☀️ Good Morning:
Sometimes you can tell when a season is shaping up to be special. It can be a combination of things. Lockdown pitching. Clutch hitting.
But sometimes it’s something that feels a bit more… mystical. The ball bounces just the right way. The other team fails to execute at the pivotal moment.
Whatever it is, the 2024 Mets have it.
As if their sweep of the Yankees in the Bronx needed an encore to surpass it, the Mets managed to best the Braves 3–2 in 10 innings thanks to some pixie dust, botched late-inning baserunning by Atlanta, and a fly ball that somehow managed to elude Ramón Laureano’s glove.
The Mets are now 54–48, just a half game behind the Braves for the top wild-card spot. Atlanta has lost five in a row and look a lot like Mets teams we have watched in years past, falling on injuries and bad luck.
To get you ready for the rest of the action this weekend, Peter and I (this is Blake) dropped a fresh episode of the MetsFix Podcast - where we discuss the dominant play of Francisco Lindor, and the excellence so far of David Stearns and Carlos Mendoza.
Make sure you’re subscribed to the Mets Fix Podcast on your favorite platform (Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud).
🔖 Before you get to that, we have a jam-packed newsletter breaking down last night’s win, José Buttó’s long-term fit, and filling you in on some late-night transactions that have kicked the trade season into gear.
🪄 Magic Mets
Good teams prove people wrong by getting contributions from unexpected sources. After becoming the fanbase’s whipping boy to start the season, everything Jeff McNeil touches is turning to gold. He’s got some 2015 Daniel Murphy vibes going for him right now. Remember, Murph started that season hitting .198 through the end of April.
With the game tied in the 10th inning, McNeil hit a towering fly ball down the right-field line that Ramón Laureano somehow overran to allow the winning run to score.
“I overran it, but I should have caught that ball,” Laureano said after the game. “I let the team down today.”
It was a tough inning for Laureano who got caught both by a failed squeeze attempt and Francisco Álvarez’s temper in the top of the inning:
“I don’t know what that was, quite honestly,” manager Brian Snitker said of the play, via MLB. “You’re going to have to ask them. I didn’t have anything on. We normally don’t bunt in that situation, but I was trying to score a run. We had two pretty good hitters coming up, I thought. That was unacceptable.”
Old friend Jarred Kelenic teased the bunt attempt, allowing Phil Maton to throw high and wide and catch Laureano breaking for home.
😌 What a Relief
Don’t look now, but the Mets’ bullpen seems to have found its groove — and last night there was no one more valuable for the Mets than José Buttó (though, Laureano was a close runner-up). “We won because of [Buttó] today,” last night’s starter Luis Severino said. “He did a great job.”
Not only did the right-hander throw three scoreless innings — taking care of the crucial 6th, 7th and 8th innings singlehandedly — but he did it by retiring all nine batters he faced.
But that’s not all. Buttó came on in relief of Severino — who, like Sean Manaea the night before, was solid enough but couldn’t provide length — with two on in the 6th, no out, and a 2–2 game. In other words, no margin for error. He then fanned the dangerous Eddie Rosario and delicious-sounding Nacho Alvarez, before retiring the side on a long fly to center.
Buttó now has an 0.66 ERA as a reliever and a 35% strikeout rate.
Edwin Diaz honestly didn’t look his best (something to monitor as we enter the final few months) in the 9th, but was able to fan two and escape trouble when Francisco Alvarez gunned down speedy pinch-runner Whit Merrifield trying to steal third.
And Phil Maton did his job getting out of the 10th with no runs allowed, thanks in part to Laureano’s botched suicide squeeze play. Thanks, Ramon!
🤏 Just enough offense
All of this good pitching and fortune would be meaningless, were it not for the small amount of offense the Amazins pieced together.
Facing a leading Cy Young contender in Chris Sale, there really wasn’t much.
But Francisco Lindor continued his torrid pace, mashing a 2nd inning two-run blast to provide pretty much the entire offense (the Mets had three hits all night), until Laureano managed to outrun McNeil’s fly ball to send the Flushing crowd home happy.
🥰 Embracing his role
(JB here) I was going to continue our Trade Deadline Preview today after looking at the Mets’ 2024 Trade Values yesterday, but after José Buttó’s performance, I thought it was a better time to answer a recent mailbag question.
📬 MAILBAG: Ben asks, “My question relates to José Buttó. He’s been effective in both starting and relief roles so far this year - first as a starter at the major league level and now in the big league pen after a stint back in AAA. What do you see as the plan for him both short and long term? Hard to imagine taking him out of a bullpen that has proved so precarious and where he has become maybe the third guy I trust (Diaz, Nunez, then Buttó??). At the same time, maybe I’m scarred from the Seth Lugo experience, but should this team give him more run in the rotation perhaps starting next year? Or is the potential out of the pen now tantalizing?”
José Buttó has given the Mets a nice problem to have. While he has proven himself as a capable starter, Thursday’s three-inning performance is yet another reminder of how valuable he can be as a multiple-inning reliever.
It’s hard to imagine taking him out of the ‘pen as it is currently constructed. That can obviously change depending on what happens at the trade deadline. But as the Mets move to a six-man rotation with the return of Kodai Senga, Buttó’s services become extra useful while the team operates one reliever short.
