A little spark flickers
Plus: How to score when your team can’t hit
Good Morning,
In a minor miracle, the Mets finally scored a bunch of runs (their second most since July 21) and beat the Dodgers for the first time this season, and for only the fifth time in their past 29 meetings. However, the Mets still lost three of four in LA, and finished their West Coast trip a meager 2-5, while the Atlanta Braves have won nine in a row and lead the NL East by five games (and the Mets by seven).
We will talk about Javy Báez providing a spark, the imminent return of Francisco Lindor, J.D. Davis’ up-and-down weekend, and why the team needs to be more aggressive on the bases.
But first, let’s get you caught up on the top headlines.
⚾️ SUNDAY RECAP: The Mets jumped out to an early lead, scoring three runs in the first. Marcus Stroman played the role of stopper, giving up just two runs on four hits over six innings and striking out six. Javier Baez provided a spark early, doubling in Brandon Nimmo for the game’s first run. JD Davis went 2-for-3 with 4 RBI, including an enormous 2-run homer in the seventh that provided some much-needed breathing room. The bullpen combo of Jeurys Familia, Trevor May and Edwin Diaz closed out the final three innings, giving up just one hit combined, and the Mets won 7-2. [Box Score]
📈 STANDINGS: The Mets dropped below .500 last week for the first time since early May. At 61-63, they are seven in back of Atlanta, two behind Philadelphia for 2nd, and seven in back of Cincinnati for the second wild card spot.
👋 ALMOST BACK: Manager Luis Rojas told reporters on Sunday that Francisco Lindor will probably be activated this week after missing five weeks due to a right oblique strain.
LITTLE MORE TIME: “The performance staff still recommends just to be a little bit more cautious, extra cautious we can call it,” Rojas said. “So we’re looking at potentially early this week now, getting back to New York when we might see him in action. That’s the reason why he’s not being activated just yet, so just extra steps.”
🐐 deGOAT: If healthy, Jacob deGrom will be back in September regardless of where the team is in the standings, Zack Scott told Mike Puma yesterday. Even if the Amazins are out of contention, “I think we’ll want to get him out there just to see where he’s at,” the acting GM said.
🦸 THOR REHAB: Scott also indicated that Noah Syndergaard is “close” to being cleared for a rehab assignment, and as previously reported, could join the team as a relief option for the final weeks of the season.
⬅️ LEFT FIELD: After pinch-hitting for Brandon Drury yesterday, Jeff McNeil remained in the game and played left field for the first time this season. The slumping infielder who is batting .143 over his last 15 games will see more time in the outfield with both Báez and Lindor healthy.
⭐️ ALL-STAR SEASON: As we’ve mentioned before, Marcus Stroman probably deserved to make the All-Star team over his teammate Taijuan Walker, a point that is moot now in terms of the event, but continues to be proven by Stroman’s performance on the mound. After tossing six more innings of two-run ball on Sunday, Stroman pitched his 17th game in which he has allowed no more than two runs over at least five innings of work.
👍 IMPROVEMENT: Speaking of starting pitching, fresh off his six-run performance against the Dodgers a week ago, Carlos Carrasco looked much better in LA on Saturday, pitching five innings of three-run ball, striking out six and walking only one.
CARRASCO: “[I felt] really good tonight. Before this start, I worked so hard on everything, getting to control my mechanics a little bit,” Carrasco said. “I got three runs, but at the same time, I think everything feels good. My last start, it was kind of a little bit rough. This time I felt a little bit better.”
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: The Mets had been an atrocious 3-for-47 with runners in scoring position against the Dodgers this season before Davis and Jonathan Villar connected on two hits in the first inning on Sunday.
📗 SOUND SMARTER: The Mets had not ended a full inning with a lead in 70 tries (the last being the 12th inning of their most recent win over the Giants), before they took a 3-0 lead after the first inning yesterday (h/t Anthony DiComo).
📚 ON THIS DATE:
⏭ NEXT UP: Giants
SPOILER: The Mets have found themselves smack in the middle of the battle for the NL West. After playing 10 straight games against the Giants or Dodgers, they will play three more against San Francisco this week at Citi Field.
THE BEST: At 80-44, the Giants have the best record in baseball. They come to New York off two dramatic wins in Oakland that made them the first team in major-league history to hit pinch-hit home runs in the eighth inning or later to erase a deficit and take a lead in consecutive games, according to Sportradar.
MATCH-UPS: The Giants are tentatively planning to have Sammy Long (1-1, 5.72 ERA), Johnny Cueto (7-6, 3.89 ERA) and Alex Wood (10-4, 4.11 ERA) line up for the three games on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday against Tylor Megill (1-2, 3.21 ERA), Taijuan Walker (7-8, 3.86 ERA), and Carlos Carrasco (0-2, 8.82 ERA), respectively.
3 thoughts from the weekend
The Mets salvaged the final game of their West Coast trip on Sunday. Let’s discuss the key takeaways in context of the bigger picture.
❶ Javy Báez provides a spark
Báez showed yesterday why he is considered a star. His RBI double for the game’s first run set a tone early that the Mets were ready to compete. In the seventh, he was aggressive trying to get to second on what could have been a long single, and he beat the tag with a patented “El Mago” circus slide. He would then score on Davis’ home run. Without Báez in the lineup yesterday, the Mets probably don’t win.
