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

The Mets are bad. The Phillies are worse. Ben Lively is mediocre (bordering on bad). Matt Harvey is worse. Both teams are better served by losing. It’s late season baseball at the bottom of the standings, folks, so get excited.

Game Recap

In what is probably (hopefully) his last series in a Mets uniform, Jose Reyes got things off to a fast start in the ballpark he’s so often enjoyed hitting in. With one out in the first, Reyes deposited his 15th homer of the year into the right-center field seats to give Matt Harvey a 1-0 lead before he even took the mound. Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a single on a pop up, but the Mets would only get the one run.

Harvey held that lead for an inning, but no longer. Odubel Herrera dropped down a beautiful bunt for a single with one out in second, and Maikel Franco immediately followed that with a moonshot of a home run on fastball that Harvey through right over the middle of the plate at 94 mph. Perhaps if he had the 98 mph life he used to, Matt could blow hitters away with that pitch. Instead, those strikeouts have turned into hard-hit balls.

Things continued to spiral in the third, as Harvey gave up a walk and two singles to load the bases with nobody out. Two batters later, a run scored on a sacrifice fly from Odubel Herrera. Then, with Maikel Franco at the plate, Harvey’s season reached its nadir. As he started his delivery, Harvey’s hand seemed to hit his knee, leading him to drop the ball for a balk and prompting Gary Cohen to give us a lesson about the 1962 Mets – certainly never the season that any team or any player wants to be compared to. The balk scored a second run for the Phillies to make it 4-1.

Dom Smith and Jose Reyes conspired to make Harvey’s life a bit more difficult in the fourth, letting a pop up off the bat of Jorge Alfaro drop for a leadoff double. Juan Lagares bailed the Mets out, gunning down Alfaro at the plate with one of his trademark, pinpoint throws to home plate, keeping the deficit at three. Harvey navigated the rest of the inning and departed having allowed just the four runs.

Smith did his best to atone for his mistake in the fifth, leading off with his ninth home run of the year. Hansel Robles eventually gave that run back. After tossing a clean bottom of the fifth, Robles left a fastball over the plate and down to Alfaro, who blasted it out to left-center to re-extend the Phillie lead to 5-2. Two batters later, Cesar Hernandez also went deep with a solo shot, making it 6-2. Yes, Hansel pointed to the sky on both homers. Things got a little touchy with Freddy Galvis at the plate as the Phillies got over-sensitive about an inside fastball (Robles does have some history with them, of course), but ultimately nothing crazy happened and the game went to the seventh with the Mets in a four-run hole.

The Mets wasted a walk from Smith in the seventh and singles from Nori Aoki and Cabrera in the eighth. Meanwhile, Kevin McGowan tossed a clean seventh and Jacob Rhame tossed a clean eighth (aside – he has a fun fastball, even though his results have been poor). That brought on Cabrera’s favorite person, Edubray Ramos for the save. Lagares and Phil Evans made some two out noise, each singling on ground balls to the left side. Ramos rallied to retire Aoki on a ground ball to first to end the 6-2 loss.

The loss drops the Mets to 69-91, holding them in line for the sixth pick in the draft. It’d be pretty nice if the Mets could manage to lose all three games of this series and sneak into the top five, but the Reds have a two-game “lead.” Seth Lugo takes the mound in game 161 today with Jacob deGrom scratched.

Thoughts from the Game

Keith was in rare form last night, as he and Gary started the last series of the year. His rants ranged from the overemphasis of home runs (no Keith, no one thinks Maikel Franco is having a good year) to multiple remarks on the music being played in Citizens Bank Park. Though his “back in my day” nonsense is at times annoying, it is almost always amusing, and he’ll be a big part of why we’ll miss the Mets for the next six months even after such a disastrous season.

For Harvey, this was probably an okay outing at this point of the season. He’ll end 2017, which he called a “nightmare,” with a 6.70 ERA, a meager 6.51 K/9, a bad 4.56 BB/9, and a stupendously awful 2.04 HR/9. Why he pitched for so long when he seemed physically unable is an open question. The Mets plan to tender him, and someone with a relatively recent history of elite performance is worth a $5 million gamble. We’ll just have to hope that Harvey’s issue were just an issue of a lack of strength and that he can rebound, though I don’t think anyone is holding their breath at this point.

Finally, I have to take a final jab at all the Dom Smith enthusiasts out there. Sure, Smith’s power has been better at the major league level (on a 30 HR/600 PA pace) as you’d expect with the juiced ball effect we’ve seen this year. Despite that, Dom has been awful, as his walk and strikeout rates unsurprisingly slipped, and his overall output plummeted to a putrid .226. There is no reason he should be gifted a spot in the starting lineup next season if the Mets are serious about contention.

Other Met News

Starting with the less inflammatory story (though there’s lots of inflammation here too most likely), Jacob deGrom has been scratched from his Saturday start with gastroenteritis. It’s nothing serious, and Seth Lugo will slot on Saturday in his place. deGrom finishes a very solid 2017 with a 3.55 ERA and 239 strikeouts in 201.1 innings.

Marc Carig’s bombshell article is the real big story around the Mets at the moment. Unsurprisingly, Sandy Alderson and other members of the front office have wanted to fire Terry Collins for some time due to a litany of problems with his managing tactics and style (more on that later). However, it was the elder Fred Wilpon shielding Collins from Alderson’s wrath, not the younger Jeff who is so often ridiculed by Met fans (with good reason).

