24 hours of madness
From injuries & brutal losses to Amazin’ heroics
Good Morning,
From a bench-clearing confrontation, to major injury news, to blowing a six-run lead, to overcoming a six-run deficit, this weekend had it all for Mets fans. At least it feels a little better after Sunday’s comeback win, but there’s plenty to consider as the Amazins face perhaps their greatest challenge of this rollercoaster season.
We’ll discuss the impact of losing both Jacob deGrom and Francisco Lindor and catch you up on a wild weekend of news. But, first, let’s recap yesterday’s action.
⚾️ IN SHORT: Starter Taijuan Walker didn’t make it out of the first inning (and neither did manager Luis Rojas), leaving the Mets in a six-run deficit, before the bullpen stabilized the game and the offense found refuge from the latest replaceMet, Travis Blankenhorn — and from Michael Conforto, whose two-run home run in the ninth inning catapulted the Amazins to a heart-throbbing 7-6 win over the Pirates, salvaging the three-game series. [Box Score]
🔑 KEY MOMENT: There were many in this game. Since we showed you Conforto’s clutch homer above, let’s talk about Travis Blankenhorn’s at-bat in the fourth inning. Called up on Saturday to replace injured Francisco Lindor, Blankenhorn swatted a pinch-hit three-run home run to cut the Pirates’ lead to 6-4, giving the Mets hope that they could pull the comeback.
💨 KEY ESCAPE: Conforto and Blankenhorn powered the offense, but it was Aaron Loup’s escape job in the sixth inning that kept the Mets in this one. Working his second inning of the game, Loup put himself into trouble by loading the bases with nobody out, but proceeded to strike out the next three hitters to exit the inning unscathed.
⬇️ LOW POINT: Had the Mets not staged such a dramatic comeback, everyone would be talking about one play — a borderline fair/foul chopper to Taijuan Walker that impossibly led to three runs in the first (and Luis Rojas being ejected):
3 TAKEAWAYS
❶ FINDING A POSITIVE: It would have been easy for the Mets to just roll over and die after falling behind 6-0 in the first inning, mere hours after learning their ace pitcher would be placed on the injured list. Whether Luis Rojas’ animated ejection fired up the team, or the Pirates finally realized they weren’t the ‘92 Pirates, either way, the Mets refused to be swept. The offense came through in the clutch, and the weekend (featuring brutal losses to lowly Pittsburgh on Friday and Saturday) felt a little less terrible after a Sunday win.
❷ THE MIGHTY PEN: A day after a rare bullpen loss, Mets relievers came back yesterday and put up eight-plus innings worth of zeroes. Drew Smith (2.2 IP), Miguel Castro (1), Aaron Loup (2), Jeurys Familia (2) and Trevor May (1) enabled the Amazins to slowly climb their way out of the 6-0 deficit and exit Pittsburgh with a shred of dignity intact.
❸ WALKER HOBBLES: Taijuan Walker has carried the Mets all season long, but yesterday was an exception. He was obviously unlucky on (and somewhat responsible for) the three-run infield chopper shown earlier, but he also walked four, while retiring just one batter. With Jake’s health in question, the club needs Walker to regain his quality form.
“I sucked today,” Walker told reporters after the game, “but the team, the hitters picked me up and especially the bullpen too.”
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: Loup has been one of the most dominant relievers in baseball over the last two months, racking up 24 strikeouts against four walks, and allowing just one earned run over 19 innings. (h/t: Michael Mayer)
🧑🏫 SOUND SMARTER: With the Mets and Pirates both rallying from large deficits this weekend, it was only the fourth time in MLB history that teams exchanged 6-run comeback wins in consecutive games within a series.
⏭ NEXT UP: Tonight the Amazins take on Cincinnati for a another three-game set on the road. Jerad Eickhoff (0-1, 4.97 ERA) gets another start after generally keeping the club in games as a spot starter. He’ll face 26-year-old rookie Vladimir Gutierrez (4-3, 4.29 ERA).
TIRED: The Mets need innings tonight from Eickhoff with the bullpen exhausted from the weekend. Only Yennsy Díaz hasn’t pitched over the past two days, and many relievers have recent high-stress appearances. New York does have an open roster spot from deGrom going to the IL, which allows them to call someone up before first pitch.
