Jay Bruce loves New York. On a night when it looked like the Mets' beleaguered bullpen would let them down again, Bruce saved everyone's bacon with two home runs, accounting for all the Mets' scoring. Robert Gsellman started for New York and was stellar. He threw 99 pitches, lasting one batter into the eighth, while [...]
Sometimes, we just can't have nice things. Matt Harvey pitched wonderfully for five-and-a-third innings, but had to leave with a tight hamstring after making a putout at first base with the Mets up 10-2. It remains to be seen if he will make his next start on Sunday in Miami. Sigh... Now, about the offense: [...]
Noah Syndergaard provided the lightning, Michael Conforto and Jay Bruce supplied the thunder as Sunday became Thor's day in front of a national audience and the Mets avenged the last two losses to Miami. On the big stage of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, Syndergaard solidified his stature as one of the premier pitchers in baseball. [...]
If one were to take the auspices on April 3, 2017 where the Mets are concerned, one would find the results most encouraging. After a week of fairly miserable weather, the day dawned bright and warm on Monday. A slight chill early in the morning gave way to mid-Spring heat. Traveling to the game on [...]
Sometimes how the Gut Reacts depends on the season. If this game were played in late September and was fraught with divisional implications, I'd be upset. Since it's the second game of the season? Meh... The contest began as advertised, a fun pitching matchup between the Braves' Bartolo Colon -- and how funny does that [...]
We are here. We made it. The snow is mostly melted and yesterday – March 29 – the New York metro area hit 61 degrees. Not only that, the Mets’ 2017 spring training is essentially over. Today is the last Florida game, a scrimmage against their AAA Las Vegas 51s. Tomorrow, they’ll be at Citi [...]
Dallas Green was baseball guy, or rather, a baseball hard[case]. He knocked around the majors as a journeyman pitcher for eight seasons and knocked some sense into countless players longer after that. He was one of the strongarmers, of which there was no shortage in the majors back in the day. If it’s all possible, [...]
Well, when your intrepid columnist is wrong, he’s the first to admit it. Back in the most recent Dark Age of Metsian fandom, when the purge of the Willie Randolph/Jerry Manuel regime occurred, it was beyond comprehension how pitching coach Dan Warthen survived. Warthen looked like your kindly old uncle who told you stories that [...]
On the radio last week, Howie Rose and Josh Lewin were whiling away a languid spring training game, talking about the imminent arrival of ex-quarterback Tim Tebow in major league camp. They were musing on peoples’ reaction to him even being in Mets mufti – a lot of anger and cynicism coming from a lot [...]
Six games, that’s all. That’s how deep we are into the 2017 spring training schedule. So far, it’s been a relatively quiet camp, with some nuggets to glean from this early stage. None of the big four pitchers has faced real, live opposing batters yet. Zack Wheeler has bounced back from his early-camp troubles and [...]
Spring training camp has started, you may have heard, and it will not be long before we get to start worrying again. Exhibition games start tomorrow, the first television cablecast from Port St. Lucie will be on Saturday. You just know that some clever wag somewhere will Tweet that there will be baseball on TV [...]
The dominant Mets officially died in 1993. They’d been in steep decline since 1991 and there were frantic attempts to stem the tide of the inevitable: the signings of Bobby Bonilla and Eddie Murray, the trade for Bret Saberhagen, the hiring of Jeff Torborg to manage. None of it worked. Management was slow to pick [...]