There’s a lot to dissect here. On some level, it’s encouraging that Collins’ ineptitude was recognized as a problem by the supposedly analytically inclined Met front office. Team officials cited his frequent overuse of relievers and reluctance to play young players as particular issues, and any informed Met fan has been complaining about those tendencies for years. That gives you some hope that the next manager the Mets pick will be more receptive to analytic advice and, in general, not a tactical moron.

As cathartic as it is for us fans it’s very concerning that this sort of airing of dirty laundry happened at all. It’s clear that Fred Wilpon still fancies himself some sort of baseball man, overriding the people he hired to run his team so that he could keep reminiscing about the Dodgers with his old buddy Collins. Is the relationship so bad that Sandy (or whoever else) has to poison the well enough to force Fred Wilpon’s hand? That’s a scary thought on multiple levels. How do you sell a new manager on such a dysfunctional work environment? And what’s to stop Fred from overriding his front office again during the hiring process, perhaps bringing in someone he likes (Robin Ventura) rather than the most qualified candidate?

Regardless of the unclear implications for the functionality of the Met front office and their managerial search, Fred Wilpon’s meddling has certainly done long term damage to the Mets roster. In an age when pitcher rest has been recognized as more and more important, Terry Collins has run multiple pitchers in the bullpen and in the rotation in the ground, and likely deserves at least some of the blame for the rash of injuries the Mets have suffered. Further, his poor communication skills created a clubhouse culture where everyone was “miserable,” which could very well have ramifications for the Mets’ efforts to retain some of their home grown stars down the line. Why stick around in an environment where the managerial structure above you is clearly a disaster that trickles down into your day-to-day workplace?

Ultimately, this is the kind of story that, as Keith put it, has the smell of a loser. Terry Collins may deserve to be trashed for how awful he is at his job and we may take some small, perverse pleasure in watching the focus of our ire for so many years get lit up. But a well run organization doesn’t have this happen, as they either have the wherewithal to remove the source of internal strife before things reach this point or simply eat it and move on. This isn’t a well run organization though, it’s the Mets, and until that changes, they will remain a loser.

Photo credit: John Geliebter – USA Today Sports

Game 1

The Good

Frankly, there wasn’t much good to talk about from Monday’s first game. Juan Lagares gave us a pleasant surprise with a perfect day at the plate, going three for three with a run scored. The former Gold Glove center fielder seems to be finishing 2017 strong, with seven hits in 15 at-bats over his last four games. Any signs of life from Lagares are a welcomed sight, as there is still a fair amount of uncertainty regarding how this outfield is going to look in 2018. Other than Yoenis Cespedes, the rest is up for grabs thanks to Michael Conforto’s injury and subsequent surgery. Many are still holding out hope that Lagares can be the player he was in 2014, although I wouldn’t put too much stock in a guy who tends to wind up on the disabled list as often as he does.

The entirety of the Mets offense was fueled by Tomas Nido in this contest. Nido, the 23-year-old catcher from Puerto Rico, cracked a double in the bottom of the seventh to drive in Phil Evans and Lagares. The extra-base hit was the first of Nido’s career and the RBIs were his second and third. Given the inconsistency the Mets have shouldered at the catcher position, it’s safe to assume that the job is open in 2018 and with a strong finish over the last week of regular season play, Nido may just do enough to toss his name in the ring and be a dark horse candidate to win the job next spring.

The Bad

Receiving the spot start for this afternoon’s game was Chris Flexen, who last started on Sept. 3. The 23-year-old started well, limiting the Braves to one run (an Ozzie Albies solo home run) over his first five innings, but eventually ran into trouble in the sixth. After loading the bases, Flexen was pulled in favor of Josh Smoker, who allowed all three runners to score. Flexen finished with an unimpressive line of three hits, three walks, four strikeouts, and four earned runs.

The Ugly

Yesterday was just one of those games where the performance of the bullpen left you with nauseous feeling. Josh Smoker’s box score line looks pretty clean, but he was fortunate in that the three runs he allowed were charged to the starter. Every reliever who followed surrendered at least one hit and earned run. In total, Erik Goeddel, Kevin McGowan, and Jacob Rhame surrendered six hits, five earned runs, and three walks. It’s hard to blame the bullpen for the loss today given the lack of offense and rough effort from Flexen, but they certainly ensured the Mets wouldn’t fight their way back into this one.

If reading this hasn’t caused you enough pain already, every player in the Braves starting lineup recorded a hit, including their starting pitcher, Lucas Sims. Sims, a rookie from Lawrenceville, Georgia, shut the Mets out through the first six innings of this afternoon’s game, so feel free to add him to the list of no-name pitchers to dominate the Mets.

Game 2

The Good

As demoralizing as Game 1 of this doubleheader was, the Amazins rallied back in the second game, avoiding becoming a season-worst 25 games under .500. Seth Lugo put forth one of his best efforts of 2017 and notched his seventh win on the season, a sentiment that is even more impressive when you recall the fact that he has been battling a partially torn UCL in his pitching elbow. Lugo shut the Braves out over his six innings, allowing only two hits and no walks while striking out seven.

Jerry Blevins and Chasen Bradford contributed accordingly, keeping the Braves off the board for a combined two innings. Under normal circumstances their effort may seem a bit pedestrian, but when you contrast them to how awful the bullpen was yesterday afternoon, it’s nice to see the relievers do their jobs correctly.