📈 STANDINGS: The Mets improve to 48-42, holding onto a tenuous two-game lead over the 47-45 Phillies, who won their second straight.
🤦♂️ Following one of the wildest 24-hour stretches you will ever experience as a Mets fan, let’s review what just happened in a timeline format, with added notes to give you the latest information:
SATURDAY
⏰ 4:20 PM: Mets announce Francisco Lindor will be placed on the injured list with a right oblique strain.
5:33 PM: Lindor reveals it’s a Grade 2 strain, “This is the first time something like this has happened in my career. I don't have any timetable. I would love to say I'm day-to-day but I'm not. This is more like week-to-week at the beginning and we'll see how I bounce back.”
RECOVERY TIME: A Grade 2 oblique strain is considered a “moderate” strain. While not as severe as a Grade 3 injury, it could take 4-8 weeks for Lindor to return to action, which makes it possible he won’t return until the very end of the regular season, if at all.
⏰ 5:53 PM: Manager Luis Rojas reveals Jacob deGrom felt tightness in his forearm while throwing a side session on Friday.
INJURED LIST: An MRI showed no structural damage, but we learned on Sunday that deGrom would be placed on the 10-day IL, retroactive to July 15. That means the earliest he could pitch is next Sunday, but it seems as if the Mets have no idea when he will be healthy again.
deGROM: “It’s always good news when structurally everything looks good, but you go out there and try to throw a baseball and my forearm just doesn’t feel good,” deGrom said. “The level of frustration right now is very high.”
⏰ 10:55 PM: Jacob Stallings hits a walk-off grand slam off Edwin Díaz to put an exclamation point on a six-run comeback and 9-7 Pirates win.
SUNDAY
⏰ 1:37 PM: Luis Rojas is ejected arguing whether the aforementioned ball Taijuan Walker swatted with his glove (allowing three runs to score) was foul. After Rojas is ejected and bench coach Dave Jauss takes over as manager, the club goes on a 7-0 run over the remaining eight-plus innings.
⏰ 4:40 PM: Michael Conforto’s two-run home run caps off a six-run comeback.
🙃 Yes, all of that happened in just over 24 hours!
AND…
🤬 If we extend our timeline another 20 hours or so, we can include the confrontation between Marcus Stroman and John Nogowski during Friday’s dispiriting loss that caused both benches to storm the field:
In other news:
🍎 GOOD COMPANY: After pitching six scoreless innings on Saturday, Tylor Megill shrunk his ERA to 2.63, tying him with Doc Gooden for the sixth-lowest ERA by a Mets starter over their first five career starts.
🔥 ON FIRE: Mets prospect Ronny Mauricio hit his 10th home run of the season on Saturday. He has five multi-hit games in his last six starts.
🗣 RUMORS: The Twins are reluctant to trade players under team control through 2022, per Buster Olney. This is pertinent to the Mets, who could be looking to trade for starter Jose Berríos.
🌭 SHORT STAFF: With Citi Field struggling to find workers, they have turned to vendors from Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, according to the NY Post. A Phillies fan might serve your next hot dog!
What Mets’ front office must remember
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
The Mets are still in first place.
I start with that fact because I am well aware that this line of reasoning has left some Mets fans frustrated.
Who cares if the Mets are in first place?! Jacob deGrom is injured! So is Francisco Lindor! They nearly got swept by the Pirates! This team is in trouble!
There is actually an important point to make here: The Mets have challenges ahead, but they absolutely should consider their place in the standings in deciding how to react to the latest injury news and how to improve their team at the trade deadline.
The entire point of making a mid-season trade, particularly for a rental player, is to marginally improve your team enough to make the playoffs, and hopefully, win the World Series.
By pure luck, the Mets find themselves in a position where they could follow one of the easiest paths to the World Series by simply winning their division, an accomplishment that might only require them to win 85 or 86 games.
While the Giants and Dodgers claw their way to 100 wins, with the second place finisher forced into a wild card play-in against perhaps the third best team in the National League, the Padres, all so they can potentially face each other in the first round of the playoffs, the Mets don’t have to worry about any of that.
