Can Griffin find his way again?

Morning Dose: Tuesday, June 17

☀️ GOOD MORNING:

How far we have come in such little time.

It was less than a school year ago when the Mets were traveling to Atlanta for what their fans were certain would turn into another chapter in a never-ending horror story. Yeah, we were all in our feelings. Hope didn’t just feel risky, it felt foolish. How could we let the same team dash our dreams again?!

Then Francisco Lindor happened. The Mets pulled off one of the most dramatic regular-season victories in franchise history, an event that felt less like a game and more like an exorcism. The Atlanta ghosts perhaps not fully vanquished, but captured in an abandoned New York firehouse, or whatever dark place the baseball gods reserve for scattered demons.

Which brings us to today, an uncommon point on the calendar with the Mets preparing to play seven of the next 10 games against the hated Braves, and the outcome of the matchup hard to call consequential when you realize they are separated by 13 games in the standings.

Where the next 10 games matter is in the race against the Phillies, who we will see between the two series against Atlanta, and who keep on winning, five straight, to put themselves within two games of first place.

☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!

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Full Standings

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Something caught my attention after Griffin Canning’s last start. Something more than the uninspiring results, but actually the way Canning and his manager talked about those results.

Mendoza: “The walks, we saw it again today -- a lot of arm-side misses with the breaking ball, the fastball, then he gets behind and, when he comes in, they're going to make him pay. So I think it's just strike-throwing ability.”

Canning: “I’ve just go to get back to trusting my stuff in the zone. My changeup felt pretty good. But yeah, just getting back to what makes me good and just trusting it.”

He had “a lot of arm-side misses” but his “changeup felt pretty good.” Remember that because we will come back to it.

⚾️ FASTBALL COMMAND: The arm-side misses are pretty obvious when you look at the pitch chart. All of the dots on the left side of the graphic are potential arm-side misses. We see a lot of green and yellow dots (yellow = slider = breaking ball).