Travis d’Arnaud had a night to remember (only because there are not too many to be had these days), knocking two hits in three trips to the plate and walking once. Following Asdrubal Cabrera’s RBI groundout in the third, d’Arnaud was able to extend the lead to 2-0 when he singled to center field to score Lagares. Facing Jose Ramirez (not to be confused with Cleveland’s MVP candidate), d’Arnaud launched one over the left-center field fence to extend the Amazins’ lead to 3-0. This would prove to be the deciding run after the Braves etched across two runs in the ninth. Monday night’s effort is a momentary sigh of relief for d’Arnaud in the midst of another disappointing season. Sit back and smell the roses, Travis, because you very well may not be a starter anymore come spring training.

Brandon Nimmo and Matt Reynolds each had a solid night at the plate. Nimmo cracked two doubles and a single in four plate appearances and Reynolds singled twice. While Reynolds ultimately has cemented his fate as a utility-man, Brandon Nimmo is starting to open some eyes on whether he can be an everyday player. Last night’s effort raised his batting average to .274 and his OBP to a .393 clip. Numbers like that are at least worth the discussion of whether Nimmo could have a starting job in 2018.

The Bad

2017 is just not Jeurys Familia’s year. Between the blood clot issue and his struggles on the mound, you can count on the fact that he’s eager to start the 2018 season and wipe the slate clean. Monday night’s outing was a textbook example, as he came very close to blowing a three-run lead. Despite surrendering an RBI single to Jace Peterson and an RBI groundout to Matt Kemp, Familia avoided a complete meltdown en route to his fifth save of the season.

Despite a measured level of success with the Las Vegas 51s, Travis Taijeron has failed to get it going at the Major League level. An 0-3 effort tonight lowered his batting average to a crisp .159. Not that Taijeron factored into the Mets’ long term plans at all, but his September cup of coffee put him in a position where he had more to gain than to lose. Unfortunately, some players are just stuck in the purgatory that is being too good for Triple-A, not good enough for the MLB.

What’s Next

The Mets take on a familiar face in R.A. Dickey tonight with a resurgent Rafael Montero toeing the rubber at 7:10 p.m.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

It can’t get any worse than last night, that’s for sure.

A day after Matt Harvey (with some help from the bullpen) got slapped around by the Marlins en route to a 13-1 loss, the Mets went back to work in Miami. Seth Lugo and his barely intact UCL faced off against Odrisamer Despaigne, a pitcher with a K/BB of less than one this season who has nevertheless given the Mets fits in the past (he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning while with the Padres in 2014). Phil Evans made his first MLB start at second base, and that that’s a highlight for the primer of this game tells you just how far we’ve sunk.

Game Recap

Jose Reyes got the Mets off to a fast start, dropping a solo home run into the right center field seats with one out in the first. That would be all the offense they managed for the first five innings, as Dom Smith left two men on in the third and the Mets went in order in the second, fourth, and fifth.

Seth Lugo made that lead stand up at first. He worked around a walk to Giancarlo Stanton in the first (one of many unintentional-intentional free passes the Mets have doled out to the prodigious slugger this season) by inducing a reviewed double play from Christian Yelich. He induced another double play in the second, working around a single from Justin Bour and a double from Derek Dietrich. Things were quieter in the third, when Lugo set the Marlins down in order.

Miami finally broke through in the fourth, when Yelich launched his 18th homer of the season to left center. J.T. Realmuto followed with a two out double, but Lugo struck out Dietrich to keep the game tied at one. Lugo bounced back in the fifth with another 1-2-3 inning, but that would end his evening. The right-hander tossed five innings of one run ball, striking out three and walking one. The outing lowered his ERA to 5.03.

Though Lugo departed a tie game, the Mets worked to get him in line for the win. In the top of the sixth, Reyes led off with a single before both Asdrubal Cabrera and Dom Smith lined out. With two outs, Travis d’Arnaud stepped to the plate, and he blasted a two-run home run to center field to give the Mets a 3-1 lead. Brandon Nimmo followed that up by lining a first-pitch single (a very uncharacteristic move) to left, but he was stranded when Juan Lagares flew out to end the inning.

Josh Smoker entered for the bottom of the sixth and worked a scoreless inning, working around yet another walk to Giancarlo Stanton as well as a wild pitch. After a quiet top of the seventh, Jeurys Familia relieved Smoker, striking out two and walking one in a scoreless inning. It was one of Familia’s better outings since returning from the disabled list with blood clots in his throwing shoulder, as he looks to work himself back into closer shape going into the 2018 season.

The Mets put together another threat in the top of the eighth, when Cabrera singled with one out. Smith followed with a strikeout before d’Arnaud singled and Nimmo walked to load the bases with two outs. Lagares then had a ten-pitch battle with Junichi Tazawa, including five straight foul balls. Unfortunately, when Lagares finally got around on a ball, he lined it directly to second baseman Derek Dietrich to end the threat.

After working around yet another walk to Giancarlo Stanton in the bottom of the eighth, the Mets managed to push across an insurance run in the top of the ninth. Phil Evans lead off with a line drive single to center, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt from Matt Reynolds, then to third on a ground out from Nori Aoki. Reyes drove him in with a single, stretching the lead to 4-1.

