Good Morning,
Over a crazy weekend filled with moments that were outrageous, jovial, and worrisome — and sometimes all those things at once — the Mets ironically reached the high point of their young season by sweeping the Diamondbacks to extend their winning streak to five games.
Of course, the news at the front of everyone’s mind is the health of Jacob deGrom. He was pulled from Sunday’s game after the 5th inning with side pain that manager Luis Rojas later revealed was more in his lower back than in the lat area that forced him to miss his last start. The team will send him for an MRI, “just to see what’s going on there.”
This doesn’t even cover the raccoon story, a top prospect’s major injury and other highs and lows from the weekend. As we collectively hold our breath waiting for the MRI results, let’s recap yesterday’s action and get you caught up on the news.
⚾️ IN SHORT: In a game Jacob deGrom was forced to leave after five innings of one-run ball, the Mets stitched together four runs and received another stout showing from their bullpen, including a five-out save from Edwin Díaz, to beat the Diamondbacks, 4-2 and sweep the series. [Box Score]
🔑 KEY MOMENT: In the top of the 5th inning, it was clear something wasn’t quite right with deGrom. First, he walked David Peralta on four pitches; then he served up a double to Stephen Vogt, before walking Eduardo Escobar to load the bases with nobody out. However, a sharp ground ball up the middle by Nick Ahmed turned into a 4-4-3 double play to help deGrom limit the damage to one run, preserving a 2-1 Mets lead by the end of the frame.
3 TAKEAWAYS
❶ deGROM: How good is Jacob deGrom? On a day he didn’t have his best stuff, and apparently pitched with some discomfort in his lower back, he still only allowed one run over five innings, striking out six and walking three. The walks stand out, as they all came in the 5th inning. The last time deGrom has walked three batters in an entire outing was nearly two years ago. As he has done all season, deGrom also helped himself at the plate, bunting for a hit. He is now 7-15 as a hitter, with four runs scored and 2 RBIs.
HOLD YOUR BREATH: But, as noted above, Jake did have to leave the game after just five innings, due to discomfort in his lower back. An MRI is coming, and so is a prayer from even the most atheist of Mets fans.
❷ PLAYING LIKE A STAR: After a rough start to the season, Michael Conforto is playing more like the cornerstone player he hopes to be paid like starting next season. Besides collecting two more hits at the plate — he is batting .290 with a .450 on-base percentage in the month of May — he made another outstanding defensive play in right field, just the latest in a developing portfolio of them.
❸ THE BULLPEN: We will talk about this more in a bit, but the bullpen has been outstanding for the Mets this season. With deGrom pulled early, Miguel Castro, Jacob Barnes, and Edwin Díaz slammed the door on the Diamondbacks, allowing only one run over four innings of relief. Díaz was summoned into the game in the 8th inning, and after struggling to grip the ball a few times in the rain, induced an inning-ending double play. He would have pitched a perfect ninth, if not for a mix-up between Jonathan Villar and James McCann on a pop-up near home plate.
NEW HEIGHTS: It was only the second time in Díaz’s career he earned a five-out save. And as Mets fans likely know, it was his first time as a Met.
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: Weekend hero Patrick Mazeika drew a bases loaded walk to give the Mets a 3-1 lead in the 6th inning. It was the seventh bases loaded walk they have earned this season, which is somehow nearly double the amount they had all of last year.
😎 LOOKING GOOD: The Mets are now in first place, three games above .500, and have won five in a row for the first time since August 2019.
📓 KEEPING SCORE: The Amazin’s are now 14-2 when they score four runs or more. Considering 23 out of 30 teams have averaged more than 4 runs per game, the club could be dominant if it gets just average offensive production. Currently, it is averaging 3.46 runs for the season (28th out of 30 in MLB), but 4.33 over its last three games.
🏆 MORE JAKE RECORDS: deGrom has gone at least 5 innings and surrendered no more than 5 runners in each of his first six outings, the longest such streak in MLB history
🏋️♀️ GAINS: Edwin Díaz gained 10 pounds this offseason after the team’s athletic trainers and nutritionists thought it would help his game. So far so good, in terms of the results: Other than a near-miss against the Phillies last week where he almost blew a four-run lead, the closer has been lights out this season.
From the weekend…
🐀 THE RAT PACK: There are an estimated two million rats roaming through apartment buildings, alleyways, and sidewalks in New York City. Whether you believe one was found scurrying in the tunnel between the Mets’ dugout and clubhouse on Friday night doesn’t really matter. We know something tense happened beyond the view of the camera between Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil after a botched grounder — but the Mets players decided to keep the details to themselves, and present a story about an argument over rodents. Instead of the situation causing a rift, it appears the explanation created levity and bonded the team together.
SLIDING LINDORS: The saga may have helped ease some tension for Lindor, who hit his first signature home run as a Met (a two-run shot to tie the game in the 7th inning on Friday) moments after the apparent confrontation with McNeil. Lindor collected five hits over the weekend, scored a run on some great baserunning on Sunday, and started to look like… himself. Meanwhile, McNeil hit a two-run home run on Saturday. It appears the “ratcoon” situation has only helped the two players.
🤕 PROSPECT DOWN: After a busy weekend of news, it feels like Friday afternoon was a month ago when the Mets announced their top pitching prospect Matt Allan requires Tommy John surgery. The right-hander had quickly developed into an elite prospect, and described his own performance as “dominant” this spring.
A LOST YEAR: Allan will miss the entire 2021 season and likely a chunk of 2022. It’s an unfortunate setback — although if it’s any consolation, many other pitchers have received the surgery early in their career and come back stronger, including the Mets’ current ace.
🏹 HUNTER & GATHERER: The Mets appear to have something in newly promoted reliever Tommy Hunter. The righty reliever was asked to work two innings each on both Friday and Saturday, and delivered zeros all the way through.
