News broke late Friday night of an impending trade with the Athletics for closer Jeurys Familia, which was finally finalized at 3:50 p.m Saturday, just as the Yankees scored their seventh run of the ballgame. The Mets were reportedly seeking prospects in the higher levels of the minors and that’s what they will receive in Bobby Wahl, a reliever with MLB experience who’s currently in Triple-A. He’ll sit in the mid-90s and touch triple digits with his fastball to go along with a hard breaker. The Mets have a type of reliever they love to target, and Wahl fits the same mold as Gerson Bautista, Eric Hanhold and others the team has recently acquired via trade.

The other player coming to Queens (eventually) is Will Toffey, a fourth-round selection by the A’s in last year’s draft. He played his college ball at Vanderbilt but holds just a .733 OPS in his first 373 minor league at-bats, split between short-season and Advanced-A. He doesn’t fit the typical third base profile -he’s more of a line drive hitter than a home run guy- but he’s got a chance to become a second-division regular.

The Mets also acquired an apparently $1 million of international pool money, which isn’t enough to stop this from being a disappointing haul overall. The Mets already have this type of relief pitcher in the system and have been reluctant thus far to even use them. Toffey doesn’t currently project as an impact player at the major league level. There’s not much good to say about this deal, folks.

Anyway, Old Friend Yoenis Cespedes returned to the lineup Friday night but had some interesting and revealing postgame comments. He’s dealing with an issue in both heels that can only be corrected with surgery, which holds an 8-10 month recovery time. Cespedes is unlikely to ever play healthy without the surgery, and there’s no better time for him to have it than right now. The Mets are out of contention and need a healthy Cespedes if they truly want to compete next season. Running a broken down player who has worked incredibly hard to return into the lineup in the midst of a lost season is very Mets.

The even bigger story is that the Mets are publicly saying they were unaware of the chronic heel issues. This seems highly unlikely, of course, as they’ve given Cespedes two separate physicals before acquiring him and had to be aware of the severity of the injury. Manager Mickey Callaway was completely unaware of Yo’s postgame comments, which just confirms the many suspicions about the lack of communication between the front office and the coaching staff.

As for the actual baseball game, Steven Matz was tagged for five earned runs in five innings of work. Both relievers who pitched Saturday, Tim Peterson and Anthony Swarzak, each allowed a run as well. The final score was much closer than the game actually was, as Aroldis Chapman couldn’t find the strike zone and almost allowed the Mets to tie things up in the ninth inning. Yankee manager Aaron Boone pulled his closer for Chasen Shreve, who secured the final three outs and earned the save. Michael Conforto homered and Amed Rosario added another three-hit game to his resume, but the Mets only picked up five hits on the afternoon.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports 

The Mets pitching staff continued its streak of dominant outings Saturday, this time behind a 7.2-inning performance from right-hander Zack Wheeler.

While the starting rotation has been incredible throughout much of the season, the team has routinely wasted brilliant performances from almost every member of the staff (we’re looking at you, Jason Vargas). Things seem to have changed for the better recently, as the bullpen and the bats propelled the Mets to a four-win week.

Wheeler got some run support early, as Austin Voth allowed three straight singles to load the bases in the second. Offensive powerhouse Amed Rosario ripped a single to right field that brought home Wilmer Flores and put the Mets ahead 1-0.

Next up was Wheeler, who helped his own cause with a sacrifice fly to center that scored Kevin Plawecki. An RBI groundout from Brandon Nimmo increased the lead to three.

Neither team would score until the home half of the fifth, when Michael Conforto hit his 11th home run of the season. The three-run blast was the only hit of the day for Conforto, but he certainly made it count.

Jose Reyes also added an RBI single in the inning, quite possibly his biggest contribution of the season thus far.

Wheeler was efficient with his pitch count all afternoon and earned the right to head back out for the eighth inning. Trouble found him quickly though — and with no help from Reyes — and a two-run blast off the bat of Matt Adams knocked Wheeler out of the game. His final line wasn’t indicative of the effort he gave the Mets, and Wheeler has been quite the pleasant surprise after beginning the season in Las Vegas.

