Good Morning,
The Mets (22-20) snapped their three-game losing streak and beat Colorado 3-1, by playing to some strengths: Jacob deGrom’s starting, Tomás Nido’s (increasingly reliable) hitting and the bullpen’s efficiency.
Despite the win, the night was clouded by the news that Noah Syndergaard left his rehab start early due to right elbow soreness.
We’ll talk about that, dive deep into Nido’s recent success, and update you on the team’s absurd injury news. We will also discuss outfielder Billy McKinney, whom the Mets traded for while you might have been sleeping.
But first, let’s recap last night’s action (and offer a quick PSA).
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⚾️ IN SHORT: Jacob deGrom looked no worse for the wear in his return to action, shutting down Colorado for five innings, while the formidable bullpen trio of Miguel Castro, Trevor May and Edwin Diaz finished four spotless frames. Tomás Nido hit a two-run homer to provide the margin of victory, 3-1. [Box Score]
🔑 KEY MOMENT: The pivotal play of the game was the Nido homer, but the most interesting (or even entertaining) one may have been deGrom’s single which he nearly stretched into a double (until a replay ruled that he had momentarily come off the bag). It’s worth watching for the hit (deGrom remains the Mets’ most effective hitter), the aggressiveness on the basepaths and the truly impressive speed:
3 TAKEAWAYS
❶ JAKE LOOKS GOOD: The two-time Cy Young was back and in pretty sharp mid-season form. He fanned nine batters over five innings, walking none and scattering three hits, including a Ryan McMahon solo homer. And as usual, he lit up the radar gun, hitting 101 on his final pitch of the night.
❷ NEAT-O: With so many starters on the injured list, it was incumbent on someone to step up for this team in order for it to stay alive. That hasn’t been James McCann, Francisco Lindor or Dom Smith: it’s been backup (now starting) catcher Tomás Nido. Last night, the backstop went yard in the 6th to put the Mets in the lead, where they would stay for good. (Much more on Nido below.)
❸ THE PEN IS MIGHTY: With devastating injuries to the starting rotation and everyday lineup, there’s been one constant this season: the bullpen. And last night, the basic formula worked beautifully. After Jake pitched five innings (a pre-planned number), Miguel Castro fanned four over two scoreless, Trevor May held down his usual 8th inning assignment, and Edwin Diaz (who’s been great in save situations) closed out the game with relatively little drama.
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: While he’s struggled in the occasional non-save chance, Díaz has now converted his last 12 save opportunities for the Mets, going back to last season.
⏭ NEXT UP: Tonight should be a fun matchup, with Marcus Stroman (the most steady, constant presence in the rotation thus far) taking on German Márquez, the ace of the Colorado staff. While Marquez’s season numbers aren’t dazzling (3-4, 4.82 ERA), he’s pitched to a 2.37 ERA over his last three starts. Stroman (3-4, 2.75 ERA) is coming off a very sharp performance against the Marlins last week.
🤬 IT NEVER ENDS: If you’re a Mets fan, it’s impossible not to get frustrated about the daily injury news that besets this team. Last night, it was Noah Syndergaard’s turn. Making a rehab assignment that was supposed to be just another step toward his return in mid-June, the tall right-hander was forced to leave the game after only 16 pitches due to right elbow soreness. Manager Luis Rojas called the move “preventative” and it’s not entirely uncommon for a pitcher to experience soreness while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, but excuse us if the news (his fastball velocity was down) and if the calming words by Rojas don’t make us feel all warm and fuzzy.
CONCERNED? “Nothing that is overly concerning for the medical staff,” Rojas told reporters after the game. “He’s going to get re-evaluated [on Wednesday]. We’ll reassess on his status. But no one’s overly concerned.”
🍎 TRADE: In desperate need of outfield depth, the Mets swung a trade last night with Milwaukee, sending 17-year-old prospect Pedro Quintana to Milwaukee for outfielder Billy McKinney. In a corresponding move, the Mets placed Jordan Yamamoto on the 60-Day IL with shoulder discomfort.
WHO? McKinney is a former first round pick by Oakland (24th overall in 2013) who spent some time in the Yankees system, along with Toronto and Milwaukee. He filled in nicely for the Brewers when they were short on outfielders due to early-season injuries to Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, but eventually came back down to earth.
ADDITION: McKinney gives the Mets a left-handed bat with raw power. He can play both corner outfield positions, and first base. GM Zack Scott has his hands tied in trying to improve a roster that has been decimated by injury. He doesn’t have a lot of chips to trade, and it’s a bit early for teams to put pieces on the market. McKinney literally gives another body to put in the outfield, one that has upside and was swinging the bat and catching the ball well earlier this year. He is out of options, so he will stay with the Mets until they are forced to make a roster decision when players return healthy.
⛑️ INJURY LIST: Ahead of last night’s trade, outfielder of the week Johneshwy Fargas' MRI on his left shoulder confirmed he suffered an AC joint sprain. He will go on the injured list today, but is not expected to need surgery.
✋ T.O. for J.D.? After complaining of soreness in his hand, J.D. Davis was given an MRI, which revealed inflammation in his joints. He'll get treatment, before the team decides what happens next.
⚾️ REHAB START: Seth Lugo started for Syracuse last night and threw 1.1 innings, striking out two, walking one, and allowing an earned run on three hits.
