Good Morning,
So that was one way of breaking a losing streak.
The Mets blew a 7–3 lead in a crazy inning in which the Nationals scored five runs on one hit, only to comeback and win the game by finding some clutch swings they had lost somewhere in San Francisco last weekend.
“That’s huge,” said McNeil, via Newsday. “We had a nice lead there and then they came back. It shows a lot about this team – kind of get knocked down there and gave up the lead and to be able to come back in the bottom of the eighth, that’s big.”
Thank goodness for the Squirrel, whose RBI triple put the Amazins back in the win column on Thursday. The scrappy veteran is hitting .415 over his last 11 games, collecting two more hits last night. We talked yesterday about how one-dimensional the Mets’ lineup has become, or more accurately, two-man focused in Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso. Add McNeil to that duo, and the rest of the order finally woke up, racking up a season-best 16 hits en route to a 9–8 win.
To blow a four-run lead in the eighth inning and respond with two runs in the bottom of the frame is the exact statement this team needed headed into a wraparound weekend series with the first-place Braves.
Atlanta comes to town having blown a four-run lead of their own against the Marlins. It was the third time in seven days closer A.J. Minter has struggled to shut the door for his team. He has given up 10 earned runs in his past four outings. The Mets’ win and Braves’ loss puts the teams two games apart in the standings.
I will get you set for the big series against Atlanta and introduce you to a new metric about catching. But first, let’s talk some more about last night.
1️⃣ BIG TAKEAWAY: There’s two ways of looking at last night’s win: either it is a sign of a really good team finally turning the corner from a few-day slump, or it was an excuse-me win by a club that has several underlying issues that are waiting to boil over.
If you spend time in our chat, you know we have voices representing both of these perspectives. Honestly, I don’t think the answer is very romantic — especially not if you write a daily newsletter that tries to put meaning to each of these games during a marathon schedule.
But where are we really headed this season? With the expanded playoffs, is there any real scenario in which the Mets don’t make the postseason? And whether they win 115 games or 90, does any of it matter if they can’t win two out of three or four out of seven come October?
In other words, who cares if the Mets lose four in a row in April and beat the Nats in a wild game a night later? What this team is today, on April 28, is not what it is going to be on October 3rd or October 27th. Those are the dates when they will be measured.
For all of the attention on Atlanta, who beat out the Mets for the division title last season, they ended up losing in four games to the third-place Phillies in the playoffs, failing to reach the NLCS.
🔻 Where last night’s win matters is the adversity part. Winning a championship requires teams to overcome adversity. A mini losing streak and batting slump gave the Mets a chance to do that on Thursday. They responded. Now they will test their mettle against the Braves. Still, the big picture context is important to remember as you watch these two NL East power players battle it out over the next four days.
👛 CLUTCH: One of the stories of the Nats’ series was the inability of Starling Marte or Francisco Lindor to come up with big hits with runners on base. They came through last night, Lindor’s bases-loaded, two-RBI double after Marte walked in the fourth gave New York an early 4–1 lead. Lindor would double in another run in the sixth. Overall, the Mets went 5-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Perhaps we need to credit the Brandon Nimmo gnome.
👦 PLAY THE KIDS: Brett Baty was back in the lineup against a right-hander last night and he did what Brett Baty does when you give him opportunities, going 3-for-3 with a homer. I found his postgame comments interesting:
“I think I've only played 8 games since I've been back up here, and it feels like I've been up here for a month,” Baty said after the game. “I'm just getting a little bit more comfortable and the guys have been great. I feel good right now.”
👍 ALL GOOD: Manager Buck Showalter told reporters “everything checked out fine” with Francisco Álvarez after he took a pair of Jeimer Candelario swings off the back of his head and was removed from the game in the ninth inning.
🏁 STARTERS: What a strange series for the Mets’ starters. None of them were particularly sharp, but all of them keep their team in the game, including Joey Lucchesi last night. After escaping a bases-loaded jam that nearly resulted in a grand slam in the first, Lucchesi reached the sixth inning having allowed only three earned runs on five hits.
⚾️ THAT’S BASEBALL: It was Brooks Raley, after hitting a batter and serving up the grand slam that put the Nats temporarily ahead, who earned the win last night.
🛠️ FINAL TUNE-UP: Weather permitting, Justin Verlander will make a rehab start tonight as a final tune-up before joining the Mets rotation sometime next week.
🍼 PATERNITY LEAVE: Adam Ottavino was placed on paternity leave before last night’s game. The Mets recalled right-hander Denyi Reyes to take his place.
🏈 ALMOST A MET: NFL legend Troy Aikman revealed he was almost drafted by the Mets out of high school. He said the team called him to ask what it would take for him not to play football at Oklahoma, and Aikman said $250,000, which was more than Darryl Strawberry was making at the time, so it obviously didn’t happen.