Anthony Swarzak recorded an out to lower his ERA to 6.32 and Jeurys Familia picked up his 17th save of the season. Familia’s looked better as of late, which could be a boon to his trade value.

The Mets have a chance to win a series for the first time since the middle of May on Sunday. Corey Oswalt will start against Jeremy Hellickson in the series finale at Citi Field.

THE GOOD

Steven Matz is healthy and pitching incredibly well this season. He’s always put up good results when he starts, but the problem with Matz has been the when he starts. Everything’s aligned for Matz this season, outside of a couple of minor issues, and he may return real value in a potential trade. The lefty turned in a quality start Saturday but wasn’t on his A-game, walking three in addition to allowing five hits. He went out and gave the Mets a chance to win, something he’s actually done a lot of this season.

Wilmer Flores picked up three of the Mets seven hits on the afternoon. A perennial fan favorite, Flores’ days may be numbered with the Metropolitans, for real this time; he’s a prime trade candidate as a platoon option against left-handed pitching, and he likely fits best with an American League team. That being said, it’s doubtful he brings back anything better than a couple of minor league relief arms.

THE BAD

Robert Gsellman’s stuff hasn’t played up as expected in the bullpen. Despite a nice start to the season, his season ERA is up to 4.44 with a WHIP of 1.32. In short, he hasn’t been nearly as good as Jeurys Familia haters would like you to believe. He’s not the only one though, as Anthony Swarzak, one of the Mets’ rare big offseason signings, has a 6.46 ERA and 1.89 WHIP in 15.1 innings. Swarzak’s been truly awful this year, and the kicker here is he’s under team control for another season.

Gsellman and Swarzak aren’t the only two Met relievers to struggle this season (Jerry Blevins, Familia, Paul Sewald and Hansel Robles all come to mind), but their performance relative to the high expectations has been disappointing.

THE UGLY

Mickey Callaway was asked about Dominic Smith prior to Saturday’s game and had this to say on the former top prospect: “If we were just going day to day, I think Dom is probably best served off the bench.” We can debate about whether the hype with Smith was warranted or not, but there’s no denying the Mets haven’t given him a fair shake at first base. First, they brought in Adrian Gonzalez this past offseason to be the strong side of a platoon with Wilmer Flores. After a couple months of subpar production, they finally parted ways with him in June, effectively clearing the way for Smith to come up and play. Except Callaway and co. handed the starting job to Flores, opting to leave Smith on the bench.

It may be an effort to enhance Flores’ trade value but seriously, who are we kidding? Front offices in this day and age are far too smart to heavily buy into a hot streak from a 26-year-old first baseman with a career OBP of .300. The Mets are 15.5 games out of first, if this isn’t the time to find out what they have in Smith, when exactly is?

The Mets have given Smith just 25 at-bats in their past 10 games and don’t appear keen on getting him into the everyday lineup. This is what lost seasons are for – finding out who’s worth keeping around and who isn’t – so it’d be nice to see Smith getting consistent playing time for the rest of the year.

Photo credit: Wendell Cruz – USA Today Sports

Jose Bautista appeared done earlier this year when the longtime Blue Jay was cut by Atlanta, but since signing with the Amazins, he’s become a surprisingly successful reclamation project. Bautista had hit 336 career home runs before Friday’s season opener with Tampa Bay, but he’d never crushed a game winning walk-off blast. He can now cross that off the bucket list.

The majority of the game went the way most of starter Jacob deGrom’s outings have gone for both him and the team. The ace righty was absolutely brilliant once again, pitching through the Rays lineup with ease all night long, but yet again he found himself unlikely to earn a win as the night progressed.