😄 STILL IN FIRST: The Mets’ season has been truly bizarre, with all the injuries and new faces. But perhaps most surreal? The club remains in first place despite it all. After last night’s win, the Amazins are 22-20, a game ahead of the 24-24 Braves, who have suddenly won four straight and may be knocking on the door.
🐐 UNREAL: In 190 career starts, deGrom has now allowed zero or one run in 48 percent of them (91). As Joe Sheehan noted in his newsletter yesterday, Jake has just a .756 winning percentage when he allows no runs; for comparison, Clayton Kershaw’s is .940 in such starts.
🎺 SUGAR HIGH: In save chances this season, Diaz has pitched 8.2 innings and allowed no runs on just four hits, along with a 13-2 K/BB ratio, per Michael Mayer.
Is Tomás Nido for real?
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
For all the talk about hitting coaches — real and make believe — it’s a hitting coach who never played the game who has helped Tomás Nido turn into an offensive threat.
After three brief stints in the majors from 2016-2019, the 27-year-old catcher had a batting average that would have served better as a penal code (.187). While he provided stellar defense behind the plate, and possessed raw power as a prospect, there was legitimate concern whether his offense would ever translate against top-level pitching.
That all changed after Nido found swing guru Lorenzo Garmendia during the 2020 offseason. Garmendia has helped the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Mookie Betts improve their swings, so why not an impressionable young catcher?
Nido asked the affable hitting coach for assistance, leading him to tweak his approach at the plate, as first detailed by Justin Toscano of NorthJersey.com.
You can see in the graphic below the difference in Nido’s swing before and after working with Garmendia. He has carried over the changed approach into 2021. His stance is a bit lower, with more bend in his legs and his hands dropped.
We saw a hint of the impact last season. It was only seven games, but Nido looked like a different player with the bat in his hands. He hit two home runs and over 44% of the balls he put in play were hit hard. Given the small sample size, it was easy to overlook his new approach. The Mets signed James McCann for $40 million this offseason to be their everyday catcher, and with Nido out of options, he sort of became the default back-up catcher.
But as McCann continues to struggle in New York, fans have called for Nido to gain more playing time, something Garmendia, who worked with the catcher again this past offseason, believed would return positive results.
“I think if Nido can string some games together where he gets a good amount of playing time, I think everybody is going to be shocked,” Garmendia told Toscano this past February. “You’re going to get to see what you saw last year. That wasn’t by accident. What happened last year, and that sample size, isn’t by accident. That’s going to be him.”
With injuries forcing the Mets to get creative with their lineups, pushing McCann to first base, Nido is finding that playing time. He has hits in six of his past seven games, including the clutch, two-run home run last night. He is hitting .306/.359/.528 in the month of May. And he is playing excellent defense; his pitch framing putting him in the top 10th percentile of the league. He has caught 57% of baserunners trying to steal on him.
A key to Nido’s success so far this season has been his ability to hit fastballs. Last year, even with his new swing, he whiffed on 9 of the 39 (23.1%) four-seamers he saw. This year, he has cut that number down to 10.6% and is batting .400 when he puts them in play. This has helped him reduce his overall strikeout rate to a career best 16%.
And last night, it was the pitch he has struggled the most with in the majors, a slider, that he turned into a home run. It was the second time he parked a slider over the fence this season, after not hitting any off the hard breaking ball before this year.
BOTTOM LINE: The Mets could have saved themselves a lot of money and heartache about hitting coaches by trusting the work Nido did with his own coach over the past two offseasons. We still need to see a bigger sample of data, but we know Nido has always had the pedigree to hit with power, he just needed to do it at the pro level. His defense speaks for itself. He is one “replacement” player who is worth having in the lineup without any injuries to put him there.
⚾️ The Phillies placed Bryce Harper on the 10-day IL with a bruised left forearm.
⚾️ In his first start after throwing a no-hitter, Corey Kluber left after just three innings with shoulder fatigue. The Yankees would go on to lose 6-2 to Steven Matz and the Blue Jays.
⚾️ Marcell Ozuna dislocated two fingers on his left hand while sliding head first into third base. The Braves beat the Red Sox 3-1.
🔗 Francisco Lindor’s Mets lineup spot safe — for now, by Mike Puma, NY Post: “The decimation of the Mets lineup has kept Luis Rojas from facing a potentially unsettling decision. Francisco Lindor has been a significant disappointment through the first 41 games of his Mets career, but when the other option is moving up a fringe player to hit in the No. 2 hole in the lineup, with his star shortstop hitting much lower, the manager gets an easy escape.”
🔗 What Mets and Yankees can realistically accomplish on trade market now, by Andy Martino, SNY: “Mets GM Zack Scott says he is on the phone all day. Sources tell us the Yankees have been poking around for marginal outfield upgrades. Given that it’s not even Memorial Day -- in other words, more than two months before the trade deadline -- what can these teams and their GMs realistically accomplish? “Not really the time to easily fix anything,” one MLB general manager said on Tuesday afternoon.”
🔗 This Week in Mets: When might New York’s rotation be whole again?, by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “Through one-quarter of the season, New York’s pitching staff has been its unexpected anchor, ranking fourth in the majors in both starter ERA and staff ERA. That’s come despite the season-long absences of Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard in the rotation and Seth Lugo in the bullpen.”
And… we leave you with this flash of leather from earlier this year by the newly acquired Mets outfielder:
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