The Amazins might be able to beat out the mediocrity of the NL East by playing .500 baseball the rest of the way, punching a first round ticket to the playoffs against a team like the Brewers, while avoiding the best of the west until the NLCS.
What does this mean? It means the Mets don’t need to assemble a roster that can win 52 more games this season (to reach 100 wins), they need one that can win 35, or 37, or maybe 40.
I have been bullish on the hopes of Francisco Lindor remembering he used to be an All-Star player and returning to that form during the stretch run. However, it’s been a long time since he has shown himself to be that kind of player, on a consistent basis, stretching back to his final season with Cleveland. Would we have been surprised if a healthy Lindor had only produced replacement-level value over the next 4-8 weeks? Can the Mets find that value by being creative in-house, or even surpass it without making a blockbuster deal?
We don’t know how long deGrom will be sidelined, but if we believe the MRI results show nothing serious, he will eventually return to the mound. Are we talking about finding someone to fill 1-2 starts, or ten? And if it’s ten, is this the season you push your chips to the center of the table? The point is, there’s no replacing deGrom through the trade market, and frankly, there’s no reason to sell the farm in trying.
It’s a bit ironic that the front office is probably twisting their minds trying to figure out which prospects they feel comfortable trading for a name-brand starter, whom if they acquired, they would hope could pitch about as good as Tylor Megill has pitched over his past five starts, a player that cost them nothing.
Obviously, you can’t trust Megill to carry the load the rest of the way. The Mets need pitchers who can eat innings and stabilize the rotation. That is obvious. Adding a bat to back-fill Lindor, or simply jolt the offense would help. All of that is on the table.
But if the price is too high, the Mets need to look at the standings and think about how much they really gain by winning 89 games instead of 85 (or even 82 instead of 77), and whether the players they acquire will make a difference in October, or if they would be gambling on that the same way they would be in trusting the recovery timelines of the stars they already have on their roster.
BOTTOM LINE: The Mets aren’t going to win the NL East automatically; there is still work to be done. But the front office needs to approach this deadline with an awareness of who they are if deGrom’s injury is serious, and of how many wins they honestly need to win their division, which changes how aggressive they should be in trading prospects, relative to competing in another division.
🔗 How should the Mets react to the worst day of their season? by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “Luis Guillorme got the start Saturday, and the Mets also have Jonathan Villar and José Peraza as experienced shortstops on the roster. New York was contemplating potential upgrades at third base before Lindor’s injury; now it can consider bringing in a player capable of playing short while Lindor is out and sliding over on the infield when he’s back. Trevor Story and Javy Báez are impending free agents on teams that are selling, though they’ll both cost quite a bit to acquire.”
🔗 Drama-filled Mets just won’t stay down, by Ken Davidoff, NY Post: “Just when you think the Mets couldn’t possibly be any more screwed, they go and do something like this. And totally redeem themselves!”
🔗 Mets draft pick Kumar Rocker built for spotlight: ‘He’s a real one’, by Zach Braziller, NY Post: “Rocker has a father, Eagles defensive line coach Tracy Rocker, who has experienced all of this himself as a superstar athlete; a loving mother, Lu, who has always been there for her son; and a close-knit and tight support system he can, and has had to, lean on.”
And… we leave you with Drew Smith donning his championship belt after teammates voted him pitcher of the game:
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I'm far less worried about losing Lindor -- who I think they can replace with in-house options, no problem -- than about pitching. They need to add this year's Addison Reed to the pen, and hopefully a 5th starter who is better than Eickoff. I do not trade away one of the 5-6 legit prospects the Mets have for a rental. Bryant makes no sense. Don't want to trade Ginn, period. And think flipping Mauricio at this point would be a panic move. Fingers crossed. Loved your take on first place. Incremental upgrades to the pitching staff and I'm good.
I like your take on the trade deadline. We are not just "one player away." Evaluate what we have, where we want to go, and who is expendable, if any. We're still under construction. There is no need to trade prospects. Who gets the credit for finding Loup? Sandy or the disgraced GM?