After deGrom had set down Tampa Bay in the first three frames with four strikeouts, New York got in the board in the home third thanks to a little help from the Rays defense. With one out, Brandon Nimmo hit a routine ground ball to short that Willy Adames threw away for a two base error. After Bautista drew a walk to put two on with one out, the Mets’ best trade candidate at the moment, second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera, singled through the hole into left field to score Nimmo with an unearned run.

deGrom tossed an easy 1-2-3 shutdown inning in the fourth after getting the lead, and the game started to feel like so many of his starts. He’d gotten his run, and now needed to try to shut the other team out to secure a victory. That hope came to an abrupt halt with two outs in the fifth, as Adames surprisingly crushed a game-tying solo homer to straightaway center. The Mets tried to respond in the sixth, when, after they got a one-out baserunner, Todd Frazier doubled to the gap in right center. The problem was the runner was Wilmer Flores, and third base coach Glenn Sherlock foolishly flapped his left arm to send the fan favorite home. Flores was gunned down by about 30 feet, and the Mets failed to score, sending this one to the later innings deadlocked at one.

deGrom would finish his night with yet another no decision, as after eight dominant innings New York went to closer Jeurys Familia in the ninth, and trouble immediately presented itself. Familia allowed a hit, a walk and hit a batter to load the bases with one out, but a force play at home and a strikeout got him out of trouble and gave the Mets a chance to walk this one off in the bottom of the ninth.

Leading off in the home ninth, Frazier drew a walk against Rays reliever Chaz Roe, setting up a fascinating presentation of National League baseball. Catcher Devin Mesoraco, who hadn’t had a successful sacrifice bunt since 2009 in class-A ball, was up next and his first few bunt attempts showed he didn’t really know what he was doing. In a somewhat surprising strategic adjustment, manager Mickey Callaway took the bunt off, and was rewarded when Mesoraco singled into left field. Amed Rosario then dropped a perfect sac bunt down to third, and New York was really in business with pinch-hitter Dom Smith walking to the plate.

Smith though, missed the memo. The former first round pick topped the first pitch he saw back to Roe for the innings’ second out, leaving Frazier pinned to third base. The Rays then chose to intentionally walk Nimmo, a strategy that didn’t work out to say the least. Tampa wanted the righty-righty match-up with Roe against Bautista, but Bautista sent the first pitch he saw deep into the second deck for a walk-off grand slam, sending the Flushing faithful home happy.

After one of the worst months in franchise history in June, the Mets have now won three of their first four contests in July, showing at least some level of competent play for a refreshing chance of pace. They’ll look to win a series for the first time in forever this afternoon, when left handers Steven Matz and Blake Snell take the hill for their respective squads.

Photo credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports

This series marked a return to Toronto for two formerly Very Talented Blue Jays, Jose Bautista and Jose Reyes. Bautista had a nice showing in Tuesday night’s game, and made an impact last night as well, recording a big RBI single in fifth inning. Reyes, on the other hand, went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. His wRC+ is at 36 for the season.

Corey Oswalt got the start for the Mets, and actually pitched competently this time around. He went just four innings, though he only threw 65 pitches, and allowed just two runs on five hits and one walk. Obviously, it wasn’t anything dominating, but it was much better than his last time out. Seth Lugo came in behind Oswalt, and the Mets basically wound up playing piggyback with the two pitchers. Lugo went three innings himself, only allowing three hits and a run while striking out two. He continues to be arguably the best part of the team’s bullpen.

And even though the two pitchers combined to give up three runs, it didn’t actually matter because the Mets offense, believe it or not, was able to score six runs for the second straight day. Down 1-0, a Brandon Nimmo single knotted the game up at 1-1 in the third, and then, down 2-1 in the fifth, Todd Frazier delivered the biggest blow of the night: a two-run homer to turn the game around and put the Mets in front. The Mets added three more runs in the inning on the afforementioned Bautista single, and run-scoring singles by both Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Conforto. It was the Mets’ first sustained, one-inning rally in what feels like two months.

The combo of Oswalt/Lugo got the Mets through seven on the mound, and set it up for *gasp* the rest of the bullpen. But Jerry Blevins and Robert Gsellman tag-teamed the eighth inning and didn’t give up a hundred runs — in fact they didn’t give up any runs! Jeurys Familia then came on in the ninth to seal the deal, and the Mets triumphantly moved back within 14 games of first place.

OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY

Noah Syndergaard will begin a rehab assignment in Brooklyn Sunday and Yoenis Cespedes resumes baseball activities today. It would be cool if they both came back soon.

The Mets will push Zack Wheeler’s next start back to Monday in order to avoid taxing their bullpen in the doubleheader. The Mets will call someone up for the start, and it will likely be either P.J. Conlon or Chris Flexen.