💔 REST IN PEACE: Former Mets pitcher Dennis Ribant passed away on Monday at the age of 81. In announcing the news on Twitter, Howie Rose noted that Ribant became the first Mets starter to turn in a solid season, going 11-9, and was promptly traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for OF Don Bosch (didn’t work out) and P Don Cardwell, a 1969 Met.
⏭️ UP NEXT: Unfortunately, the pitching doesn’t line up as well as the Mets would like this weekend. While the Braves have their top starters positioned to throw one after the other, starting with ace Max Fried tonight, Buck Showalter will look to his depth starters (David Peterson, Tylor Megill, José Butto) to carry the load until Max Scherzer returns on Monday.
It has been a season of streaks for the Mets’ division rivals. They have had three winning streaks of at least three games, including an eight-game run in the middle of April, countered with two losing streaks of three and four games. It adds up to an impressive 17–9 record and two-game lead in the NL East.
I always like to keep readers up-to-date with the latest metrics. Earlier this week, Statcast released a new stat that identifies which catchers are the best at preventing steals.
Obviously, this has become a more difficult task under the new rules. Pitchers are limited in the amount of times they can keep a runner honest, and the bases are a little larger, giving runners a few more inches of safe space to reach for on the run.
We talked yesterday about the Mets following the league trend of stealing more often (as in a lot more) overall, but less so in the past few weeks. But what about on defense?
🍎 How good have the Mets catchers been at throwing out baserunners?
To help answer that question, let’s learn some more about the new metric, Caught Stealing Above Average.
🔹 HOW IT WORKS (via Statcast): “Each steal attempt (currently at 2B only) is assigned a probability of being successful or not based on several inputs at the time the pitch crosses the plate, most notably: runner distance from second, runner speed, pitch location, pitcher/batter handedness, and awareness of pitchouts or delayed steals. It’s the Statcast translation of the long-time saying ‘you steal off the pitcher, not the catcher.’”
Based on the factors outlined above, you can find the relationship between a catcher’s pop time and caught stealing rate. As you can see in the graphic below, if a runner is 56 feet, or nearly halfway to second base, you can expect a 33% caught stealing rate off an average pop time of 1.99 seconds. Intuitively, the red (the higher caught stealing percentages) are found when there are faster pop times and when the runners is farther away from second base at the time of the throw.
Caught Stealing Above Average is the difference between the actual caught stealing and the estimate caught stealing based on the attempts seen. Factors of throw speed, exchange, accuracy and teamwork (throws that can’t be attributed to throw speed, exchange or accuracy) combine to make up the overall value on each throw, which then aggregate into a catcher’s Caught Stealing Above Average.
Let’s look at some examples using Francisco Álvarez. There have been 12 attempts with him behind the plate this season, all resulting in stolen bases. The CSAA metric helps us identify which steals were the result of terrible throws, like this one:
Versus which were more a result of the baserunner’s lead or poor tag, like this one:
It all adds up to a Catcher’s Caught Stealing Above Average. Through the very early going, Nido has only a slight advantage over Álvarez this season, which is telling because the counting stats would suggest there is a wider gap.
🔻 BOTTOM LINE: Baseball analysts continue to find new ways to evaluate the impact players make in different facets of the game. It has always been challenging attributing stolen bases to catchers versus the ability of pitchers to hold runners close to the bag. With Caught Stealing Above Average we finally have an improved form to gauge the actual throws.
◾️ Major League Baseball informed the Braves they can no longer wear an oversized baseball hat to celebrate home runs after the league received complaints from New Era.
🔗 Ronny Mauricio’s versatility could earn him call up with Mets soon, by Mark W. Sanchez, NY Post: “What stood out for me this past spring training was his mental growth,” Lindor said before the Mets finished a series against the Nationals with a 9-8 victory Thursday at Citi Field. “[Mauricio is now a] better hitter, better fielder, [but] his ability to adapt and to learn stuff and to stick with them, that’s what stood out to me.”
🔗 Mets' offense has a serious power problem, but here's how it can be fixed, by Danny Abriano, SNY: “Even before the Mets' two inept and uninspired losses at home to the Nationals, where they scored a combined one run in 18 innings, it was clear that their offense had a serious power deficiency -- something that was a concern entering the season. Those losses to the Nats further exposed it, though.”
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Thanks as always for the perspective of multiple perspectives. I’ve definitely been in the boiling over crowd. But you never know. Baseball is funny, and tonight might be the night David Peterson throws 8 shutout innings and the Mets lead by 7 in the 9th do they can throw Denyi Reyes and the bullpen has a chance to rest and reload.
Of course his gem will save his place in the rotation for another month and he will lose us his next 5 starts in ignominious fashion and we’ll be right back here.
Good edition ! Althought the catching garphic and stats i dont understand LOL. I just know Nido doesnt belong on the team. Cant tell with the rain coming if that is going to help the Mets and thier pitching woes this weekend. On paper i dont see them winning more then 1 game. Myself i like to win the division. You are correct in the big scheme of things these days in all sports doesnt seem to be that meaningful. As a fan though i want the shirt and hat that goes with winning the Division LOL.