That run would prove to be important, as A.J. Ramos made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth. Justin Bour lead off the inning by golfing a pitching that was practically lying on home plate for a solo home run. J.T. Realmuto then singled on a slow ground ball to short, and Brian Anderson made things even dicier with a single to put runners on first and third with one out two batters later. Ramos pulled within one out of the save before A.J. Ellis pushed a ground ball through the right side of the infield to cut the Marlins deficit to one run. Ichiro Suzuki followed with a line drive single just over the glove of Reyes, driving in Anderson to tie the game at four.

At this point, most of us were probably just rooting for the Mets to complete the implosion and lose the game. Instead, Paul Sewald entered (after Ramos walked Stanton for the fourth time this game) and struck out Christian Yelich, forcing the game into extra innings. Mercifully, things ended quickly. A leadoff single from Smith was wasted, and J.T. Realmuto lined a walkoff solo home run off of Sewald in the bottom of the 10th.

The loss drops the Mets to 65-86, keeping them in the fifth spot in the reverse standings. Another painful loss, but at least they didn’t drag things out too long.

Thoughts from the Game

I’d use this game as an excuse to bring up my doubts about A.J. Ramos (and my corresponding dislike of the trade to acquire him), but judging relievers on a one-game sample is silly and pointless. This could also be a chance to rant about Terry Collins failing to recognize when a reliever has nothing, but basically every major league manager does this with his closer. Perhaps another chance to complain about Jose Reyes still being on this team, but he went 4-for-5 with a home run.

No, there’s just nothing worth mustering up the energy to complain about at this juncture in the season. We’re just playing out the string here folks, even in the recap section.

Other Met News

Amed Rosario missed a second straight game with gastroenteritis, with the Mets describing him as violently sick. Rosario had a bout of the stomach flu earlier this season, missing a week or so of action while with Las Vegas. The young shortstop visited the hospital but spent the night in the team hotel, and has been instructed to stay there while resting up in order to get back to game shape. With the Mets season already long over and Rosario having received a decent sampling of MLB pitching, there’s no reason to rush him back at this point.

Photo credit: Jason Vinlove – USA Today Sports

The blue and gray Mets!

WHAT HAPPENED, THE NORI AOKI GAME:

Normally I lead my recaps off with pitching, but yesterday was different. It deserves a shakeup, all thanks to the one of the one they call Norichika Aoki. Leading off for the Mets on Sunday, Aoki reached base four times (two singles, a triple, and a walk). The journeyman outfielder scored once and was the only Met to record multiple hits. Aoki didn’t factor much into the score, thanks to three plate appearances where he came up with two outs, but his afternoon shouldn’t go unnoticed.

In terms of how this game was won at the plate, the Mets held on to a 2-1 lead up until the ninth inning. They had scratched a pair across off Julio Teheran in the first inning, which looked to be more than enough for Robert Gsellman. Nevertheless, a Phil Evans’ RBI double preceded an Asdrubal Cabrera pinch-hit dinger, and suddenly the Mets found themselves with a commanding 5-1 heading into the bottom half. For Cabrera, it just adds to what has already been a ridiculous September. He is now 22 for 56 this month with three homers and eight doubles. That is certifiably Very Good.

WHAT HAPPENED, GSELLMAN GETS GROUNDERS:

Robert Gsellman was the best version of Robert Gsellman on Sunday. After allowing just three hits in his first four frames, he retired eight consecutive batters. The streak ended following an Amed Rosario fielding error, which repeated itself on the very next play and stuck runners at the corners with just one away in the seventh inning. Though a groundout by Jace Peterson brought a run home, Gsellman was able to keep the lead. A Kurt Suzuki pop-out to Dom Smith just in front of the firstbase dugout would end the inning, as well as Gsellman’s afternoon.

Though he only struck out three batters, Gsellman walked none and was able to keep the ball on the ground. We know, of course, that Gsellman is a groundball pitcher. However, he really excels at this against Atlanta. Out of the 64 Braves batters Gsellman had faced coming into Sunday, 35 put the ball on the ground. Knowing that, it should be no surprise that his 13 grounders-induced on Sunday matched a season-high set against, you guessed it, the Atlanta Braves (April 26). All-in-all, maybe this shouldn’t be surprising. The Braves own one of the highest groundball rates in the National League, the philosophical hitting-antithesis of our beloved dinger-smashing Mets.

WHAT HAPPENED, YESTERDAY:

On one fine afternoon, Robert Gsellman looked great again. Had it not been for a couple of errors, he would have blanked the Atlanta Braves. It hasn’t been his best season, but hopefully he can build on starts like this during the last two weeks of a campaign he surely must be ready to put behind him.

WHAT HAPPENS, TODAY:

The Mets head to South Beach to wrap up their penultimate road trip. Matt Harvey is slated to take the mound against Dan Straily, and with two weeks left the biggest storyline might be what the Mets will do with Noah Syndergaard. In a season that has been over for months and contains nothing left to play for but some semblance of pride and a distant optimism for a healthy 2018 roster that can compete in the NL East, which is fostered by trying to help players avoid extended (and potentially lingering) trips to the disabled list with two weeks left in the season, it’s a real tough decision.

Photo credit: Dale Zanine – USA Today Sports

In the bottom of the seventh inning of last night’s shellacking, Phil Evans took the field at third and Matt Reynolds replaced Jose Reyes at short — Reyes had himself replaced Amed Rosario, who left the game in the fifth with a tight hip flexor. As the few hopeful signs of the future began to succumb to the injury bug (just which Greek God have the Wilpons angered, exactly?), and the lineup turned over from exciting prospects to players who had fans and broadcasters alike scrambling for the media guide, it became abundantly clear that the Mets, unsatisfied with ruining the present, were intent on putting a cloud over the future. Robbed of joy, robbed of hope; it must be the Mets.

Jen-Ho Tseng, making his major league debut starting for the Cubs, initially struggled, hitting both Reyes and Dom Smith with pitches, but emerged from the first only surrendering one run. The Mets grabbed another couple of runs in the second, with Reyes driving in Rosario and Brandon Nimmo doubling in Reyes. The teams began trading home runs, with Smith and Travis d’Arnaud hitting back-to-back dingers in the top of the third to put the Mets up again, and Anthony Rizzo answering in the bottom of the frame to close the gap to one run. The Cubs would take the lead for good in the fourth, scoring five runs and knocking Seth Lugo out of the game.

Lugo went three innings, allowing eight runs (seven earned) and striking out four. I wish I could say it only feels like yesterday that we were watching Lugo pitch in the World Baseball Classic, but I can’t. It was an eternity ago, long before this hellish summer that refuses to end and will no doubt become a milestone in Mets fans’ mythology of suffering. Lugo was replaced by Josh Smoker, Jerry Blevins, Paul Sewald, Chris Flexen, and Jeurys Familia out of the pen. (In case anyone was wondering how the Jason Heyward swing reconstruction project was going, it’s going just fine, thanks.)

Rosario would be lifted in the bottom of the fifth with a tight hip flexor. Before replacing him at short, Reyes played a nimble at second base, for what it’s worth. (Nothing. It’s worth nothing.) Rosario had a great series at Wrigley, going 6 for 9 and stealing two bases last night alone. This being the Mets summer of discontent, that meant he was ripe to be struck down by the gods. d’Arnaud twisted his right knee in the same inning. Seemed a fitting cap to the day that it was reported the Mets would be sticking with their strength and conditioning coach.

Tomas Nido got his first major league hit and first run batted in with a ninth inning RBI single. Then he tried to score from second on a ground ball squibbed in front of the plate to end the game. For almost any other team, that would be an unbelievable end to an execrable game. Met fans can believe it all too well.

Tonight, the Mets head to Atlanta, where Rafael Montero (5-9, 5.05) will face Sean Newcomb (2-8, 4.38); first pitch is scheduled for 7:35 p.m.

Photo credit: Kamil Krzaczynski – USA Today Sports

Any time a pitcher is among the league leaders in walks, we probably imagine they are a “Wild Thing” like Ricky Vaughn from Major League. Some pitchers can be pretty effective even if they don’t quite know where the ball is going. When it comes to real life wild things, we expect inconsistency. Sometimes the pitcher knows exactly where the pitch is going and they get a strikeout. Sometimes they throw it to the backstop. Montero stands out because his walks are so consistent and predictable. He has the walks, but rarely flashes the upside and potential of other young starters with high walk rates.

Montero’s last batter sums up his approach pretty well. The Mets led 2-1 in the top of the fifth. Montero must have known he needed to be more efficient to go beyond the fifth, but he didn’t change his approach. With one on and two outs, he threw four straight changeups to Scott Schebler. Three of the changeups were out of the zone. Montero wanted to end his outing on a “perfect” pitch and kept nibbling out of the strike zone. Down 3-1, he threw a slider and managed to get a ground ball to end the inning.

That’s what we get in a relatively good Montero outing. He didn’t leave any mistakes over the middle of the plate. He didn’t hang any breaking balls. Montero seemed to be going out of his way to avoid the strike zone. He carried himself like a pitcher who was executing his game plan. His game plan was just so risk averse that Reds’ hitters could stare at ball four and take their free base.

We’ve all seen young pitchers who were wild to start their big league careers, then learn some command. Randy Johnson started his career with so little command that the Expos gave up on him before he blossomed into a Hall of Famer (editor’s note: This is not to imply that Rafael Montero is a future Hall of Famer). Montero had a few good starts, but for the most part he looks like the exact same pitcher he was when he got called up in 2014. He seems so afraid of big league hitters that he refuses to enter the strike zone any more than possible.

When I watched Robert Gsellman earlier this season, I didn’t get the same feeling. Gsellman was clearly trying to throw a sinker with more downwards break than lateral break. However, he couldn’t get that pitch to move like it did in 2016. The sinker was always flat. He either hung his slider or missed well out of the zone. Watching Gsellman, it was clear that the ball was not going where he intended it to go. That’s a mechanical issue that some pitchers can fix. Watching Montero last night, it felt clear that there is no obvious mechanical fix to improve his command.

Kevin Plawecki gave the Mets all the offense they would need with a two-run homer in the second. Dom Smith added a clutch two-out run in the sixth, and the Mets tacked on three more in the seventh to put the game out of reach. Phil Evans, who won the AA Eastern League batting title in 2016, got his first big league hit with a hustle double down the third base line.

It wouldn’t be a Mets game without some bizarre managing, and Terry Collins gave us another head-scratcher in the seventh. Matt Reynolds was hit by a pitch to start the inning. Travis Taijeron was on deck, but Collins pulled him back and asked Jacob deGrom to pinch bunt. A day after Milwaukee’s Jimmy Nelson hurt his rotator cuff running the bases, I can’t see why the Mets would risk deGrom with additional play in the field. If Taijeron isn’t good enough to play on a depleted roster, why is he on the 40-man roster? Then again, this is the team that keeps starting Jose Reyes instead of seeing if Gavin Cecchini can play. deGrom ended up walking and Amed Rosario came in as a pinch runner.

What’s Next?

The Mets look for a sweep against the Reds. Tanking is harder than it looks.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

We start exactly where you’d expect with Amed Rosario (#1). I am guessing he needs very little introduction here: Rosario is one of the best prospects in all of baseball, a potential All-Star shortstop with plus tools on the dirt and at the plate. He got assigned to Vegas with less than half a season under his belt in Binghamton, but hitting .350 is a good way to accelerate your timetable. This will be the 21-year-old’s first prolonged look at major league quality secondary offerings, so that is something to watch. Still, the bat is advanced enough, and the PCL Pacific South full of enough launching pads, that the topline numbers should look good. And if Asdrubal Cabrera goes down with an injury, Rosario might be the best everyday option at the 6 in the Mets organization right now. The Mets have indicated he will play third base once a week or so to give him more “defensive flexibility,” but if he isn’t the best defensive shortstop in their system right now, it is only because they also employ Luis Guillorme.

First baseman Dom Smith (#4) shouldn’t have much trouble with the Pacific Coast League either. On the podcast I set the over/under for his batting line at .330/.400/.480 (hmm, this might be low now). We won’t learn much more about the actual power projection here until we see him in the majors, but I am curious to see how he handles the kind of fringy backend lefty types he’ll see plenty more of in Flushing. If there is a weakness in his hit tool, it’s that you can get him to poke or roll over soft stuff away. Dom’s ETA is a little less clear to me than Rosario’s. Either could force the issue with a strong performance, but I don’t know if the Mets would be as willing to hand the first base keys to Smith in the middle of the season if Duda’s back acts up again.

I’ll cop to having more than a bit of prospect fatigue with both Brandon Nimmo (#8) and Gavin Cecchini (#9). They are both likely to be major league contributors for somebody, but it doesn’t seem like it will be with the Mets. Neither ever really blossomed into that everyday player projection that they had as first round picks in 2011 and 2012, but they also don’t have much left to prove in Vegas. Nimmo is currently on the DL after picking up another lower body injury in the WBC, a familiar refrain in his pro career, and the Mets seem to have no interest in playing him in CF in the majors at this point, although he might be their best left-handed hitting defensive option. Cecchini will continue to transition to second base, which puts more pressure on his bat. He’s always been a swing tinkerer, and this spring he seemed more coiled in his setup than he has in the past. I expect both to compete for a PCL batting title again, before getting traded at the deadline for an eighth inning guy and Bartolo Colon.

Short Hops

The 51s rotation doesn’t offer much in the way of prospects—or in all likelihood, PCL run prevention—but righthander Ricky Knapp is at least worth keeping an eye on. He might be the Mets 7th starter at this point, and he isn’t all that worse of a prospect than Seth Lugo was coming into 2016. He tops out around 91, but he is a pitching coach’s son, with all the pitchability and mound smarts that implies…a strong 2016 season put infielder Phil Evans back on the major league radar, but the Mets have depth in utility types that can’t really play shortstop… Matt Reynolds is Phil Evans, but on the 40-man roster. He is the best of this group at faking shortstop at least…Paul Sewald finally got a shot in the bigs to prove whether or not he can get major league hitters out, although I suspect he will be back in Vegas once Jeurys Familia is eligible to come off the restricted list. At least the $1,000 senior sign will be making 40-man roster money now…Kevin McGowan had an awful spring, but given the Mets bullpen issues, could just be a good month away from a major league shot. He’s your standard 91-95 with a slider guy…indy-ball find Cory Burns might be the best Mets candidate for the 2017 Mets Vogelsong award. He was up to 93-94 in the spring and has two secondaries he can throw for strikes, including a change that almost functions like a screwball.

Photo Credit: Butch Dill- USA Today Sports

Chasen Bradford: Bradford, like the majority of invitees, is a pitcher whose presence suggests the Mets are looking to bulk up the bullpen. Originally drafted in 2011, Bradford has been with the 51s since 2015. Though his ERA spiked to 4.80 in 2016, his career overall of 3.42 is stronger, and he’s shown time and again that he can handle the pressure, earning five of six saves in 2016, and 36 of a possible 48 across his career thus far.

Xorge Carrillo: The only non-roster catcher to attend spring training, Carrillo was also a 2011 Mets’ draft pick. He began in Brooklyn, and spent 2016 in Binghamton and Las Vegas, where he batted .333 and .269, respectively, slashing .257/.328/.354 over his career.

P.J. Conlon: A 23-year-old Northern Ireland-native, Conlon is an intriguing prospect beyond his heritage. The lefty was the Mets’ 13th-round draft pick in 2015, and has already played with the Cyclones, St. Lucie Mets, and Columbia Fireflies. At 5’11,” Conlon is the shortest of the pitching invitees, but so far his performance suggests he’ll be a force to be reckoned with: he’s gone 12-3 with one save and an ERA of 1.47 across 41 games.

Phillip Evans: A 24-year-old infielder, Evans was drafted out of high school in 2011, and had his best season yet in 2016 split between Binghamton and St. Lucie, slashing .321/.366/.460 with eight of his 19 career home runs. Over his five-year career, Evans has hit .255/.318/.344.

Luis Guillorme*: A 10th-round draft pick in 2013, the infielder started in the Gulf Coast League and spent 2016 with the St. Lucie Mets, where he hit his first professional home run. Guillorme hit .285/.355/.326 across his career, with 34 stolen bases.

( * – Editor’s Note: Please email Jeff Paternostro with any and all questions about Guillorme.)

Kevin McGowan: The tallest invitee on the list, 25-year-old McGowan fits neatly between other leggy pitchers Syndergaard (6’6″) and deGrom (6’4″) at 6’5”.  A 13th-round draft pick in 2013, the righty spent 2016 moving between Las Vegas, Binghamton and St. Lucie, going 5-1 with two saves and an ERA of 2.35, the best of his career so far.

David Roseboom: This lefty was a 2014 draft pick and spent 2016 in Binghamton, where he managed 14 saves (in 15 opportunities) with an ERA of 1.87 across 52 games. Over his career, he’s gone 5-3 with 26 saves and an ERA of 2.26.

Ben Rowen: Originally a 2010 Texas draft pick, the 28-year-old made his major-league debut in 2014, in an eight-game run with the Rangers. He was called up for four games by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016. Though both his stints in the majors have been middling (and short), his minor-league stats are impressive: 25-10 with 43 saves and an ERA of 1.85. Here’s hoping a spring training invite allows Rowen time to shake loose the nerves and show the majors some of his good stuff.

Paul Sewald: This righty pitcher was a 10th-round draft pick for the Mets in 2010, and spent 2016 in Las Vegas, where he went 5-3 with 19 saves and an ERA of 3.29. Over his time with Mets affiliates, he’s gone 16-8 with 66 saves and an ERA of 2.20.

Dominic Smith: Smith is the youngest of this year’s invitees—he’ll be 21 upon his arrival in Port St. Lucie. The infielder was drafted from his California high school by the Mets in 2013, their first round pick, and just finished off a great season in Binghamton, where he hit .302/.367/.457 with 14 home runs. I’ll be excited to see how this slugger holds up when he faces off against some major-league arms.

Champ Stuart: With a name like “Champ,” he’s gotta be good! Also an early draft pick from 2013 (the Mets’ sixth-round choice), this outfielder—given name “Jervis”—split time between Binghamton and the St. Lucie Mets in 2016. He hit .240/.314/.349 with eight home runs across the two teams, and he’s lightning fast; he’s managed 40 stolen bases in 114 games.

Corey Taylor: This 24-year-old righty pitcher was a seventh-round draft pick in 2015, and has done well in his time with the Cyclones and St. Lucie Mets. Over his two-year, 63-game career, he’s gone 5-6 with an ERA of 1.77 and 20 saves.

Logan Taylor: No relation to the aforementioned Taylor above, this 25-year-old, also a right-handed pitcher, was drafted by the Mets in 2012. He went 4-2 in Binghamton in 2016 and has a career ERA of 3.26 across 99 games.

Travis Taijeron: A 2011 draft pick for the Mets, this left fielder has spent the past two years in Las Vegas, where he hit 25 home runs in 2015, and 19 in 2016, batting slightly above his career average of .269/.370/.512. This slugger’s got power, and 110 career MiLB home runs to prove it; fingers crossed his swing is just as deadly in the big leagues.

Adam Wilk: At 29, Wilk is the oldest invitee on the list. (And yet still slightly younger than I am. Sigh.). Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, he’s already got his feet wet in the majors—he had runs in 2011 and 2012 with the Tigers, and two innings with the Angels in 2015. 2016 was not his best year—he went 2-8 with the Triple-A Durham Bulls, but I’ll indulge the Mets pitching staff here in the hope he can combine the mojo from his earlier days with his major-league experience and put his best arm forward for 2017. Wilk has a career ERA 3.59 across 153 games.

Photo Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA Today Sports

21. Chris Flexen, RHP, Age 21 (St. Lucie)

The least-heralded prospect the Mets added to the 40-man this offseason. Flexen is honestly about as close to a generic assembly-line good-but-not-great right-handed pitching prospect as there is, right down to the Tommy John surgery in his recent past. 2016 was his first full season back, and he was middling in High-A, but his velocity did largely come back. The Mets have done extremely, extremely well maximizing this profile into major-league success, and Flexen will start 2017 in Double-A and on the 40-man, so this could all come together quicker than you’d think. Whether or not that future is in the rotation or bullpen remains to be seen.

22. Andrew Church, RHP, Age 21 (Columbia/St. Lucie/Las Vegas)

2013’s second-round pick emerged from years of erratic and unspectacular performance in the depths of short-season ball to put up an impressive half-season split between A-ball levels. There isn’t a lot differentiating him and Flexen, honestly—touching 95, good breaking ball (curve for Flexen, slider for Church), change that needs some work, a lot of time missed with arm injuries, unclear whether either will fit in the rotation or the bullpen. Flexen being a spot higher is more that we’ve seen him pitch more and better through the years, despite the TJS in his background, but consider these guys fairly interchangeable.

23. Phil Evans, IF, Age 23 (St. Lucie/Binghamton)

Evans opened 2016 as a High-A extra infielder and ended it as a Double-A batting champion. He was originally notable as one of the first markers that the new regime would be way more aggressive in the draft, signing as 2011’s 15th-rounder for a $650,000 bonus. Of course, draft bonus pool caps came just the year after, and nobody could be particularly aggressive after that. Evans bounced around the system until this year, emerging as a hit-tool first second base option in much the same way T.J. Rivera did at Triple-A and in the majors.

