Mets cruise to a 7-2 win over the Pirates, and stay away from the trap door!
The Mets scored at least one run in each of their first six at-bats on Monday
🥎 Congratulations to the Massapequa Park Little League for delivering New York’s first ever Little League Softball World Series Title! 🥎
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets offense carried them to a second straight win, this time over the Pirates by the score of 7-2 (Box)
Carlos Carrasco sludged through three innings, allowing two runs, three walks and four hits
Daniel Vogelbach and Brandon Nimmo, and Jonathan Araúz provided the power with a solo home run a piece
Pete Alonso gave the Mets the lead with an RBI double in the first - he is now tied with Keith Hernandez for 10th in franchise history with 468 RBI
Tyson Miller earned the win with two scoreless innings of relief, and Sam Conrod, Phil Bickford, Trevor Gott and Adam Ottavino combined to give the Mets six innings of scoreless relief
Who’s Hot 🔥
Pete Alonso is hitting .305 (25-for-82) with 15 extra-base hits, 25 RBI, 15 runs, 11 walks and a 1.122 OPS in his last 23 games
Jeff McNeil now has an eight-game hitting streak, going 11-for-30 during that span. His streak is tied his season-high hitting streak and tied the longest streak by a Met this season
Daniel Vogelbach has gone 4-for-10 in his last four games with two home runs and four RBI
Roster Moves 🗞️
RHP John Curtiss recalled from Triple-A Syracuse, placed on the 60-day IL with a loose body in his right elbow
RHP Jimmy Yacabonis outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse
LHP Josh Walker placed on the 15-day IL (retro to 8.13) with a right oblique strain
RHP Sam Coonrod reinstated from the 60-day IL (lat strain)
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (54-65) vs. Pirates (53-66)
Where: Citi Field – Flushing, NY
Starting pitchers: LHP David Peterson (3-7, 5.61 ERA) vs. LHP Bailey Falter (0-7, 5.21 ERA)
When: 7:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
Don’t fall into the trap! ✍️
I’ve gotta tell you - there really isn’t a lot to talk about with the Mets these days.
I remember writing for SNY in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and again in 2014 when the only thing that mattered was getting to and through game 162 during this portion of the season. It was hard as a fan to come up with topics to write about, trace interesting storylines, etc.
This month of Mets baseball is actually very similar to August, 2011, come to think of it. The Mets had just traded Carlos Beltrán away to the Giants for a guy named Zack Wheeler, who was the Giants best prospect and a trade that marked the beginning of the end of classic rental-for-top-prospect trades. The Mets of course got six years of varying degrees of performance and injury out of Wheeler starting in 2013 which, along with Matt Harvey made for at least an interesting storyline in what was another bitch of a season that year.
And of course, Harvey went down a couple of months later with a torn UCL in his elbow, which cost him a year and a half from there. So, there was that too.
Anyway, I am finding it hard to look at this Met team and find interesting stories to tell you now. We have exhausted everything and even started talking about 2024, things which are usually reserved for November.
So, what do I have for you today?
Well, I am going to touch this crap about the Mets clubhouse and this noise about Pete Alonso along with the Scherzer/Verlander/diva stuff not because I don’t believe it, but because it misses the mark completely (in my opinion) on what has been easily the most disappointing season in Mets history.
But, the problem was the same as it always is.
Here we go…
Do I want to know why the Mets failed in 2023?
Sure I do, but I think I already know the answer.
Do I think it’s because Justin Verlander was a diva, Max Scherzer had a Type A attitude, and Pete Alonso is at the center of all things bad, and this clubhouse wasn’t the same as it was last year?
Not really. I mean, two of those three named players were here last year on a 101-win team, and the other has done nothing but win his entire life and be the poster boy that is everything great about the sport.
Give me a call when a major sports team doesn’t have a diva in the room, or doesn’t have people who don’t like each other too much as well. Give me a call when a regular workplace doesn’t have this problem too.
This is just the world we live and work in. You know you work in the same room as another person who is always complaining, always gossiping, and never doing anything else but that (and getting paid to do that too!).
Even if all of that is true about the Mets, that was not their problem anyway. And I sincerely doubt the absence of Jacob deGrom and Chris Bassitt and a kinship that is no longer there have created a void so deep in the clubhouse that it would make a 101-win team into what has been nothing short of a train wreck all year.
Player performance is not dictated by pow wow’s in a clubhouse. It’s not the result of people getting along, individuals being loners or social butterflies, needy or self-sufficient.
Player performance is dictated by skill, plus age, injury, physical and mental preparedness, and everything that is athletic and talented - or not - about the game, no matter what sport it is.
Now, does all of that stuff in the clubhouse matter? Absolutely but only to an extent. I think it matters from a collaboration perspective, I think it matters that they’re able to work with each other and carry themselves professionally too.
But I don’t think those relationships and requirements are being forged on people being friends, or people being needy or not.
This isn’t summer camp. This is a workplace and a workplace with highly paid people in it on a daily basis. They don’t have to like each other. Rather, they need to be able to work with each other. And I think players making a combined $370 million in salary need to figure that part out and if they can’t, that’s on them and their own (im)maturity and professionalism.
It’s easy to create stories about teams being good because they have a good clubhouse, everyone likes each other, and all of that fun stuff. It’s easy to create stories about teams being bad because the clubhouse is bad, nobody talks to each other and in this case, we have players and personnel snickering about those who aren’t here anymore through the media.
As if that has never happened with the Mets before, right?
I’m not going to entertain any of that here, because that distracts from the problem and simply creates drama and fodder for people to stoop down to (and, I am not going to provide links to these stories, either).
I mean, it’s not as if the Mets are any better because the so-called diva isn’t here, or the other Type-A personality has been jettisoned.
Why?
Because they don’t have the talent or skill to be better.
The point is, teams are good because they have talent and skill that is usually better than the team they’re playing. See last night’s game against the Mets and Pirates where, somehow, the Mets are fielding a better roster than the Pirates at the moment.
And, teams are bad because they don’t have comparable talent and skill against the team in the other dugout. See this past weekend’s utterly embarrassing showing against the Braves, Sunday’s gritty win not withstanding.
In other words, the rotation wasn’t as good because the pitchers didn’t pitch as well as they did last year. The bullpen wasn’t as good because they didn’t pitch well (and they didn’t have their closer) as they did last year. The offense wasn’t as good because they didn’t hit as well as they did last year.
Period. Get better players next time.
So, whether these stories are true or not doesn’t matter to me. That’s for the Mets to evaluate and fix as-needed. It’s their workplace, and it’s on them to develop and adopt cultures and philosophies that make for a quality workplace for their workers, ie baseball players and on-field staff.
But I guarantee Verlander and Scherzer were traded away for reasons other than the two not being pals.
Don’t believe everything you read and hear. And, remember that context is everything.
Don’t fall into the trap.
Around the League 🚩
The Yankees skid continued with an 11-3 loss to the Braves in Atlanta - Atlanta pounded out 15 hits and two more home runs against Clarke Schmidt and the Yankee bullpen
Max Scherzer struck out 11 over seven shutout innings, and the Rangers pounded the Angels 12-0 in Arlington
Julio Rodriguez drove in four runs for the Mariners, but Bobby Witt, Jr. stole the show in Kansas City with an inside-the-park home run in a game where Kansas City walked off Seattle 7-6
The Marlins kept their good times rolling against the Astros on Monday, holding them down in a 5-1 win in Miami thanks in part to home runs from Josh Bell and Jorge Soler