Good Morning,
The 20-17 Mets were off last night but expanded their divisional lead to 1.5 games as Philadelphia lost, to fall to 22-22.
We’ll talk about some encouraging rehab news for Jacob deGrom (and possibly for JD Davis), and discuss the impressive work of the Mets’ long relievers.
But first, let’s catch you up on all the day’s news.
🦸♂️ SUPERHERO: We all love superhero movies because it’s cool to think about what it would be like to possess supernatural powers among everyday people. Maybe we should ask Jacob deGrom. Making a rehab start with the St. Lucie Mets, the world’s best pitcher punched out eight of the nine batters he faced through three scoreless innings. It appears he should be ready to return to the rotation next week.
LIVING THE LIFE: After the game, deGrom apparently treated his minor league teammates to some high-quality dining:
🤞FINGERS CROSSED: After keeping him out of the lineup on Wednesday due to a sore left wrist/hand, the Mets still haven’t announced an update on Pete Alonso. They are expected to do so today, per Andy Martino.
➕ MORE PLAYING TIME: This will make many Mets fans happy: with Tomás Nido swinging a hot bat and James McCann doing whatever you call the exact opposite of that, Manager Luis Rojas indicated (using kinder words) that Nido is “going to get a little bit more playing time.”
⏲ ALMOST TIME: After rehabbing with Triple-A Syracuse this week, it would seem J.D. Davis is close to returning to the Mets’ lineup; however, Rojas told reporters, “I can’t say weekend yet…I want to see how he’s going game to game or at-bat to at-bat and how does it feel for him.”
🗓 DAYS MISSED: As we wait for several Mets to return from the injured list, it turns out the team ranks 11th in the number of days missed so far (keep in mind many of the Mets’ injuries have happened recently), but when you consider the quality of players injured, they have the fourth most WARP missed (based on preseason projections and the percentage of the season injured players have missed).
☎️ CALL UP: Utility player Brandon Drury is expected to join the Mets as a call-up or taxi squad player in Miami, per Andy Martino. He was once a highly regarded prospect for Arizona, and briefly a Yankee.
📚 ON THIS DATE IN 1999: Wearing pinstripe jerseys with black-outlined lettering and no names on their backs, the Mets swept the Brewers in a doubleheader at Shea, thanks to Robin Ventura hitting a grand slam in each game.
⏭ NEXT UP: Miami Marlins
🐠 FISH TOWN: The Mets will spend the weekend in Miami playing the 20-23 Marlins. The two teams split what turned into a mini, two-game series in April that was full of interesting storylines. If you remember, the Mets won the first game on a walk-off home run by Jeff McNeil, but lost the second game, 3-0, despite deGrom striking out 14 batters over eight innings of one-run ball. Lefty Trevor Rogers shut down the Mets offense that day (luckily, he won’t be pitching this weekend).
⚾️ WHO HAS NEXT? We know Marcus Stroman is pitching tonight, but who starts the rest of the series is anyone’s guess. Due to a slew of injuries, David Peterson (who pitched on Wednesday) is the only other regular starter that is healthy. This means the Amazins will likely have to rely on a bullpen game (or two) to get through the series. The most obvious candidates to potentially get called up for a start are right-hander Jordan Yamamoto (who is reportedly in line to start either Saturday or Sunday) and southpaw Thomas Szapucki. Yamamoto pitched two innings for Syracuse on Wednesday; Szapucki hasn’t pitched this week.
🐟 MARLINS STARTERS: Miami will also throw a bullpen game in this series, with tall, right-hander Jordan Holloway probably getting the ball first on Friday. He tossed three innings in a loss against the Dodgers last week, after throwing 3.2 frames as a bullpen starter against Arizona. He is 1-2 with a 2.70 ERA (3.37 FIP) on the season. The Marlins are planning on starting RHP Pablo López and RHP Cody Poteet on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Meet the “Multi-Vitamins”
🧓 by Blake Zeff and Jeffrey Bellone
Yesterday, we compared this current, injury-ravaged version of the Mets to the movie Major League because it includes a rag-tag group of has-beens, never-will-be's and lovable castoffs who are playing with a ton of heart.
Within that band of misfits, there's been one especially endearing sub-culture that's carried the team lately, in the most unexpected and unsung way:
Call them The Mult-vitamins.
