What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets shut out old friend Brandon Sproat and the Brewers to even up their series in Milwaukee, 4-0 (box)
Rookie lefty Zac* Thornton finally secured his elusive first MLB win with another scoreless outing, allowing just three hits over six innings with a walk and two strikeouts
CF Luis Robert Jr. and 1B Jared Young both hit solo homers, including a 451 ft. monster from Robert that’s tied for the longest homer hit by a Met this season
SS Francisco Lindor continued his recent eruption with another multi-hit day, going 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, and a run scored
The Mets tallied 13 hits in the win, with everyone reaching base at least once; Juan Soto was the only Met to not record a hit on the day
The bullpen was excellent as well, as Luke Weaver, Brooks Raley and Devin Williams combined for three nearly perfect innings to close things out
Roster Moves 📰
RHP Daniel Duarte recalled from Triple-A Syracuse
RHP Xzavion Curry optioned to Triple-A Syracuse
Rumor Mill 💨
The Mets have signaled to contending teams they are not willing to eat money on players they’d deal (NY Post)
Who’s Hot? 🥵
Zac Thornton has now thrown 18 straight scoreless innings over his last three outings
Francisco Lindor is hitting .346/.433/.692 with nine hits, two homers, six RBI, four walks and five strikeouts in his last seven games
Luis Torrens is hitting .304/.385/.391 with seven hits, three RBI, three BB, and three strikeouts in his last seven games
Play of the Game 🤷♂️
A.J. Ewing’s speed tool played just as big a role in getting him to the big leagues as his elite bat-to-ball skills did, and that quickness manifests both on the basepaths and in the field.
Ewing put his wheels on full display in the bottom of the third when he snared this fast-falling liner from Joey Ortiz, potentially helping the Mets avoid yet another Little League homer. It was the first of a few big plays he made there yesterday — which just so happened to be his first big league appearance in left field.
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
ICYMI: Trade season is upon us, and in the latest Patreon episode, Rich and Michael took on the hottest takes the Just Mets faithful had to offer. Enjoy a preview above, and subscribe to our Patreon to hear the full conversation!
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Down on the Farm 🌾
CF Nick Morabito (No. 10 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-4, R, RBI
RF Jose Ramos (Double-A): 2-for-4, 2 2B, R, RBI, 2 K
DH Julio Zayas (Single-A): 3-for-4, 2 HR, 3 R, 2 RBI
1B Randy Guzman (No. 24 prospect, Single-A): 1-for-2, 2 R, RBI, BB, SB
BOX SCORES
Single-A SLU | High-A BRK (PPD) | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (43-59) at Brewers (63-38)
Where: American Family Field — Milwaukee, WI
Starters: RHP Christian Scott (3-1, 2.87 ERA) vs. RHP Logan Henderson (3-1, 2.97 ERA)
When: 2:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
The rotation core of the future might already be here ✍️
Zac Thornton is a stud. At least in the small sample he has offered the Mets over the last month or so.
Despite a rocky debut, Thornton (who recently dropped the ‘H’ from the end of his name) has a 1.93 ERA with a 0.86 WHIP over his first 23+ MLB innings. He’s gone at least six innings in each of his last three starts, and he’s walked just six of the 87 batters he’s faced to date.
Though he’s still learning how to tunnel and sequence all his pitches properly, Thornton already has an advanced feel for his stuff. He may not be a K machine, and he doesn’t generate a ton of whiffs (16% yesterday, 22.8% career), yet he’s known for his ability to throw strikes consistently, as evidenced by his 65% strike rate and 16 called strikes against the Brewers yesterday. As undeniably valuable as velocity is, the ability to locate really is more than half the battle.
And Thornton’s usually a very good locator:
As important as throwing pitches for strikes is, so is knowing how to use chase and waste pitches to get easier strikes down the middle. In his post-game comments, Thornton mentioned going out of the zone when he needed to, and this demonstrates precisely that. By using all of his pitch types to spread the zone almost equally in just about every direction, Thornton was able to effectively use his more extreme shapes to create a wider lane for his more controlled stuff to filter through.
It worked like a charm: those 16 called strikes accounted for nearly 20% of his pitch total, a lethal ratio.
With an arm this polished and dialed in at just 24 years old, Thornton’s ceiling is extremely high — and he’s just the beginning of what this team has to offer right now.
The Mets currently have three young starters in their rotation that they could (somewhat) comfortably build around next season: Thornton, Christian Scott, and Nolan McLean. With these three arms, the Mets have a core of starters equipped with diverse, well-rounded repertoires that can attack hitters with a wide velo range from multiple arm slots and sides of the rubber.
