bautista from the depths of obscurity, he may just have found a diamond in the rough. During his stint in Atlanta this season, it didn’t seem like there was much baseball left in Bautista. After all, he was 5-for-37. Bautista is already well past that number as a member of the Mets and scorched a double to left field last night. Even when the hits aren’t falling, he is still finding a way to hit the ball hard. The last seven days of Joey Bats have been magnificent, with the 37-year-old sporting a 1.105 OPS. If Wednesday was any indication, Jose Bautista may just prove to be a valuable piece down the stretch.

A-Gon is Still Hanging Around

If I were to be completely honest, I would have ventured to say that Adrian Gonzalez would be long gone by now. Instead, the other geriatric player in the Mets starting lineup is not only hanging around but producing his fair share. Gonzalez posted a 2-4 night at the plate, driving in two runs. He opened the scoring in the first with a rocket ground rule double and picked up an insurance run in the eighth when he drove Jose Bautista home. Over his last 25 games, Gonzalez looks like an All-Star, batting .305 with seven extra-base hits, 12 RBI, and an OPS of .850. Maybe first base isn’t such a big problem for the Mets after all.

New Arms in Atlanta

In order to bolster their depleted bullpen, the Mets called up three relievers prior to Wednesday’s game. Tim Peterson and Buddy Baumann joined the Mets from Las Vegas, while Scott Copeland departed Binghamton. Peterson made his first major league experience after relieving Vargas in the sixth. Despite surrendering a home run to Johan Camargo (in the exact same spot that he hit his walk-off to in the game prior), Peterson looked good. The righthander posted two frames with a walk being the only other blemish besides the home run. Jeurys Familia and Robert Gsellman combined for the final two innings of the game, with Gsellman recording his second save of the season after a perfect ninth.

The Mets return home to Citi Field tonight to face the Chicago Cubs. Seth Lugo makes his debut as a starter against Jose Quintana at 7:10 p.m. And before I go, shout out to Ed Kranepool. He did not deserve the Don LaGreca treatment on ESPN Radio yesterday.

Photo credit: Jason Getz – USA Today Sports

Before the game, I happened to ask an usher what the ticket protocol was if the game was rained out. She didn’t have much information, but she basically said she was told they absolutely have to play this game, so they are going to play this game no matter what. Intuitively, that makes sense, since the Blue Jays do not come back to Citi Field this season. However, the Jays are back in New York in just three weeks, when they face the Yankees on June 5 and 6. The Mets are home throughout that entire week, and both teams have off on June 4. They could have played this game on that day. Whatever, though, I’m not privy to all the information they have.

The tarp came off the field at around 12:30 p.m., with rain still coming down, although it was rather light. Sitting our seats — which were not under an overhang, but too good to abandon — my friends and I were getting a little wet, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. And none of us owned or had any designs on purchasing either a poncho or an umbrella.

The game started on time, at 1:10 p.m., through the rain drops. It’s not often they start games while it’s already raining, but they had to play this game.

Zack Wheeler got the start for the Mets, and looked good through the first three innings, with his only blemish being a Justin Smoak solo homer that clanked off the facing of the Pepsi Porch Coca Cola Corner in the first inning. But the Mets couldn’t do much against J.A. Happ early on, due in part to the fact that they sent out a lineup featuring Phil Evans batting fifth. In the second inning, Michael Conforto hit a laser to center field that Kevin Pillar made a terrific catch on, but not much else was struck well against Happ.

By the bottom of the third, we were getting quite damp, but it was still an amount of water we could live with. We still were not going to purchase ponchos or umbrellas. But right at the start of the inning, the skies opened up. It rained a lot harder. The drops were getting discernably heavy. Significant puddles were forming on the infield, behind the batter’s box and in the stands, and it’s not like the rain was going to stop anytime soon. This is something that would stop literally any other baseball game. But it did not stop this one. They had to play this one.

While hitting in this rain, Wheeler lost his bat on a swing. On the next pitch, Happ slipped off the mound. What ensued was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen at a baseball game. The umpires stopped play and instructed the grounds crew to come fix the mound. After that, they called the rest of the grounds crew to come and fix the rest of the infield. And so they did. And it took a while. The Jays walked off the field. The game was stopped for 20 minutes while the grounds crew patched up the infield (and did a tremendous job doing so). It was not an official rain delay. The tarp was never put on the field. Remember, they needed to play this game.

In how many other sports do they stop the game entirely so a bunch of dudes in khakis can come out to drop and rake dirt for 20 minutes? Zero, that’s how many. I went to the bathroom during this break in the action, and I overheard Gary and Ron in a deep discussion about the cleat scraper on the pitcher’s mound and the process of removing it and putting it back in the dirt. Also, this:

SNY is showing artistic shots of puddles on the infield while Ron explains how mud is created and we are all living our best lives.

— Kate Feldman (@kateefeldman) May 16, 2018

This is the best sport.

Once play restarted, it had lightened up again, but it was still raining. At this point, we were completely drenched. If you’ve ever gone on a water ride in normal clothes, that is pretty much how it felt to sit in a seat and watch this game after a few innings. We could have bought ponchos, but it was a lost cause at this point. We were too wet to even move.

The Blue Jays struck again in the top of the fourth off Wheeler when Teoscar Hernandez ripped a two-run dinger into the left field corner. Wheeler put two more runners on, but got out of the inning. The Blue Jays led 3-0.

In the fifth, the roof caved in. The inning began with a walk to the pitcher, followed by a Curtis Granderson double, followed by a Josh Donaldson RBI single, followed by a Justin Smoak two-RBI double. It was 6-0 Toronto at that point, the game was effectively over, and not only was I soaked, but I was now shivering because the water seeping through my clothes was making me very cold.

Wheeler allowed three runs in that fifth inning while never recording an out. It was another poor outing for him, as he continues his Jekyll-and-Hyde season. That said, he was looking pretty good before the not-a-rain-delay rain delay, which might’ve thrown him off a bit, so you can at least give him a pass for this one.

After that fifth inning, we decided to do something I never, ever do: leave a game early. Yes, I left in the fifth inning. My pants were so wet they felt 10 pounds heavy; walking to the car was a legitimate chore. My fingers were so pruned that it looked like I had been in a pool for two hours. My ticket, which was in my pocket the whole time, was basically ruined. When I took my clothes off later, I realized that, yes, even my underwear was wet.

It rained a lot.

The Mets lost the game 12-1. AJ Ramos and Buddy Baumann let up three more runs in later innings, and Brandon Nimmo hit a solo homer with two outs in the ninth, and still smiled around the bases. After which, of course, the umpires stopped the game so the grounds crew could apply more dirt to the infield.

What a sport.

Photo credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports