Displaying items by tag: Mets

It’s exciting to begin the new era with such fervor, including a blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Indians to get an All Star the caliber of Francisco Lindor. Lindor comes to the Mets along with front line starter Carlos Carrasco in exchange for the two talented players who were to be vying for the starting shortstop job in 2021 – Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez – along with a couple of prospects. Lindor is the prize, the impact player the Mets coveted and needed.

He is 27 years old, is a four-time All Star, two-time Gold Glover and one of the best all-around players in baseball. He may be coming off a down year that saw him hit .258 with eight home runs in the shortened season, but he averaged 34 homers with a .278 batting average and .856 OPS from 2017-19. The downside of it…Lindor can be a free agent after the season.

Carrasco…the proverbial “throw in” in the deal, is 33 years old, and was the 2020 American League Comeback Player of the Year, returning from a chronic myeloid leukemia diagnosis to start 12 games for the Indians with a 2.91 ERA. We’ve been down this road before with the Indians. Lest we forget that the Mets fans got their hopes up when some pretty good All Star second basemen made their way to Flushing…only to flop.

Opening Day is finally here. Baseball is back. It was a long winter after a disappointing season. But although there wasn’t a major overhaul, no fire sale, it was an interesting off-season to say the least. How it plays out now will be interesting and, hopefully, fun.

Before we get underway, it seems like a good time to take a look at a number of issues addressed since the conclusion of the 2018 season.

I have seen when a deer gets struck by a vehicle, and is suffering, a police officer will take out his service revolver and put the poor thing out of its misery. Given the way the Yankees have been a virtual juggernaut, and the Mets have been like a wounded animal, it could just be that the Yankees put the final blow on the Mets season and put them out of their misery.

Nothing is looking good for the Mets right now…except for the starting pitching. In reality, the last two turns through the rotation, every starter has done a magnificent job. Zack Wheeler, Steven Matz, even Jason Vargas has rebounded from his putrid performances to turn in two terrific performances. Noah Syndergaard has been good, but not great, but Seth Lugo stepped in and put up four shutout innings. And, of course, Jacob deGrom has been doing the best impression of Tom Seaver in years, and is suffering the same fate that Seaver and Jerry Koosman became accustomed to – pitching your heart out and coming away with nothing to show for it. The thing is that the Mets starters can stave off the Yankees hitters. But, unlike Seaver and Koosman, these starters can’t go nine innings, it is a shock if they go seven…or even MAKE IT INTO the seventh inning. And we all know what happens once a team gets into the Mets bullpen…BOOM!!!

The wheels are coming off. Can the wheels really be coming off when the team is 17-12 and still in second place? Well, if you look at the fact that, take away the nine-game winning streak, the Mets have been less than stellar, the record is truly deceiving. And the Atlanta Braves, the REBUILDING Atlanta Braves, truly embarrassed the Mets in the three-game series at Citifield to move them past the Mets into first place.

And perhaps Sandy Alderson and new manager Mickey Callaway have had enough of the “embarrassments” as the shocking news is that Matt Harvey has been DFA’d (Designated For Assignment) after Harvey rejected a request that he agree to go to the minors to fix himself rather than continue to embarrass himself at the big club…and any other club he seems to be stumbling out of at night where ever he is.

Did anyone really think the Mets would go 161-1? So they finally lost a game to the Brewers but bounced right back to win the series in dramatic fashion thanks to, who else? Wilmer Flores and another walk off home run.

And in the midst of running off nine straight wins, they just happened to sweep a three-game series from the Nationals in their home ballpark in Washington last week. Now with the Nationals coming in to CitiField, it will be interesting to see if the Mets can keep the momentum going, or this train gets de-railed.

The Mets are sitting atop the Eastern Division of the National League yet they are far from running away with the division title. In fact, the thought of meeting up with any of the three teams in the Central Division - Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs - is downright scary. The Mets are doing a pretty good job of beating up on the second division teams...but they are struggling against teams with winning records...as evidenced by their sweep of the Rockies followed up, in turn, by getting swept themselves by the Pirates at CitiField. The split with the Orioles in Baltimore not only showcased the Mets strength, it also showcased their weaknesses.

The Mets get another shutout as Jacob deGrom K's 10 and Yoenis Cespedes gets his first HR as Met. Mets are now 10 games over the .500 mark and have Noah Syndergaard on the mound as they go for the four-game sweep of the NL's best hitting team

Mets finally lose after winning 7 straight. Not pretty...except for two Curtis Granderson HRs...Mets K'd 15 times & ‪‎Ruben Tejada’s double clutch allows go ahead run. ‪‎Noah Syndergaard had some moments but just didn't have his best stuff and allowed four runs in the first inning.

I previously compared the 1969 ‎Mets to the 2015 version. But the three-game sweep by the Pirates is indicative that, other than the starting rotation, there is not much likeness.

On August 15, 1969, the Mets began their ascent to the top of the baseball world, coming from 9 1/2 games back and third place, to complete their Cinderella finish and capture the hearts of the city and the world, creating baseball lore that has been referred to in every medium imaginable.