2019 New York Mets Season Thread

['7']

Hamstring strain for Cano. Hopefully it's not to bad but a 10 day IL trip is definitely happening you have to figure. If it's less than 3 weeks overall I'd be shocked

And of course it's as he was just starting to hit...though Cano's entire season has been start and stop moments of seemingly figuring it out and then not getting a ball out of the infield for the next week. Remember he hit 3 home runs against the Padres a few weeks ago? I think he promptly went into the worst batting slump of his career the week after.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Yeah Cano is pretty hard to trust now...only guy who does is Mike Francesa, who apparently makes a huge deal out of Cano’s relatively rare big games.  I really don’t consider him a major loss.  

Hard to believe that the Mets could actually be over .500 with a doubleheader sweep tomorrow.  

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

5 hours ago, MB3 said:

I told you guys last week; this Mets team can absolutely make the playoffs. They play a tissue soft schedule and have the best starting rotation in the sport. 

Can you beat the Dodgers? HELL no. But you can get there.

If the starters all get hot, the Mets have a chance against anyone (getting top-notch starting pitching will always do that, even for a team as deeply flawed as the Mets), but they obviously all have to be at their best.  And the closer situation has to get sorted out soon.

Careful with the “tissue soft” stuff...still plenty of games to play against the Nats, Braves, and Phillies.  Mets are playing about .500 ball against the East so far...that won’t cut it the rest of the way.

It’s great that the Mets have TEMPORARILY made themselves relevant this season, but don’t forget that they needed a 15-5 surge to do it.  They won’t need to continue to win at that pace, but like I’ve said, figure .650-type ball the rest of the way.  Maybe it takes less, but you figure a couple of other teams in this race will eventually get it going (with the exception of the Mets, everyone else has been treading water...that has definitely helped a ton).  To be safe, I’ve targeted 88 wins to get in.  Mets need to go 33-18 to get there.

I still say they really need to sweep the Marlins...the more margin for error they can get for the tougher games about to come up, the better.  The Mets do that, and they “only” have to go 29-18 the rest of the way to get to 88 wins.  That will not be easy by any stretch, but at least it won’t feel impossible.

 

As for the Yanks/Sox...just like that, the Sox are pretty much toast.  The Sox couldn’t have come up punier.  They’ll stabilize their season I’m sure, but hard to imagine they’ll fight their way back into the race at this point.  

Edited August 5, 2019 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

deGrom was a bit unsteady early but in typical deGrom fashion...he battles. Mets currently up 4-1 in the 5th against a Marlin team they absolutely have to take to the woodshed (but as everybody knows it doesn't matter how piss poor/apathetic a Marlin team can be in any given year...their World Series is beating the Mets)

Tack on some runs and let's hopefully not need any nail biting pen innings

['7']

17 hours ago, MB3 said:

Meanwhile, the Yankees just completed the most satisfying regular season series I can ever remember. 4 game sweep against the Sox: absolutely lighting up Sale and Price, getting 3 quality starts in 4 games (after having none in 12 straight), burying the living piss out of this racist boston cvnts.

of course that didn’t come without another three hundred injuries. Encarnacion will be out until at least September with a broken wrist; Hicks has a big injury to his elbow, and just today Gleyber Torres comes up gimpy running to first. 

The yankees current potential IL would be a first place team: Severino, Betances, Andujar, Voit, Torres, Stanton, Hicks, Encarnacion, Sanchez, Betances. 

What the fvck lol 

Well the Yankees needed to put their boot on Bostons throat this year. Especially after what happened last year (heck even last series when the Yankees had those awful starting pitching) but even after that series there was far too much needless panic. The Yankees were fine then and they're fine now. That division is securely locked away. Tampa may be gutsy and staying within 9 games but they one on one they can't stand up to the Yankees.

You could really tell they were chomping at the bit to re-establish superiority over them (it's sort of gone back and forth since 2004) but the Yankees are flat out a better, hungrier team than the Sox. And they've done and impressive job overcoming injury issues that would've torpedoed just about anybody else.

['7']

4 run lead to a bad team at home. Mickey brings in Diaz and he promptly hits the first guy

Thank God they got Lugo up ASAP.

[NJDevs4978]

Oh good grief, the only reason this isn't bases loaded with one out is Nido's framing.  Now he's gotta burn Lugo in a save situation (lol) in game #1 of a doubleheader.

Or not...only Mickey would get his best reliever up twice and not use him.

Edited August 5, 2019 by NJDevs4978

[NJDevs4978]

Back to .500...hooray.  Shades of '73 right now in that .500 is close to enough

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Like many have noted...NO ONE battles better or harder when it's not all clicking for him than Jacob deGrom.  Damn near always finds a way.

So much magic going on during this run that not even Edwin fvcking Diaz can fvck it up.  But suffice it to say that he may not be long for NY (though I gotta think he's still here next year, partly because he's under team control, and also because the Mets can't trade him for cents on the dollar after what they coughed up for him). 

Anyway, let's not kid ourselves...when this team sunk to 11 games under .500, the idea of them ever getting back to .500 seemed like a fvcking pipe dream and then some.  We've been shredding BVW, Jeffy, the franchise, and several players all season...mostly because they all fvcking deserved it. 

So to not only reach .500, but to need just 21 games to make that happen...goddamn.  These guys are dangerously close to making this season fun...of course, this run has been some fun in itself, but we've been beaten up too many times not to expect this thing to crash and burn at any time.  But the Mets really have a legit shot now of playing those ol' "meaningful games in September" that seems to be the benchmark for success in Wilponland (over in the Bronx, it's the World Series or bust).  Hard to believe, but the chance is actually THERE.  Holy sh!t.

[NJDevs4978]

I don't want to make light of a guy's injury but it wouldn't shock me if Cano becomes our Stanton (only worse obviously), the 'who needs him anyway?!' guy now that he's out for the forseeable future with a torn hamy.

Edited August 5, 2019 by NJDevs4978

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

5 minutes ago, NJDevs4978 said:

I don't want to make light of a guy's injury but it wouldn't shock me if Cano becomes our Stanton (only worse obviously), the 'who needs him anyway?!' guy now that he's out for the forseeable future with a torn hamy.

I think Cano has a lot of frontrunner in him at this point in his career...which means he was probably just starting to get interested in playing when he suffered this latest injury.  Figures, heh heh.  But god is he just going to be a nightmare while he's here.  Also can't help but wonder how much of his prior success was PED-related.

[MadDog2020]

20 hours ago, MB3 said:

4 game sweep against the Sox: absolutely lighting up Sale and Price

Would it be fair to say the Yankees put Sale and Price on Clearance? 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Oh just in case we all forgot...Gsellman sucks.

['7']

Hate double headers. It forces piles of excrement like Walker Lockett to the mound

McNeil pulled from the game with a cramp. But the writing is on the wall. The Mets are winning and God is not happy. It feels like we're on the precipice of a deluge of injuries

And where the hell is Jed Lowrie? 

['7']

Lagares really needs to have the bat taken out of his hands permanently after that embarrassing AB in the 5th. And if he's not catching baseballs anymore in the outfield (he's not) I don't see much of a place for him anymore in the majors. 

He's never been a good hitter but this year he's a total joke

Alonso has been in a slump. Really time for him to start hitting bombs again. We have a crap 2nd half of a DH lineup out there today and it shows with out offensive ineptitude

['7']

Nice 7th inning rally. The Mets pull ahead on solo shots.

Anybody other than Lugo on the mound the final two innings is malpractice. I don't want to see Mazza. Has Lugo been up and down today? I've been going back and forth watching and running errands and have no idea.

['7']

15 minutes ago, MB3 said:

Watched most of deGrom’s start today. The guy is simply unbelievable. His stuff looked very meh and he just found a way.

The difference between deGrom and the Yankees staff is pretty simple. The Yankees have throwers, and he’s a pitcher. If tanaka’s breaking ball doesn’t break, he’ll still throw it 0-2 with a runner on base. If Paxton’s 4 seamer is more like an awkwardly fast changeup, he’ll watch four of them clear the bleachers and still throw a fifth. 

What a treat it must be to have that guy on your staff. 

In yankeeland; a win against the orioles and a Tampa loss to Toronto has suddenly put the Rays 10 games back in the loss column. The Red Sox, meanwhile, are closer in standings to the Blue Jays than they are to the Yankees.

im a pessimist by nature but it would take some serious sh!t for the Yankees to blow this lead now. They won today on RBIs from; get ready for this -Tauchman, Romine, Valera, Ford, and Gardner. 