Here’s how they stack up so far this year:
Nolan McLean: 113.1 IP, 3.34 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, .202 AVG/.272 BABIP/.619 OPS, 4 HR, 135 K-41 BB (28.8 K%-8.7 BB%), 48.0 GB%, 69.9 LOB%
Christian Scott: 59.2 IP, 2.87 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, .212 AVG/.280 BABIP/.664 OPS, 7 HR, 72 K-26 BB (28.5 K%-10.3 BB%), 31.5 GB%, 85.0 LOB%
Zach Thornton: 23.1 IP, 1.93 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, .175 AVG/.210 BABIP/.496 OPS, 1 HR, 17 K-6 BB (19.5 K%-6.9 BB%), 39.1 GB%, 75.3 LOB%
Clearly there’s work to be done and plenty left to be seen, but provided their trends hold (and, for Scott and Thornton, that they prove capable of handling a full-time MLB workload over the final months), there’s a decent chance the Mets won’t end up making as much noise in the starting pitching market as has been forecasted before the 2027 season kicks off.
For the most part, fans know what they’re getting with McLean by now. There have been some shaky starts here and there, but there really isn’t much more mystery to uncover in McLean’s game, at least not yet. He’s just got really dominant stuff, and when he’s got the right feel for it, there’s almost nothing anyone can do to hit it.
And where McLean offers the crazy shapes while Thornton offers a more controlled, location-forward approach, Scott’s there to burn you up with fastballs before he sets you down with sweepers, a true power-pitcher archetype if there ever was one.
Scott’s fastball-slider combo is a devastating pitch package when all cylinders are firing. They’ve worked particularly well together recently, with a combined 38% whiff rate and 14 called strikes against the Phillies on those two pitches alone. Scott’s heater is definitely his bread and butter, but his slider’s sweeping motion is less reliant on vertical action and more on horizontal cut than the typical sweeper, so it’s become an increasingly dangerous tunneling tool. Scott gets about seven feet of extension (89th percentile), which almost certainly helps his already hot four-seamer play up in the zone that much more. A precisely elevated fastball can open up several angles of attack for his sweeper and other pitch types in the zone below.
Granted, Scott, like McLean and Thornton, isn’t perfect. He’s struggled at various points this season — and in his career — with command and giving up free bases, hence his elevated WHIP. And given his short but serious injury history at a young age, some lingering long-term health concerns may remain about Scott, but from what he’s shown since his return to action, it doesn’t look like he’s suffering from any significant loss of pure stuff.
With McLean, Scott, and Thornton healthy, the Mets’ rotation can be anchored by two near-90th percentile strikeout throwers who operate in totally different ways, balanced by a finesse lefty who eats innings with a minimal pitch count while keeping runners off the bases. There’s no doubt the Mets still need to add some bona fide big-league starting help to the rotation; if they come to terms on an extension with Clay Holmes, that issue suddenly looks a bit smaller with proven, sustained success under several young starters’ belts.
For a team that almost instantly suffered the consequences of forcing too much change, it doesn’t seem like it would behoove the franchise to continue shaking things up. Building around the young core is good for team chemistry and player confidence,
And while it’s tertiary in importance, retaining a solid core is a pro-fan move that this franchise would benefit from making right now. Countless Mets faithful opined that the avalanche of player departures and staff shakeups this offseason have made it difficult to root for and empathize with the newest Mets amid this season’s struggles — and while you can’t keep players strictly for the sake of fans’ feelings, you probably also shouldn’t jettison a well-established foundation of core characters in a matter of weeks, assemble a squad of aging/oft-injured mercenaries, and hope for the best. Giving the fanbase a new group of young, talented arms not really seen since the Harvey/deGrom/Wheeler/Syndergaard/Matz days would go a long way in helping management rebuild some potentially lost faith and interest.
Both on the field and off, investing early in this next era of Mets starting pitchers seems like a no-brainer.
Around the League 🚩
Max Muncy’s go-ahead two-run homer against the Phillies was his 228th homer as a Dodger, tied for the fifth-most in franchise history; he later started a rundown in the bottom of the ninth inning that started a game-ending double play as the LA held on to win 2-1
Fernando Tatis, Jr. has officially awoken from his prolonged home run slumber, smashing a 474-foot bomb for his eighth homer of the year and third in his last four games; the Padres beat the Braves 8-3
Michael Conforto hit his MLB-leading fourth pinch-hit homer of the season in an 11-2 Cubs win over the Tigers; Conforto is hitting .333 with a 1.268 OPS in 29 plate appearances as a pinch-hitter
The Rays racked up 21 hits in a 12-2 thrashing of the Blue Jays
Reds phenom Chase Burns delivered five scoreless innings with three hits, two walks, and six strikeouts, leading the way to a 4-2 win over Seattle in his first outing since signing his extension
Keep Holmes and add a starter (doesn't need to be an ace -- just a reasonable, steady guy) = starting rotation. You have an OF. You have a shortstop, and let's assume you have a catcher.
You aren't that far from having a team. Need a few pieces in the IF and see if DW is truly a closer.
Do you know/remember that Harvey/deGrom/Wheeler/Syndergaard/Matz made one turn through the rotation only once?
Let the kids play, but don't ask them to be the saviours of this franchise.