WHAT’S NEXT

The Mets are off again today, but return home tomorrow to take on the Rays at Citi Field tomorrow night. Jacob deGrom takes the ball for the Mets, against Ryne Stanek of the Rays. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m.

Photo credit: John E. Sokolowski – USA Today Sports

And that fits pefectly with the feeling around the Mets right now. There’s nothing left to say, and I’ve given up. At some point, you just run out of words. An explanation is not necessary. Analysis is not necessary. Words are not necessary. There’s truly just nothing left to say. And you definitely can’t say the result of last night’s game is surprising, that’s for sure. You can’t say a game that had good starting pitching, limited offense and a complete bullpen meltdown is unique for the 2018 Mets. Every game follows the same blueprint these days. You can only write and/or read so many recaps of the same game again and again.

This team is seriously bad. That’s it. There’s truly nothing else that needs to be said. There’s no point laboring it anymore. We might not know exactly how they got to this point, but it doesn’t matter anymore; they’re just not good. They’re one of the worst teams in baseball. And there’s absolutely no sign this precipitous fall won’t continue for three more months.

Last night, Zack Wheeler pitched a hell of a game, tossing seven shutout innings with seven punchouts. He allowed one walk and five hits. On the whole, he’s pitched like a perfectly fine mid-rotation stater for a month. His only bad start this month was a start in Atlanta, where he had taken a 2-1 lead into the sixth inning, but three of his runners scoring on an Ozzie Albies grand slam given up by Paul Sewald messed up his line.

Basically, the Mets have been getting good-to-great starting pitching from four of five spots in the rotation for about a month now, and they’ve only won four games in the month of June. It’s truly incredible.

Of course, Wheeler left the game with a 3-0 lead. The Pirates pushed a run across in the eighth off the overworked and suddenly-bad Robert Gsellman, but suddenly-good Tim Peterson came in to get out of the inning and hold the lead at 3-1. But then, instead of keeping Peterson, who had only thrown nine pitches, in the game for the ninth, Mickey Callaway turned to his closer Jeurys Familia — who threw 28 pitches in 1.2 innings on Tuesday night — for the save.

Familia did not record an out. Three straight singles and a walk to his first four hitters chased the closer from the game before he had even blown the lead. Anthony Swarzak came in with the bases loaded and nobody out, trying to protect what was now a 3-2 lead. He promptly gave up a two-run single to David Freese on his first pitch, and the game was pretty much over from there. The Pirates took a 4-3 lead and didn’t look back. They added one more in the inning, and the Mets predictably went down punchless in the ninth, sending the Pirates home with a 5-3 win.

The Mets have not won a series since May 18-20. There are no words.

WHAT’S NEXT:

Unfortunately not the apocalypse, though the Mets will go to Miami to battle the Marlins tomorrow, which sounds just as close to the end of the world as we’re going to get. Jacob deGrom squares off with Sandy Alcantara, who will be making his big-league debut, at 7:10 p.m.

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

Tuesday afternoon at Citi Field began with an impromptu press conference to shockingly announce GM Sandy Alderson was taking a leave of absence immediately due to health complications. The former marine’s cancer has unfortunately returned, and the team announced that his three lieutenants, John Ricco, Omar Minaya and J.P. Ricciardi, will collectively run the club’s baseball operations department indefinitely. While ownership had prior knowledge of what Alderson was going through, manager Mickey Callaway, the coaches and the players were all in the dark, and it had to be a lot to take in shortly before playing a baseball game.

Once the game began, left-hander Steven Matz continued to quietly throw like a top of the rotation starter, holding Pittsburgh hitless through the first four innings. New York plated two runs in the bottom of the first thanks to a two-run single from Wilmer Flores, and as the game approached the middle innings it was looking like that may be enough for Matz.

These are the 2018 Mets though, and nothing can be that easy.

After facing the minimum through four, Matz allowed hits to the first four Pirates in the fifth, including RBIs from Jose Osuna and Gregory Polanco to even the game at two apiece. That score held into the seventh, when Polanco and Michael Conforto traded two-out solo homers to send the ballgame into the eighth at 3-3.