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Tauchman Valera or Ford before I just posted this message. Now put your hand down you liar. 

haha. Tauchman I vaguely recall as a Rockie. I think...

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

11 hours ago, '7' said:

Hate double headers. It forces piles of excrement like Walker Lockett to the mound

McNeil pulled from the game with a cramp. But the writing is on the wall. The Mets are winning and God is not happy. It feels like we're on the precipice of a deluge of injuries

And where the hell is Jed Lowrie? 

Lockett fared about as well as could be expected, really...guy was pitching on three days' rest, and Gsellman being Gsellman made it worse.  Lockett obviously wasn't great, and sure, it would've been nice to see him at least get through five, but he didn't have a total blow-up game at least.

re:  Game 2...that was a game that had all of the signs of being an "oh well, can't win all of 'em (though the Mets can't afford to lose many)" type of game...yet somehow the friggin' Mets pulled it out.  Just find a way to get two more against the Marlins, and suddenly they've actually got a little margin for error against the good teams they're about to face...not a ton, but a little.

Some nice scheduling too:  they get an off-day on Thursday before facing the Nats, and another one on Monday before facing the Braves.  As long as the Mets can stay out of extra-inning games and the starters can go 6+ in most of those games, the 'pen hopefully won't be too beat up or fatigued.  If they can win the next two nights, the Mets can probably get away with a 3-3 split in the six games against the Nats and Braves (especially if they can sweep the awful Royals after the Braves series) without having it sting too too much.  Obviously even one loss against the Marlins would hurt. 

Mets also have a serious home/road imbalance to date:  they've played just 50 games at home and 63 on the road thus far.  So 31 of their remaining 49 games will played at Citi.  The Mets are 30-20 at home and 27-36 on their road, for what that's worth.  I do tend to find that looking for silver linings in the schedule doesn't always lead to those silver linings paying off like we'd all hope (though the Mets have clearly taken complete and full advantage of their current soft scheduling), but at least there's just enough in the Mets' favor that it is starting to feel like there's a chance for them to pull this off...it's still VERY tenuous and all it will take is a 4+ game losing streak to nip it in the bud...but they've somehow gotten closer than we had any right to ever expect. 

10 hours ago, MB3 said:

Watched most of deGrom’s start today. The guy is simply unbelievable. His stuff looked very meh and he just found a way.

The difference between deGrom and the Yankees staff is pretty simple. The Yankees have throwers, and he’s a pitcher. If tanaka’s breaking ball doesn’t break, he’ll still throw it 0-2 with a runner on base. If Paxton’s 4 seamer is more like an awkwardly fast changeup, he’ll watch four of them clear the bleachers and still throw a fifth. 

What a treat it must be to have that guy on your staff. 

In yankeeland; a win against the orioles and a Tampa loss to Toronto has suddenly put the Rays 10 games back in the loss column. The Red Sox, meanwhile, are closer in standings to the Blue Jays than they are to the Yankees.

im a pessimist by nature but it would take some serious sh!t for the Yankees to blow this lead now. They won today on RBIs from; get ready for this -Tauchman, Romine, Valera, Ford, and Gardner. 

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Tauchman Valera or Ford before I just posted this message. Now put your hand down you liar. 

As far as Yankeeland goes, there really isn't anything to talk about until October.  And that's a compliment to the Yankees...they've chewed up and spit out the AL East to the tune of a 40-14 absolute curbstombing.  There is ZERO reason to believe that anyone in the East will come anywhere NEAR the Yankees from here on out...the Yankees effectively took any drama out of the AL East race, and that's exactly what you want.    

Of course, for them it's about trying to lock up home field...and even more so, will their starting pitching get it done against playoff opponents?  Only real question left now is are the Yankees the Tampa Bay Lightning of MLB?  Obviously won't be an answer to that one until the postseason...but for now, they'll win their 100+ games without issue, and hope to get home field for as many series as possible.  

Edited August 6, 2019 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

9 minutes ago, MB3 said:

I don't think it's all that possible to be the TB Lightning of baseball; in all likelihood they'll enter the poseason with the 3rd best record in baseball (behind the Dodgers and Astros) and absolutely zero people will think "pennant or bust" when they look at the Astros throwing out Verlander, Cole, Greinke and Miley while the Yankees toss out Tanaka, Paxton, German, and.... Severino maybe? 