The Mets exposed Evans to Thursday’s Rule 5 draft, and he’s been widely talked about as one of the more likely players to get popped. It’d be more of a loss if the system didn’t already have Wilmer Flores, Gavin Cecchini, and Rivera as young RHH utility options that can’t really play short.

24. Anthony Kay, LHP, Age 21 (DNP)

As ESPN’s Keith Law noted at the time, Kay’s usage at UConn this past spring was suspect at best. Surprise surprise, Kay’s physical with the Mets showed significant elbow damage, costing him many hundreds of thousands of dollars of bonus money. MLB, through the bonus pools, made it up to the Mets by allowing them to sign Cameron Planck. Nobody will make it up to Anthony Kay–not UConn or the NCAA or the AAC.

This ranking is pretty much a shot in the dark; Kay would’ve made the top ten if healthy, but won’t throw a meaningful professional pitch until his age-23 season in 2018. As with Marcos Molina, we’ll probably have a much better idea how the recovery is going in a year, even if he probably won’t make it back before the end of the MILB season.

25. Cameron Planck, RHP, Age 18 (DNP)

Do you like playing the lottery? Well, here’s a pair of prospects for you. The Mets went through quite a saga to acquire Planck, originally offering to cut a pre-draft deal with him for somewhere in the mid-high six figures, to be drafted in the third or fourth round. Planck turned them down. The Mets took him in the 11th as a backup plan, and ended up having a bunch of leftover pool money when Kay took a far lower bonus than expected. Planck signed for $1,000,001.

He’s yet to pitch as a professional. He throws in the mid-90s. We’re ranking him around where we’d rank a generic third-round prep arm because, well, for the purposes of rankings, he’s sort of a generic third-round prep arm. And as you see with Church upstream, it’s not always clear for a number of years which way these things are going to go.

26. Gregory Guerrero, SS, Age 17 (DSL)

Gregory Guerrero is most notable as Vladimir’s nephew, trained by Uncle Vlad at the Guerrero Academy. He signed for $1.5 million as one of the reported best players in the 2015 international class. And that’s where it about ends for now—Guerrero was adequate in enough in the Dominican Summer League, but doesn’t get the kinds of great whisperings Andres Gimenez has, at least not yet. He’s likely to be way up this list after a summer in North America, or off it entirely.

27. Nabil Crismatt, RHP, Age 21 (Brooklyn/Columbia/Binghamton)

Crismatt put up one of the more spectacular ratios in the system in 2016, striking out 74 and walking only 7 while rising from extended spring all the way to a spot start in Double-A. He’s already being used in a swingman type role and is very likely headed to a future in the bullpen. As a fastball/change guy with a fringe breaking ball, it’s easy to think Akeel Morris. He’s a few years away from any sort of major-league role, and was subsequently left off the 40, where he should be among the lower risks among the significant prospects to be taken in the Rule 5 draft.

28. Kevin McGowan, RHP, Age 24 (St. Lucie/Binghamton)

Of the prospects the Mets exposed to the Rule 5 draft, McGowan is probably most ready to contribute to a major-league team. Jeffrey and I talk quite frequently about “95-and-a-slider” guys in the context of generic perfectly acceptable relievers, and after converting to relief in 2016, McGowan is basically already there. He could be this year’s Erik Goeddel in contributing decent innings to the major-league club from off the radar, or he could be this year’s Matt Bowman in contributing decent innings to someone else’s major-league club.

29. Jake Simon, LHP, Age 19 (Kingsport)

The Mets gave Jake Simon $400,000 in the 11th round in 2015 because he was a projectable lefty, and early signs are promising. His velocity ticked up in 2016 while pitching adequately in the Appy League, a perfectly respectable assignment for his age and advancement. These profiles can come together quickly—we’ll note that this is about the same point where we’d have had Simon’s teammate Thomas Szapucki last year, and with broadly the same profile. Simon will be headed for a higher-profile assignment in either Brooklyn or Columbia in 2017.

30. Ty Kelly, IF/OF, Age 27 (Las Vegas/New York)

Ty Kelly deserves to be higher than this, as he’s not more than a shout off of T.J. Rivera, but this is what happens when your authors end up counting service days by hand and realize he is eligible at the last second. He’s a present major-league role 4, a perfectly good utility guy, and honestly most of the players behind him are future 4s, so here he is. I guess this serves as a reminder that more guys are still “prospects” than you’d think.

THREE MORE WITH A SHOT:

• P.J. Conlon, LHP, Age 22 (Columbia/St. Lucie): A small, soft-tossing lefty from Northern Ireland who has dominated the low-minors to the tune of a 1.47 career ERA. This profile often implodes in Double-A, but he could carve out a MLB future in some role.
• Paul Sewald, RHP, Age 26 (Las Vegas): The best pitcher for the 2016 Las Vegas 51s, and overqualified for a MLB long relief type role with a chance for more. Could be selected in Rule 5.
• Jeff McNeil, IF, Age 24 (Binghamton): The former golfer missed nearly all of 2016 with lower-body injuries. If his athleticism and hit tool remain intact, he has a chance at a long career as a utility player or even fringe starter. Also exposed to Rule 5.

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