Let’s get this out there, right now: this is not last year. The Mets will not finish under .500. That is a mathematical impossibility, as they already have 87 wins on their tally. This is also not 2007, as they are all but guaranteed a playoff spot, even in the absence of a division title. [...]
The last two games notwithstanding – a 2-1 loss and a 1-0 win, both vs. Philadelphia at home – the Mets’ offense has been generally robust this season. They haven’t clubbed teams to death, no. They don’t have Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton hitting back-to-back in a hitters-favorable ballpark, no. They have been opportunistic, adept [...]
The 2022 season is really humming along, isn’t it? The Mets are 21 games over .500, in first place in the NL East and, according to Fangraphs, have a 98.9% chance to make the playoffs. Baseball-Reference.com is less sanguine, putting their odds at 98.4%. As has been exhaustively chronicled, the Mets faced down their daunting [...]
Some things are simply inevitable. Like death and taxes. For the last 15 years or so, an addition to that short list has been necessary: the Mets’ early season promise disappearing as the All-Star break approaches. Even in the grand years, like 2015 and 2016, mid-June-to-early-July has been a tough slog for the boys from [...]
Sometimes, you just…know, y’know? A long baseball season is always fraught with signals and portents about what type of season it will be. We all try and read the tea leaves, especially in April and May. A baseball season is long, of course, and this week’s harbinger is next week’s dashed hope. Even a flying [...]
Yeah, it’s only two games. I know. Two games against the Washington Nationals, this year’s NL East putative doormats. So as is the case every April, all enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that the sun hasn’t really risen on this season yet. But man, the Mets look good! Tylor Megill’s surprise quality start in [...]
Spring Training camps open today. I expected to write that a month ago, but whaddayagonnado? The principal players in the bad production called “The Odious Baseball Lockout of 2022” provided the drama and suspense needed for good theatre, but the audience certainly suffered for it. At least there was a happy -- if unsatisfying for [...]
Ya see? Speaking up works, even if it did take seven years. The above article was written on the cusp of a season of Mets’ glory, had we but known at the time. It is the nature of the beast to rail at ownership when you’re a Mets fan, even at the start of something [...]
The thing to remember is that he didn’t want to be here. When Keith Hernandez was traded to the Mets on June 15, 1983 – the anti-matter version of the Tom Seaver trade, if you will – he was riding high. As a longtime member of the St. Louis Cardinals, he’d won a batting title, [...]
Nothing causes you to examine your present quite like something good happening to someone from your past. Your childhood best friend gets married and that makes you wonder why you can’t get a date. A co-worker – hired the same day as you -- gets a great promotion and you find yourself still in the [...]
This title line is from a forgotten 1960s pop ditty about a California surfer dude who moves east and experiences some severe culture shock. It also pretty well sums up the Mets’ futility and frustration in the hiring of some top front office personnel. They’ve been rebuffed at every turn. Did you ever hear the [...]
As this is written, the New York Mets are coming off a very large win over their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees. The victory restores their record to .500, squaring up at 71-71 and putting them a bare half-game behind the Philadelphia Phillies for second place in the NL East, five behind the Atlanta [...]