California Dreamin'

Mets head to LA for showdown with Dodgers

Good Morning,

Everyday seems to bring a new special moment for the Mets. Yesterday, it was Carlos Carrasco performing in front of his dad for the first time on a major league mound.

Buoyed by Carrasco Sr.’s presence, the Mets blanked the Nationals for the second consecutive day, completing the series sweep and winning their sixth straight game. They are now 19–7 against the hapless National League East, in which they hold a commanding 10.5-game lead.

We’ve been saying it for weeks: the Amazins will face their first real test of the season during the upcoming road trip to Dodger Stadium, Petco Park and Angel Stadium. These Southern California teams have won a combined 60% of their games. The competition level is about to go up.

That said, the Mets might be running into SoCal’s finest at the right time. The Dodgers just got swept at home for the first time in four years, and by the Pirates, in particular, for the first time in 22 years. As you may have noticed flipping through the channels, the Angels have lost six in a row, including one to the Yankees. And the Padres can’t hit and have lost three in a row and six of eight, while being caught in the middle of a Fantasy Baseball controversy (along with Mike Trout).

Of course, this also could be the worst time to face these struggling teams who are each due to rebound.

Blake @ByBlakeWilliams

The Dodgers getting swept by the Pirates and then sweeping the Mets would be peak baseball

New York heads west with the best record in the National League. I will provide an in-depth preview of the Dodgers series in a bit. But first, let’s recap yesterday’s win.

IN SHORT: Carlos Carrasco pitched five scoreless innings in front of his father, Tomás Nido was a perfect 4–4 at the plate with three RBIs and the Mets swept Washington out of New York with a 5–0 win on Wednesday afternoon [Box Score].

🍎 CARLO CARRASCO wasn’t his sharpest yesterday, walking five Nationals hitters, while struggling to locate his fastball. But he showed his professionalism, grinding through five scoreless innings, while somehow keeping his emotions in check as his father from Colombia watched from the stands for the first time in his big league career.

“Throughout my career I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, and this is going to go in a special place for me because my mom saw me pitch in 2015 and my dad couldn’t come here,” Carrasco told reporters after the game. “Now, almost seven years later, my dad made it, and it’s going to go in a special place for me.”

SNY Mets @SNY_Mets

Carlos Carrasco almost cried when he saw his dad's overjoyed reaction to him getting out of a jam:

🍎 RBI MACHINE: With a seventh-inning sacrifice fly, Francisco Lindor joined Mike Piazza as the only other Met to record an RBI in ten consecutive games. The NL Player of the Week has 43 RBIs on the season.

HITTING APPROACH: Earlier this week, Lindor made some interesting comments about his success under hitting coaches Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes, while also crediting manager Buck Showalter for being “an amazing role model.”

“Nobody is talking about lifting the baseball. No one,” Lindor said, via MLB.com. “Everybody is focusing on their approach and how to hit that pitcher and that’s it. Then after that, [what] we witnessed in the box, we passed it on to my teammates. You see the guys always talking. We always talk about hitting the pitcher and hitting. That helps a lot.” 

“The hitting coaches [Chavez and Barnes] -- I rely on them [a lot],” Lindor continued. “Last year, the hitting coaches were really good, but the relationship wasn’t there. It was growing. Now, the relationship is there. It grew already. I trust them. Last year, I trusted the guys [but at] the end of the year. You could see the results at the end of the year. They had to get to know me and understand my swing. With Eric and Jeremy, from Day 1, we put in the time to get to know each other.”

🍎 TOMÁS NIDO is getting into a groove. I highlighted his pitch framing earlier this week. While he leaves the Mets exposed against speedy baserunners, he is doing everything else behind the plate. Yesterday, he added four hits from the bottom of the order. He is now batting .311 over his last 15 games. Of course, he did benefit from some pretty terrible defense yesterday:

The Dodgers are an interesting story this season. They just finished the month of May having scored the second most runs in a single month (sound familiar?) since they moved to Los Angeles. And if they didn’t have to play teams that call Pennsylvania home, they would be nearly unbeatable.

Since the beginning of May, the Dodgers are a dismal 4–9 against the Pirates and Phillies, compared to 16–1 against everyone else.

If you simply look at the standings, you find a Dodgers team with a .660 winning percentage and a three-game lead on the second-place Padres. But if you watch them everyday, you know there are some subtle cracks in the foundation that could pose a risk to their long-standing dominance in the National League.