🍎 ROSTER MOVES: The Mets recalled right-hander Drew Smith and optioned Trevor Hildenberger to Triple-A Syracuse. Smith had been battling shoulder soreness, which kept him off the active roster to start the season.
⭐ FOLK HERO: Not all heroes wear capes or are in great shape. And so it is with the newest Met legend: Patrick Mazeika, a third-string catcher recently called up to the big club. On Friday night with one out in the 10th and bases loaded, Mazeika dribbled a grounder just soft enough to avoid a force-out at home and “earn” the walk-off RBI. He then “drove in” another run yesterday, with a well-timed bases loaded walk.
⏭ UP NEXT: Baltimore Orioles
🗓 OFF TODAY: The schedule works favorably for the Mets to optimize their rotation and rest their bullpen around the possible absence of deGrom, as they have both Monday and Thursday off this week. The two off days bookend a two-game series at home against the Baltimore Orioles.
♞ HARVEY DAY! The Dark Knight is scheduled to return to Citi Field this week. If the current order of starters for both teams holds, Oriole Matt Harvey will take the mound against Taijuan Walker on Wednesday afternoon.
Pen at work
🧓 by Blake Zeff
For the Mets, this weekend may have had more inter-weaving narratives than Pulp Fiction. There was the good -- five straight wins, Lindor may be back, the offense is improving. And there was the bad -- Jacob deGrom has discomfort, Carlos Carrasco had a delay in his recovery and Matt Allan needs major surgery.
But amidst all this drama, one major storyline may be most stunning: Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all effectively “bullpen” games -- and Mets relievers dominated each one.
Raise your hand if you predicted going into the season that the strongest unit on the team would be the relief corps (remember, no one likes a liar).
But that’s where we’re at. Take this crazy weekend:
On Friday, David Peterson couldn’t make it out of the second inning after a bout of uncharacteristic wildness. No biggie. Six relievers came in and threw 8.1 innings of one-run ball. Robert Gsellman, left by many for dead, got the team to the 5th, hanging with Arizona’s ace, Zac Gallen, and keeping it close. He was followed by Tommy Hunter, who breezed through two scoreless innings in his Mets debut. And then an inning each from Jacob Barnes, Miguel Castro, Edwin Diaz and Brad Loup, all of whom are starting to approach the biggest compliment you can give a reliever: trustworthy.
Saturday was actually supposed to be a bullpen day. Hunter got things rolling with two more easy innings, Joey Lucchesi did his job, allowing a run over 3.1 IP. And “The Dominant Pitcher Suddenly Occupying the Body of Jeurys Familia” shut down the Diamondbacks over 1.2 innings. The game was closed out by new -- and increasingly reliable -- acquisitions, Aaron Loup and Trevor May. And another win was in the books.
Sunday, the Mets would have been forgiven for expecting to get some rest for the pen. But the greatest pitcher in the world had to leave the game after five. And here’s the shocking part: even though the bullpen was going to have to take over half the contest, it didn’t seem like the game was going to implode. Castro (whose stuff looks filthier than a Little Rascal), Barnes and the resurgent Diaz combined for four innings with just one run allowed.
And it’s not just this weekend: since April 26, the Mets pen has a 1.81 ERA, keeping the team in ball games even when the offense would not. You obviously can’t expect to continue this level of success, but the key thing here is that suddenly Luis Rojas has multiple options to turn to, anywhere from innings 1 to 9.
Credit pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and his assistant Jeremy Accardo for finding a winning formula for the relief corps.
With deGrom out for an unknown period of time, Seth Lugo still rehabbing, Carrasco’s return delayed and Noah Syndergaard still a month away from returning, it may be needed more than ever this month.
⚾️ The Braves signed reliever Shane Greene to a one-year, $1.5 million contract. Greene posted a 2.60 ERA in 28 appearances (27 2/3 innings) for the Braves last year.
⚾️ After last night’s standout performance, Atlanta pitcher Huascar Ynoa now has a 1.11 ERA and 1.300 slugging percentage over his last four games. The last player to do that was Babe Ruth in 1916.
⚾️ Giancarlo Stanton singled to left to give the Yankees their second straight walk-off win against the Nationals, 3-2.
⚾️ The Padres avoided a sweep by the Giants thanks in part to 900 feet of second-inning home runs by middle infield tandem Jake Cronenworth (445 feet into McCovey Cove) and Fernando Tatis, Jr. (454 feet into the centerfield bleachers).
🔗 Mets must put Jacob deGrom on injured list no matter what, by Ian O’Connor, NY Post: “It’s never worth taking a risk with the game’s most dominant pitcher. No matter what that MRI says, the Mets need to shut down deGrom for his own good, and put him on the injured list. They need to protect Jacob deGrom the franchise player from Jacob deGrom the competitor.”
🔗 Deepest division in baseball? Here's why the NL East hasn't lived up to preseason hype, by David Schoenfield, ESPN: “The last team to win the NL East with fewer than 90 was the 2007 Phillies, with 89. While the Mets and Braves do feel like they have the best chance to pull away, let's hope for a five-team race deep into September -- even if they all finish 81-81.”
🔗 Mother's Day about giving back, to McCanns, by Anthony DiComo, MLB.com: “For seven weeks after their twin boys were born in December 2017, James and Jessica McCann essentially lived at the Vanderbilt Children’s Neonatology Intensive Care Clinics (NICU) in Nashville. Christian and Kane McCann were born prematurely at 30 weeks. The McCanns spent Christmas and New Year’s at the NICU… That year, the McCanns made a pact. Every Mother’s Day, they would donate to help mothers in a local NICU near where James was playing.”
And… we leave you with video from the weekend of new Mets reliever Tommy Hunter, who is a character:
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