Struggling righty Anthony Swarzak was first out of the New York bullpen, and he did little to snap out of his recent slump, allowing a hit and a walk and leaving a mess for Jeurys Familia to clean up. The first batter Familia faced, David Freese, slapped a routine double play ground ball to shortstop, and it was here the game took yet another interesting turn. Jose Reyes fed Asdrubal Cabrera at second base for one out, but Pirates second baseman Josh Harrison went in hard, preventing Cabrera from getting anything on the throw to first and keeping the inning alive. Familia took exception to the hard-nosed play, jawing at Harrison as he exited the field, causing the benches to briefly clear. Cabrera for his part acknowledged it was a clean play, strangely hugging Harrison in the middle of the chaos to try to calm him down. Familia did seem to lose focus on the next hitter, walking Elias Diaz to load the bases, but then got Osuna to ground out to end the frame with the game still tied.

Both clubs went down reasonably quiet for the next couple frames, sending this contest to the bottom of the 10th with New York given the chance to walk the game off. And they immediately had themselves in position to do so. Conforto led the inning off with a walk, and advanced to second on a single from Todd Frazier. After a weak bunt attempt by Cabrera ended with a pop-up to the pitcher, up stepped the Mets’ walkoff extraordinaire, Wilmer Flores.

The favorite son ripped an 0-1 offering from Pittsburgh lefty Steven Brault down the left field line to win the game, already his third walkoff winner of 2018. Flores now has 9 career walkoff RBIs, tying David Wright for the most in franchise history.

Tonight the Mets and Bucs will play the rubber game of the series, with Zack Wheeler and Ivan Nova toeing the rubber for their respective squads.

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

But Coors Field, in practice, is actually a total disaster. 10-8 games are really fun from afar, or at least if they’re few and far in between. It’s not fun to watch your favorite team’s pitching staff suddenly be completely unable to record an out or spin a breaking ball for three or four days in a row just because they happen to be playing on the surface of Mars. It makes for laborious four-hour games, high ERAs, worn-out pitching staffs and an angry Keith Hernandez.

The Mets played their third game of four in Coors Field last night, and it was the second-straight Coors Classic™. Seth Lugo was the sacrificial lamb got the start and fared about as well as you’d expect any pitcher who relies on his curveball to fare in altitude. He lasted just three innings, allowing six runs (three earned) on six hits, with five strikeouts.

There was too much scoring to give a total blow-by-blow, but basically, the Mets scored a bunch, then the Rockies scored a bunch, then the Mets scored a bunch, then the Rockies scored a bunch, and then somehow nobody scored for three innings, and then the Rockies won.

To be more specific, the Mets jumped out to a 4-1 lead by the second inning, but the Rockies tied it up in the bottom of the second. Colorado then took the lead in the third, pushing two more runs across off Lugo to take a 6-4 lead. The Mets clawed back in the fifth, though, once Colorado went to their bullpen. They scored four runs, with the big blow being an Asdrubal Cabrera two-run single to take the 8-6 lead. But that was short-lived, as Ryan McMahon promptly hit a three-run bomb off Robert Gsellman in the bottom half of the inning to push the Rockies back out to a 9-8 lead.

Really, this park is a joke.

Charlie Blackmon added a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth off Anthony Swarzak to make it 10-8, and then the teams magically remembered how to pitch for a few innings. Swarzak settled down and wound up delivering two solid innings, and Jeurys Familia followed in the eighth, working through a first-and-third, one out jam that was created when Jose Reyes booted an easy double play ball. It was Reyes’s ninth error of the year in just 24 games played in the field; a pace of 56 errors per 150 games. Now, errors can be misleading, which is why it’s only fair that we point out that Reyes has a -31.8 UZR/150 at shortstop and a -61.2 UZR/150 at third base this year. That said, he did go 1-for-3 with two walks, which raised his wRC+ all the way up to 41. He’s just a few more hits away from Jeff Mathis territory.

There’s really no other analysis that we can draw from this game, because nothing counts in Coors Field.

OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY

The Mets needed a fresh arm in their bullpen because Coors Field is stupid, so they called up Chris Flexen and optioned Hansel Robles back to Triple-A.

