Dominic Smith hit a heroic late-inning home run. Rhys Hoskins hit an even more heroic, later one to give the Phillies the first game of this series. The Mets took an early lead when Jay Bruce peppered Aaron Nola's first pitch of the second inning over the right centerfield wall. That didn't last long. Jorge [...]
Well, all good things must come to an end. So it was with Jason Vargas's recent "hot streak," which crumbled over his ears in the course of three-and-a-third innings. To be fair, though, this wasn't anybody's best night. The Mets actually had a decent lead at the start. Todd Frazier led off the second with [...]
The great Baltimore manager Earl Weaver once famously said "The secret to baseball is simple: starting pitching and three-run homers." The Mets employed that philosophy to a T on Labor Day, 2018. Jacob deGrom opened this series in Los Angeles historically, but inauspiciously. With one out in the bottom of the first, ol' pal Justin [...]
Yesterday afternoon, the Mets beat the Chicago Cubs 10-3, salvaging the last of a three-game series. The win was their fifteenth in the month of August and clinched a .500 month for them; they hadn’t had a month of break-even-or-better baseball since April. April. April, when they opened the season 17-9…and needed an 11-1 opening [...]
The Mets completed their Dog Days slog of 21 games in 20 days the way they began it: with a win. Two four-run innings put a hurt on the Chicago Cubs in this one. Jason Vargas took on Alec Mills in an afternoon affair, upon completion of last night's suspended game. Vargas was the beneficiary [...]
If you want to know what's wrong with the Mets, this game will tell you everything you need to know. A sterling starting pitching effort was done in by 2018's greatest hits: invisible offense, shoddy defense and deplorable bullpen work. It was shaping up to be another NY-Washington mano-a-mano affair, an extremely close game, but [...]
Let’s start this by saying yes, we all know that Noah Syndergaard is, has been and can be a dominant Major League pitcher. One need look no further than his game three of the 2015 World Series. The first pitch to Kansas City’s Alcides Escobar sent the message that this would be the Mets’ night. [...]
And the 2018 Luis Castillo Two Hands Award goes to... Amed Rosario, come on down! Dominic Smith receives the 2018 Richie Ashburn Yo La Tengo Award, as well. Zack Wheeler now shares Jacob deGrom's pain, as a brilliant start goes by the wayside. Wheeler pitched seven innings, surrendering five hits, walking one and striking out [...]
The Mets took the Little League Classic and the series with Phillies in a subtle 8-2 bludgeoning. Subtle, because, though they pounded out 14 hits, 13 of them were singles. The only extra-base knock was a pinch RBI double by forgotten man Dominic Smith in the eighth inning, when the game was basically a foregone [...]
It seemed like a great pick at the time. June, 2013 and it was Mets’ GM Sandy Alderson’s third draft, his third chance to get a first round pick right. Previously, he had drafted Brandon Nimmo – a relatively obscure kid from Wyoming, whose high school didn’t even have a baseball team – and Gavin [...]
Noah Syndergaard threw his quintessential 2018 start: terrific, but not dominant and just effective enough to come away with a win. Of course, some Mets power, some of it unlikely, helped him out a little on this rainy day in Miami. The Mets got their first tally without benefit of a base hit. Wei-Yin Chen [...]
Your intrepid columnist was at the Mets/Braves game this past Saturday. It was a terrific 3-0, five-hit shutout twirled by Zack Wheeler and friends, probably the most fun at Citi Field since Opening Day. Amid all the hoopla surrounding Wheeler’s mound performance, it took a little nudging to realize, “Hey! Jeff McNeil went four-for-four.” In [...]