In three main areas, Andrew Friedman’s club has relied on depth to overcome injury and underperformance from key players. How long that depth can sustain this pace is the question, one many Mets fans have been asking about their own team. The club who gets healthier first might be the one that ends with the best record in the Senior Circuit.

To get you ready for the four-game showdown, I will breakdown where the Dodgers have concerns and how they have mostly overcome them through the season’s first 50+ games.

🔻 STARTERS: As with the Mets, the Dodgers’ staff is a shell of what it could be if everyone was healthy and performing as expected. But similar to the Mets, they are skipping along. Putting Trevor Bauer aside, they are still missing 40% of an ideal rotation, with Clayton Kershaw recovering from a shoulder injury and Dustin May rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. They also lost Andrew Heaney to a shoulder issue after he showed he might have found something in his first two starts.

Meanwhile, neither Walker Buehler nor Julio Urías have looked themselves in the early going. They both struggled in outings against the Pirates earlier this week, each serving up a home run to Tucupita Marcano, who now has two career long balls to his name. The schedule is lined up for the Mets to face Buehler on Saturday and Urías on Sunday. The two top starters have lost some zip on their fastballs and have struggled to adjust their command accordingly, something to look out for this weekend.

Behind his usual studs, manager Dave Roberts is relying on Tony Gonsolin, upstart Tyler Anderson and swing-starter Mitch White (along with a slew of other spot starters) to fill out the rotation. As good as both Gonsolin and Anderson have been over the first two months, neither has a track record to suggest they will continue to dominate.

◾️ Tonight’s starter, Gonsolin, hasn’t reached 90 innings in a season since his minor league campaign in 2018. His 1.80 ERA hides his command issues. His fastball isn’t very good, but he’s figuring out how to make it work with his split-finger and secondary pitches.

◾️ Friday’s starter, Anderson, hasn’t allowed a run in 20 innings. He is another example of the Dodgers taking a player nobody else found useful and turning him into a top contributor. He has never finished a season with an ERA below 4.30 since his rookie campaign with the Rockies in 2016.

🔻 BULLPEN: Longtime Dodger closer Kenley Jansen is pitching in Atlanta now. He was replaced by Craig Kimbrel, who is a baseball-household name. But he doesn’t exactly invoke confidence among the LA faithful, often getting into trouble before escaping it, finally blowing a game to the Pirates a few nights ago. He has allowed at least one run in three straight appearances and in five of his previous seven. On top of that, elite set-up man Blake Treinen is out indefinitely with shoulder discomfort.

However, once again depth provides Dave Roberts with plenty alternative options. The return of Daniel Hudson as a free agent signing has been a God-send, along with the emergence of Evan Phillips and lefty Alex Vesia.

🔻 OFFENSE: Incredibly, the Dodgers have three former All-Stars scuffling at the plate. Max Muncy injured his elbow in the final game of the 2021 regular season, and hasn’t looked the same since. He was finally placed on the IL last week, after hitting a meek .150 in 133 at-bats. Cody Bellinger is a bit improved over last season, but he is nowhere near the player he was when he won the 2019 National League MVP. He also has an abductor strain, which has kept him out of the lineup the past few days. And our old friend Justin Turner has stumbled out of the game with a .289 on-base percentage, although he has been coming on recently.

Normally, with three struggling stars, a team’s lineup would fall silent. Not with the Dodgers. This is where their embarrassment of riches shines brightest. They can send two Silver Sluggers and a batting title champion to the plate in Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Trea Turner at least twelve times per game. Good luck trying to survive that.

Turner has a major-league-best 24-game hit streak; Betts has a .898 slugging percentage in his last 15 games; and Met-killer Freddie Freeman has been the team’s most consistent hitter with a .295/.387/.853 slash line.

⚾️ BOTTOM LINE: It’s reasonable to wonder if the Dodgers will one day wake up and realize it’s hard to win when half of your lineup isn’t hitting and the depth of your rotation rests on a starter signed a few months ago with a career 4.49 ERA. Perhaps the Pirates were that wake-up call. LA looked sloppy on defense and on the basepaths during their past two series. Playing at less than 100% health, the margins matter a little more for this talented team.

But the Dodgers are the Dodgers; they always find a way. And while they are dealing with injuries now, they could get healthy quick. Kershaw looked as good as he has ever looked before going on the IL, and is progressing toward his return. The exact same can be said of Heaney. A healthy Kershaw would give the Boys in Blue three high-quality left-handers (along with Urías and allowing for the chance Anderson keeps it up, or perhaps even Heaney) to offset a dangerous Mets lineup in a future-looking playoff series.