WHAT’S NEXT

The Mets mercifully wrap up their series in Denver today at 3:10 p.m. Steven Matz will try to survive the thin air against Kyle Freeland of the Rockies.

Photo credit: Ron Chenoy – 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

Belfast Blur Struggles

Strapped for starting pitching, the Mets turned to P.J. Conlon to take the ball in Game 2 of their Memorial Day doubleheader. Let’s just say that Conlon’s second major league start went a little worse than his last one. The Belfast Blur (trademark pending) was only able to last two innings on 46 pitches. The Mets desperately needed length out of their starter and did not get it. The good news: Conlon did not surrender a walk. The bad news: the left-hander got tagged for eight hits and four runs. Conlon is not a particularly hard thrower, with a fastball that tops out in the high 80s, so it’s a long shot to believe he’ll carve out a long-term position in this rotation even with how thin their depth is.

Fear the Plaw

A lot has happened since the last time we saw Kevin Plawecki on April 11. In the 39 games since, the Mets have gone from a dominant force to a barely .500 team. Acquiring Devin Mesoraco stopped the bleeding at catcher, but the return of Plawecki from a broken bone in his left hand should provide depth and make for a decent platoon behind the plate.

Plaw returned to action last night after going 3-13 with a home run in his Las Vegas rehab stint and boy did he not disappoint. The Mets’ backstop was on base five times Monday, recording a walk, three singles, an RBI and a run scored. He reached on an error in the first inning after he hit a comebacker to Brandon McCarthy that the hurler simply just threw away. I should also note that his infield single in the sixth should have been scored an error as Johan Camargo blatantly dropped the ball. The Mets need production at the catcher position and whether it’s Mesoraco or Plawecki doesn’t matter as long as it helps this team turn around.

Everybody Getting Involved

Despite how inept they were during the afternoon, the Mets were able to post eight runs on 15 hits in the nightcap. Adrian Gonzalez opened the scoring in the first with an RBI single and the Mets jumped to 2-0 after Plawecki reached on an error, scoring Jay Bruce. Brandon Nimmo blasted a homer in the third, but this lead wouldn’t stand up long.

The Mets gave it back to the Braves but regained the lead after Amed Rosario singled home Plawecki and Jose Reyes in the sixth. The Mets were able to dismantle Atlanta’s Brandon McCarthy, who finished with a line of 5.1 innings pitched, nine hits, five runs and two strikeouts.

Unfortunately, that lead didn’t last very long either, but the Mets rallied back quickly. Singles from Luis Guillorme and Rosario netted three runs in the seventh, giving the Mets the 8-5 lead that went final.

Overall, every Mets starting position player netted at hit tonight. Michael Conforto and Plawecki finished with three-hit games, Guillorme and Rosario each had a total of four hits and five RBIs between them, and Nimmo, Gonzalez and Plawecki each recorded an RBI.

The Pen Rebounds

Watching Seth Lugo surrender a walk-off home run to Charlie Culberson cannot be defined as anything other than a gut punch. Thankfully, things went much better for the Mets’ relief unit in the nightcap. Hansel Robles came out with one of his best performances of 2018, keeping the Braves off the board for three innings.

Robert Gsellman did not have one of his better games but limited the damage to one run that the Mets were able to regain it the following inning. Jacob Rhame pitched an impressive seventh, netting a perfect inning with two strikeouts.

Jeurys Familia came up big too. After a long day, Familia shut the door in the eighth, pitching a clean inning. He returned for the ninth, where he completed a six-out save (his first this year), grabbing his 14th save of the season. Combined, the bullpen ate seven innings, surrendered five hits, one run, two walks and struck out nine. Gsellman winds up the winning pitcher of record, his fifth victory of 2018.

Fun fact: Braves prospect Dustin Peterson made his major league debut as a pinch hitter on the last out of the game. Technically, he made his debut on May 29 because the game ran past midnight, but the official record will pencil him in for the day prior. He also walked to first base after three balls thinking he walked before eventually striking out. Embarrassing.

The Mets and Braves pick up where they left off at 7:35 p.m. Game 3 of the series pits Steven Matz against Anibal Sanchez.

Photo credit: Dale Zanine – USA Today Sports