They're the (mostly bearded or long-haired) long relievers for the Mets who tend to go 2-3 innings per game, shutting down opposing lineups with seemingly-automatic efficiency, and somehow making up for the fact that the Mets have maybe 2-3 healthy starting pitchers at a time.
Why are they Multi-vitamins? Because they go multiple innings and pump the team with nutrients and energy. (Work with us, here.)
Any discussion of this gang must start with Sean Reid-Foley, a tattooed, mustachioed, squatting biker-lookalike who came over in the Steven Matz deal with little fanfare. Now he's kept the team in several games, with two scoreless three-inning stretches, pitching to a microscopic 0.96 ERA and 0.54 WHIP.
He's joined by Tommy Hunter, maybe the most fun of all. Hunter failed to make the roster out of spring training and only returned to the club when no one else wanted him and the Mets needed fresh arms. Now? He can’t stop gushing about his first major league hit, and regularly puts up zeros, easily going two frames per outing. Hunter hasn’t allowed a run in four appearances, striking out six batters along the way. Of the balls hitters have managed to put in play, only 18.2% have been hard hit.
Drew Smith is the latest member of the group, a hard-throwing righty and only remnant of the young arms the Mets brought over in trades when they sold at the deadline in 2017 (coming over from Boston for Lucas Duda). Smith has always shown promise while healthy, and after finally emerging from the IL in recent weeks, has been a solid opener and middle guy. It’s only three outings, but Smith has struck out 1/3 of the batters he has faced, and escaped a key jam on Wednesday. Plus he’s got long hair.
Speaking of which, there's also Robert Gsellman, almost left for dead by Mets fans this offseason, after a few consecutive years of mediocrity. But he's found his way this season, and has been reliable so far in the multi-vitamin role. He has provided more volume than his fellow long relievers, making ten appearances already, and has allowed only five runs—the product of keeping the ball in the ballpark better than he has in any season since 2016.
Being a middle reliever has never been considered sexy. But this hirsute group has kept this team in first place at a time when it could have fallen way into oblivion. With injuries to Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Carrasco, and Seth Lugo before the season, there was already little margin for error with the team's pitching depth. Add to that medical problems for Jacob deGrom and Taijuan Walker, and Joey Lucchesi's struggles, and the Mets basically needed a miracle.
By consistently shutting down opposing lineups during “bullpen games” and early exits for starters, that’s pretty much what the Multi-vitamins have delivered.
⚾️ Albert Pujols hit his first home run as a Dodger (668th for his career) as the Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks 3-2.
⚾️ The Rays have won seven straight, blowing out the Orioles 10-1.
⚾️ JD Martinez’s 250th career home run was a big one, coming with two outs in the top of the 9th to put the Red Sox ahead for good, beating the Blue Jays 8-7.
🔗 Mets desperately need highest-paid stars to figure it out, by Joel Sherman, NY Post: “The Mets actually are most equipped to create distance in the NL East if they can 1) get a lot healthier, 2) stay a lot healthier and 3) get a lot more from McCann and, especially, Lindor. A defibrillation for McCann and Lindor is vital now. They are two of the few able-body regulars as the Mets embark on a perilous phase of their schedule, when survival will be Step 1 considering they have been racking up MRIs at greater frequency than RBIs.”
🔗 Zack Scott took over the Mets’ front office in a time of turmoil. Who is he as a baseball executive?, by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “The call from Sandy Alderson came at 8 a.m. on Jan. 19. Jared Porter had been fired for sexual harassment of a reporter while he was with the Cubs in 2016; Scott would be leading the organization’s daily morning meeting at nine. Here was Scott’s dream job, a position made vacant because one of his closest friends in the business had done something heinous.”
🔗 Mets prospect Álvarez 'impressive to watch, by Nathalie Alonso, MLB.com: “Power-hitting catchers are a rare breed. The Mets have reason to believe they’ve found one in Francisco Alvarez. New York’s No. 1 prospect and No. 38 overall according to MLB Pipeline, Álvarez entered Thursday hitting .455/.578/.636 with one home run, three doubles, six RBIs and 10 walks in 11 games for the Low-A St. Lucie Mets this season. In 45 plate appearances, he has struck out just four times. While the sample size is small, the 19-year-old backstop, who is listed at 5-foot-10 and 233 pounds, has impressed with his raw power and advanced approach at the plate.”
And we leave you with this fun fact about recently-acquired Met, Cameron Maybin…
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