The ‘88 Mets were the last team to start a season like this current squad. As older fans will remember, that team owned the Dodgers during the regular season, winning 10 of 11 meetings. We don’t have to rehash what happened in the playoffs (f*cking Mike Scioscia). But it’s a reminder that no matter how much this upcoming series represents a “test,” nobody wins a championship in the month of June. The beauty of a 162-game season is the best teams eventually rise to the top. Otherwise, we should give proper credence to the Pirates for beating the Dodgers five out of six this season.

The key for the Mets is to win enough games to make sure they get to October, preferably with one of the top seeds, which requires them to perform well over any four-game set or road trip, regardless of the opponent. Keep in mind, Atlanta won the World Series last year with a 31–37 regular-season record against >.500 teams, including a late-season sweep by the Dodgers.

I suppose I’m cautioning people from overreacting to this series, or this west coast swing. But get your coffee ready, it’s going to be fun to watch.

A few more interesting notes heading into the series…

👕 GIVEAWAY: Without coincidence, the Dodgers are giving away Justin Turner replica jerseys tonight. They will also hand out Gil Hodges Hall-of-Fame bobbleheads on Saturday.

🤕 INJURIES: Remember Kevin Pillar? He recently found his way into the Dodgers’ lineup as an injury replacement and after an impressive .315/.412/.622 performance in Triple-A. However, he left last night’s game after his left shoulder popped out on a swing and again on a slide. Cody Bellinger is expected to be back in the starting lineup tonight.

Speaking of injuries, Buck Showalter admitted he keeps anticipated return dates to himself. “Baseball gods laugh if you tell them about your plan, so I don’t make it public,” he said about his players’ injuries, via Newsday. “I’ve got an idea of what order I think they’ll come back.”

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◾️ The Padres have informed Robinson Canó of their plans to option him, which ultimately makes him a free agent again. The beleaguered second baseman had only three hits in 33 at-bats for San Diego, striking out 10 times. Something to keep in mind: Canó has a career .301 batting average, which someone pointed out gives him 37 hitless at-bats to spare before falling below .300.

◾️ Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo made it clear that he is “not trading Juan Soto” in an interview with The Sports Junkies in DC. “We have every intention of building this team around Juan Soto,” Rizzo said. “We’ve spoken to his agent many, many times — recently sat with him when he was in Washington D.C., made it clear to him that we are not interested in trading him, and I guess the rest of the world just doesn’t believe it. But that’s our position.”

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🔗 A Graphic Designer (and Mets Fan) Is Keeping Shea Stadium’s Neon Alive, by Joe DeLessio, Curbed: “Since 2016, a graphic designer named Dan Abrams has marked each and every Mets victory by opening up Adobe Illustrator, creating a drawing of a key moment in the style of the minimalistic neon figures that once lit up the exterior of Shea Stadium, and posting it to social media.”

🔗 Mets making their own luck, tormenting poor defenses, by Mike Petriello, MLB.com: “When the Mets have been hitting, the defenses they’ve seen against them have been baseball’s weakest, by a large margin, and that’s a metric that looks at everything from the fielder’s point of view, not the exit velocity and launch angle of the ball. (That is: how far, in how much time, in what direction does the fielder have to go?) It’s a gap of nearly 40 Outs Above Average between the team facing the toughest fielders, the Reds.”

🔗 Dominic Smith’s Slide Sends Him Back to Triple-A, by Jay Jaffe, FanGraphs: “So what’s gone wrong for Smith? Based only on his exit velocity and his hard-hit rate, he’s hitting the ball as hard as he did in 2020 (and harder than last year), but his barrel rate is less than a quarter of what it was in the pandemic-shortened season, and his groundball rate is way up.”

🔗 Buck Showalter’s simplicity has Mets entering telling stretch on perfect note, by Mike Vaccaro, NY Post: “Of all the baseball gospels Buck Showalter has preached since he took over as Mets manager, the one that resonates through all the rest is this: Keep things as simple as possible. Don’t overcomplicate. Don’t overcompensate. See the ball. Hit the ball. Field the ball. Worry about today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

🔗 New York Mets are halfway to the trade deadline. Who might they add? by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “The Mets are going to be carrying eight relievers through this season, and the likelihood that nobody outside the organization represents a desirable upgrade on Aug. 2 is slim to none. There will be chances for the Mets to improve themselves in the bullpen at that time, and it’s really just a question of the magnitude of their desired improvement.”

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