That said, you can’t ignore the success he has shown as a starter dating back to 2023. Since the beginning of last September, Buttó’s 3.17 ERA as a rotation piece is tied with Luis Gill for 25th lowest in baseball. In seven starts this season, he has maintained a low 3.08 ERA by allowing more than three runs only once.
🔷 There are two keys to becoming an effective reliever:
The first is mindset. We know Buttó has that. Whatever role is asked of him, he has embraced. His seamless transition to the bullpen is a testament of his mental approach. “I think the biggest thing for me is his ability to slow the game down, especially when there’s traffic,” manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters on Thursday. “Just having the awareness of where we are in the game, who’s the hitter, not getting behind in counts.”
The other is repertoire, which could dictate where he fits long-term. Ironically, none of his pitches are particularly impressive — his fastball lacks elite velocity or rise, the movement profiles on his breaking pitches are rather ordinary, and he walks too many batters. In a vacuum, it’s a bit surprising he has pitched as well as he has in the majors. But he has done so by being what the old dudes call a “good pitcher.”
In fact, Buttó’s command numbers can be a bit misleading. He throws a lot of pitches out of the strike zone, boosting his walk rate, but with proper sequencing and placement, he still gets ahead in counts and earns swinging strikes. While his sinker, changeup and slider all land out of the zone far above league average, they each induce swinging-strike rates near the top of the league.
Since July 1, no pitcher in baseball has thrown a greater share of pitches out of the strike zone than Buttó (minimum 100 pitches). Yet, he has pitched to an 0.66 ERA and walked only five hitters. He has found success with the fourth-highest whiff rate on pitches out of the strike zone during that time.
Butto is following a trend across baseball by pairing his four-seamer effectively with his sinker. Neither pitch, on their own, would be dangerous. But when mixed together, like gin and tonic, they become difficult to take.
His sinker tells the story best. Hitters expecting something “hard” in a fastball count have trouble adjusting to a pitch that starts off looking like a four-seamer but quickly darts out of the strike zone.
Buttó makes a living throwing this pitch arm-side to both righties and lefties:
If nobody swung, Buttó would walk the park. But he makes it too tempting to lay off these pitches.
Thinking long term, Buttó can become a quality starter with four pitches, including his two fastballs, changeup and slider. He represents a unique case as a reliever. Usually you would lean into sharper breaking stuff, as he has experimented with a sweeper, but his success is tied to his ability to keep hitters off balance with slight variations between each offering. It makes him somewhat of a unicorn. Maybe his correct role is simply the role where he is needed most and finding success at the time.
📝 HEALTH CHECK: After rolling his ankle in Tuesday’s game, Harrison Bader was deemed “better” Thursday by Mendoza, but didn’t appear in last night’s game.
Brandon Nimmo received a routine day off, seemingly odd timing with Bader also out of the lineup. Facing off against Sale, one of the toughest lefties of his generation, DJ Stewart barely put up a fight, going 0-for-3 on the night with 3 K’s.
🗓️ UP NEXT: Kodai Senga makes his long-awaited debut after a frustrating first half of seemingly endless rehab for his shoulder and triceps injuries. But that’s all in the rear-view as the could-be ace takes on Charlie Morton (5-5, 3.92) in the second of a four-game set with Atlanta.
Tylor Megill will take the rotation spot of the injured Christian Scott tomorrow in the third game of the series.
🕷️ Find headlines for all of your favorite teams at SportSpyder, the number one source for sports news links.
◾️ With the trade deadline just four days away, the Diamondbacks struck a deal to acquire lefty reliever A.J. Puk from the Marlins in return for prospects Deyvison De Los Santos and Andrew Pintar.
◾️ Seattle swiped outfielder Randy Arozarena from Tampa for OF Aidan Smith and RHP Brody Hopkins, Seattle’s No. 12 and 22 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline.
◾️ Of relevance to the relief-hungry Mets, Ken Rosenthal reports that the Angels “expect to trade right-handed closer Carlos Estevez and setup man Luis Garcia, both of whom are on expiring contracts.”
🔗 Mets sign 1st-rounder Benge, now a full-time OF in pros, by Anthony DiComo, MLB.com. “Benge’s decision [to focus on hitting] comes as no surprise to Mets decision-makers and rival scouts, all of whom viewed him as a bat-first prospect. He showed why during an introductory batting practice session at Citi Field, blasting one ball halfway up the second deck in right field during an impressive cage round.”
🔗 Mets, Yankees have New York in baseball Bizarro World, by Mike Vaccaro, NY Post. “White is black. Up is down. The Yankees of July are looking every bit as helpless as the Mets of May did, and the Mets of July are looking every bit as dangerous as the Yankees of May. The final three innings of the final Mets-Yankees game were played before 75 percent Mets fans… It’s like a baseball version of ‘Trading Places’.”
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Seems a little rough on Diaz to say he didn’t look sharp. He walked a guy and struck out the other two, both on 1-2 counts. He’s maybe not 2022 Diaz but he’s been plenty effective since he came back from injury.
Big kudos to Maton for the veteran guile to recognize Kelenic squaring early and adjusting to throw an unbuntable pitch. Super smart in a tense, tie game, 9th inning situation. Impressive.