On a day the Mets got some devastating news about the health of Lucas Duda, the Zen presence of Bartolo Colon once again calmed everyone’s fears. Colon pitched seven mainly uneventful innings, allowing five singles and a bare first inning run.
For their part, the Mets battered erstwhile Met-killer Gio Gonzalez to the tune of ten hits, three homers and seven earned runs over the space of five innings. David Wright continued his personal renaissance with a shot that gave the Mets an early 3-1 lead, following a plunked Curtis Granderson and a single by Juan Lagares. Actually, it was singles night in Washington. Yoenis Cespedes followed Wright’s smash with a base hit. Neil Walker did the same and so did Asdrubal Cabrera for an RBI. Eric Campbell capped the five-run inning with a sacrifice fly. The Mets scored two runs in a more familiar way in the fifth, with back-to-back home runs by Cespedes and Walker. It’s worth noting that coming into tonight’s game, Gonzalez had not had a multi-homer-allowed game in 44 straight starts.
Colon cruised from there, though it wouldn’t be a true Colon start without some comedy. In the sixth, he allowed a two-out single — what else? — to Ryan Zimmerman, then forgot that Zimmerman was in fact on base and went into a full windup, allowing Zimmerman to cruise into second with an unlikely stolen base. Jerry Blevins and Logan Verrett finished up this rocking chair win.
Never has the following phrase been so fraught with portent and uncertainty: tomorrow is Harvey Day…
Given the way the Nats handled the non-Syndergaard Mets last week, combined with the fact that they are 6-1 vs LHP, made getting swept a realistic potential outcome. Glad to see Colon and the HR offense take that off the table in the very first game.
Someone, Chris F. maybe?, has been beating the drum for Jonathan Lucroy. I’m starting to warm up to that idea. Does Plawecki-Flores-A-ball pitcher get that done?
Yep, I’m leading the Lucroy charge. He’s available through next year with a 5 M$ club option. I think your trade gets that done
Have the best feeling about Harvey tomorrow night: I feel he’s going to be awesome.
Not a fan of more hitting rentals rather than bench upgrades. This team has enough offense that if they continue to just make good contact like they did tonight, homers, singles, and productive outs will all come. Don’t want to keep losing talent to rentals.
I may have been the first to hold out Lucroy as a possibility. I think the conversation begins with Wheeler. I also wonder about bad blood between the GMs. I don’t think he gets moved until late July.
D’Arnaud is an interesting option at 1B. The arm doesn’t have to be catcher-ready, and he could start practicing the position right now in St. Lucid.
Gio and the Nats: what goes around comes around. Duplicate scores. Too very e good evenly matched teams. Turn around was fair play. The Mets need one of the next two games to even the head to head. Some how I think they will get it done.
Losing Duda is significant, especially with TDA also out. They live by the home run and the team was built to have a home run hitter at every position. Losing 50 of them from those two players is costly. Interesting posts about replacements but it does look like the Mets will have to get a replacement from outside the organization.
Handling the Duda situation, in order of personal preference:
1 – Move Wright to 1B, play Flores and/or Walker at 3B
2 – Move Conforto to 1B, play Lagares in CF
3 – Move Walker to 1B, bring up Herrera to play 2B
4 – Trade for James Loney, currently tearing it up for SD AAA
5 – Trade for Wil Myers, though it may be costly
1,976,427 – Trade for Ike Davis as an absolute drop-dead last resort.
I only like 4 there Charlie.
Wright has never played a lick of 1B…while it may be his destination, right now is not the time to experiment with his daily routine just to get a uni on, let alone learn a new position. Same with Conforto…the guy is a left fielder and will be our left fielder for years…and hes comfortable there and hits. I dont like adding stress of learning a much faster infield game and the negative effects that could have on batting. Trading for Myers is interesting, but would mean the Lucas Duda era is over in NY.
Loney is cheap, brings solid defensive skills to 1B, and gets on base. We have enough mashers to bring him around.
I prefer to trade for Lucroy, and platoon him with TdA at 1B and C, giving most of the ABs at C to Lucroy. TdA is not the franchise catcher we traded for.
Can you make a trade with Dairy Queen or wherever Ike is now earning a salary?
Travis d’Arnaud for Will Myers— one Glass Statue for Another?