If the Yankees don't finish with the outright best record, they'll still be close...kinda splitting hairs. 

And you know full well the expectations in Yankeeland, especially for a team that's on pace to win 106 games.  Many ARE thinking "this is our year, pennant or bust"...of course, if that doesn't happen, the blame will likely be placed on Cashman for not finding an upgrade for his rotation (assuming that winds up being the issue of course)...and in a most ironic twist, the detractors will say "How the hell did the METS wind up with Stroman, but the Yankees couldn't get him?" (This will especially be true if Stroman pitches well for the Mets...not so much if he doesn't).  But just getting to the dance after making the playoffs the past two seasons isn't going to be enough this time around...not for a fan base and franchise that forever has the expectation level dialed up to "Extremely High".  If the Yankees don't at least get to the World Series, there will be finger-pointing galore...despite many successful seasons and playoff appearances and a run that several franchises would absolutely kill for, Yankee success is forever defined by winning the whole damned thing.  Many will see "one championship in 19 years" if the Yanks don't win it all, and ignore all of the shades of gray.  Just the way it is for them.  Not saying it's completely fair or rational, just the reality.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

More cynical because this is still a flawed team...those flaws could very well still manifest themselves again.  And it's never a good thing when Juan Lagares is getting chance #1000 to show that he can't hit (and isn't what he used to be defensively either).

Possible call-ups being considered for the infield were both Dilson Herrera and Ruben Tejada.  We've been there done that.  Scary.

I agree 100% that the Mets do have clean up against the bad teams...they have minimize needing to beat the Braves and the Nats (the Phils too for that matter).  30-19 gets the Mets to 87 wins...I still would rather try for 88+. 

If the Mets can go 12-3 against the bad teams that you mentioned, they'd have to go 18-16 against everyone else.  Yeah, it's not impossible.  But still not much margin for error or even mehish play all-around.  This is really only the beginning. 

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Daniel]

Among Yankee fans, you hear “this will be the worst 105 win team ever.”

As to the Mets, I hope they don’t have posterboards where they take a section of clothing off the Wilpons for every win because that would be disgusting, even if it helps them win the World Series.

[Daniel]

6 hours ago, MB3 said:

Worst? No. But 105 wins will be buoyed by playing Baltimore and Toronto a million times. 

It's easily the most impressive 105 win team ever, when you consider what the Yankees have lost. Take any other team and have them play without their ace, their best set-up man, their starting 3rd baseman and their MVP-talent LF for an entire season and major parts of the season without their SS, their starting C, their starting RF, starting CF, backup CF, and 1st baseman and you have a 35-win dumpster fire. Nothing short of incredible that a bunch of Scranton Railriders are in 1st place in the AL East.

They’ve pretty much crushed everyone in the division this year, including the Rays who usually give them trouble.  The thinking is that they don’t stand a chance against the Astros in the playoffs, but I’m not sure that’s really true. 

[NJDevs4978]

Guess Wheeler wanted to stay at least, fifteen straight scoreless innings since not being traded at the deadline.   Hope he's this happy to be here come contract time in the offseason lolz

[NJDevs4978]

12 hours ago, MB3 said:

I don't think it's all that possible to be the TB Lightning of baseball; in all likelihood they'll enter the poseason with the 3rd best record in baseball (behind the Dodgers and Astros) and absolutely zero people will think "pennant or bust" when they look at the Astros throwing out Verlander, Cole, Greinke and Miley while the Yankees toss out Tanaka, Paxton, German, and.... Severino maybe? 

Yeah the closest we would get to a Lightning situation is if the Dodgers won 110 games and somehow got wiped off the mat in three straight by one of the nine thousand teams slouging toward an 85-win wild card.  It might even BE the Mets at this rate lolz.  Even if the Yankees or Astros somehow got swept in the first round it'd likely be by a 95-win Indians/Twins/A's/Rays team, plus they'll be jockeying for best record throughout while the Dodgers have home field in the NL pretty much in the bank already.

Edited August 7, 2019 by NJDevs4978

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, NJDevs4978 said:

Guess Wheeler wanted to stay at least, fifteen straight scoreless innings since not being traded at the deadline.   Hope he's this happy to be here come contract time in the offseason lolz

They said he might just take his qualifying offer, although that might change if he has a great stretch run.