So far in his brief audition with the Mets, we’ve seen both sides of Báez. There are tape-measure home runs, acrobatic base-running maneuvers, highlight-reel defensive plays — and then there are 0-for-5, 5-K games where he swings and misses wildly (even in situations where the team just needs a fly ball or a grounder to the right side). As a Met, the big deadline acquisition who was hailed as a superstar is hitting just .205/.262 with a .672 OPS.
Talk to Cubs fans and they will tell you that this is the frustration of El Mago. He is a superstar, capable of carrying a team, who can sometimes look lost at the plate. For all the talk of his down year, he’s having a pretty typical Javy Báez season. He strikes out a lot (146 this season, 179 per 162 games for his career) and has a very low OBP (.289 this year, .302 career). When he connects, he hits home runs (24 this season, 28 per 162 games for his career). At age 28, with 826 career games and 2,912 at bats, he’s not likely to change.
So as the Mets front office considers whether or not to make a long-term investment in Baez, they should be clear-eyed about what they’re getting: a tremendous talent who will generate plenty of highlights while also frustrating the fanbase on a fairly regular basis.
❷ J.D. Davis vs the fastball
In many ways, you can sum up both J.D. Davis’ and the Mets’ weekend in three pitches. On Friday night, the Mets loaded the bases in the eighth inning, needing a base hit to tie the game or take the lead, but Davis watched a 2-2 fastball sail over the middle of the plate for a called strike three to end the threat.
On Saturday, it was like déjà vu, but this time Davis decided to lift the bat off his shoulders, only to whiff on a 96 mph fastball down the middle of the plate to once again leave the bases loaded.
The scouting report on Davis is an easy read for opposing pitchers: pump him fastballs and he will swing and miss at them. In fact, the right-handed hitter has the third highest swinging strike rate on four-seam fastballs in the majors this season (Báez ranks second). Not only that, Davis also leads the team in whiffs on meatballs (fastballs down the middle of the plate), and only two players in baseball have a higher swinging-strike rate against fastballs in the center of the zone.
Ironically, when he does make contact, he has been able to find some hits, with a .302 batting average against four-seamers. He just doesn’t do it often enough. At least not until Sunday, when he smacked a David Price cutter into an RBI single in the first, and delivered the biggest hit of the game when he turned a Phil Bickford fastball down the middle of the plate into a two-run blast in the seventh.
The Mets’ offense looks a lot different when J.D. Davis is hitting for power from the right side of the plate. If only he can consistently hit fastballs the way he did yesterday.
❸ Aggressive on the bases
We talked last month about the need for third base coach Gary DiSarcina to be more aggressive, after his hyper-cautious coaching cost the Mets several runs (and this was when the team was still actually managing to win games). Now that the team can't buy a win or clutch hit, it's even more imperative for DiSarcina to keep his arm waving, to try to steal runs on the basepaths, and force the opposition to make some plays.
Consider this startling fact: Not counting Baez (who has 4 RBI as a Met), the team has just two players with more than 36 RBI this season: Pete Alonso and Dom Smith. The only "upside" to this sad state of affairs? There are very few hitters you need to worry about "running out of an inning" and "taking the bat out of their hands." As a result, the club needs to be trying to steal bags, take the extra base, and most critically, try to score on seemingly borderline plays.
In yesterday's game, the importance of aggressive running was revealed in ways positive and negative. In the first inning, DiSarcina was so aggressive it looked like his arm might fall off: Brandon Nimmo scored on a double from first, and then Javy Baez and JD Davis each scored from second on singles, a seeming rarity for this station-to-station club. Jonathan Villar then caused mischief on the bases by advancing to second on his RBI single and heading to 3rd after the ball just barely got away. This is the kind of exciting (risk-taking) ball a hitting-deficient club needs to play.
By contrast, DiSarcina declined to send Davis from first on a double into the gap by Jeff McNeil in the 6th. And sure enough, the Mets would fail to drive in that runner from third, despite nobody out.
🔗 Is Baez playing himself into an extension with the Mets? by John Harper, SNY: “Yes, it may be too late to save the Mets’ season after their dizzying August collapse, but Lindor and Baez could still change the outlook for next year and beyond if they finally get to play together up the middle and prove to be a galvanizing force for this team.”
🔗 Steve Cohen’s Mets already have a Wilpon-like feel to them, by Joel Sherman, NY Post: “In Year 1, Cohen is looking more and more like he will be fortunate to reach the Wilpon-ian mandate of September contention. After all, the Mets entered Saturday as many games out of first place in the loss column (six) as they were ahead of the fourth-place Nationals, who dealt a third of their roster at the trade deadline.”
And… we leave you with a political alliance few Mets fans would have predicted two decades ago:
Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter for regular updates until tomorrow’s newsletter.
And please check out our newsletter about the Knicks, too.
Joel Sherman is a nagging hysteric disguised as a sports reporter. Steve Cohen is not pulling a Wilpon. Running a baseball team is complicated and he will get better at it. Joel Sherman will, however, never change.
Sidenote2: Isn't it strange how some people wanted the Mets to "do more" at the deadline. Which means, obviously, trading guys like Mauricio, Alvarez, or Ginn for a 60-game rental. And yet these same people LOST THEIR MINDS when BVW traded Kelenic for 4 years of Diaz.