I’m starting to think that the Mets won’t play in October

Posted on September 2, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

When you’re the Mets and you make a few moves at the trade deadline that suggest you’re in the pennant race and are really “going for it,” it doesn’t look great when the very next day you put Ariel Jurado on the mound to start an important game in Baltimore. Of course, that’s exactly what the Mets did on Tuesday night before losing their fifth straight game.

I hadn’t heard of Jurado before yesterday afternoon, but he did come with a decent amount of big league experience, making 44 appearances and 26 starts for Texas over the past two seasons. None of that experience was very good, though. Jurado had a 5.85 ERA, 5.07 WHIP, and 1.51 WHIP over that span, so the Rangers knew they weren’t missing much when they dealt him to the pitching-starved Mets early last month.

The Orioles jumped all over Jurado right away. Renato Nunez greeted him with a three-run home run in the first inning, and Baltimore added two more in the second. The Mets’ offense did a great job keeping pace early thanks to Robinson Cano maintaining his nuclear hot streak with a solo shot and Andres Giminez adding his first career home run to tie the score 5-5 in the sixth.

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Lame duck general manager Brodie Van Wagenen trades for three players as Mets fall five games below .500

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

When you’re a general manager of an MLB team, you have to work with the assumption that you’re going to hold the job forever. If you operate as if you’re going to be gone tomorrow, you can’t in good faith look out for the franchise’s long-term success. That’s why I’m not thrilled with the Wilpons and Brodie Van Wagenen making moves before yesterday’s trade deadline.

An ownership change is imminent and Van Wagenen’s job is in jeopardy with his Edwin Diaz trade looking like a mistake and him being days removed from criticizing the commissioner on a hot mic. Even without those facts, I don’t think the Mets should be buying right now. I still think they will rally and make the playoffs, but the 16-team field makes the postseason even more of a crap shoot than normal. Adding a third baseman who is just going to further complicate the infield situation and a catcher who is only a little better than Tomas Nido isn’t going to do much.

In addition to Todd Frazier, the Mets also added veteran backstop Robinson Chirinos from Texas. They also acquired relief pitcher Miguel Castro from Baltimore in exchange for left-handed pitching prospect Kevin Smith and a player to be named later or cash. The Mets owe Texas two PTBNLs for Frazier and Chirinos.

Castro is the most interesting because he still has two arbitration years left and should be able to help the bullpen right away. In 73 innings last season, Castro posted a 4.66 ERA with five walks per nine innings, but so far in 2020 he has a 4.02 ERA with 24 strikeouts and five walks in 15.2 innings. He profile doesn’t scream “future closer” and his history with walks is troubling, but Castro can be an asset if this bump in strikeout rate is a sign of things to come.

Chirinos has struggled at the plate in 2020, but he has been a good hitter for his position in the past and has a club option for 2021, when Wilson Ramos will probably be elsewhere. Last season with Houston, Chirinos hit .238/.347/.443 and posted 2.3 WAR according to FanGraphs. It’s easy to envision him platooning with Nido in 2021.

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Mets embarrassed twice in one day, blow five-run lead, lose to rookie starter

Posted on August 31, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets had an all-time day on Sunday. For one moment, it looked like they were headed into September with a full head of steam and ready to take over New York. The next, they were the same old laughingstock that has its fans perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. When Gary Sanchez’s moon bomb grand slam was on its way out of Yankee Stadium in the eighth inning of Game 2, the impending sale of the Mets to billionaire Steve Cohen was all Mets fans could cling to.

Sanchez’s big hit broke a 1-1 tie that was the result of a duel between Seth Lugo with tag-team partner Chasen Shreve and Yankees rookie Deivi Garcia, who was making his big league debut. Garcia looked very polished for a 21-year-old, working aggressively with his fastball and mixing in his secondary pitches to keep the Mets off balance. In six innings, Garcia had six strikeouts with no walks and four hits allowed. If not for a clutch RBI single by Dominic Smith in the sixth, Garcia may have pitched a shutout.

Getting dominated by a youngster, though, was no big deal compared to what had transpired hours earlier. The Mets were in the process of giving the Yankees the business, building a 7-2 lead thanks to a two-run home run by Robinson Cano and a bases-loaded double from Michael Conforto. Mets fans were feeling good since their team had already take two out of three games in the series, but the sight of Edwin Diaz in the bullpen can put a pit in any fan’s stomach.

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Mets return to their old ways, lose game to Yankees on wild pitch

Posted on August 30, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

We had our one day of Mets bliss. On Friday, nothing could go wrong as the orange and blue wrecking crew came from behind not once, but twice to sweep the Yankees in a doubleheader. Before the night cap was over, we learned that Steve Cohen was all alone in negotiations to buy the Mets and had a good chance to complete his purchase this time. We were closer than ever to a new era of Mets prosperity.

Saturday was a bit of a wake-up call. Yankees starter J.A. Happ dominated the Mets for seven innings before being pulled by manager Aaron Boone just one out into the eighth. With the Mets trailing only 1-0 thanks to some solid work by Robert Gsellman and the bullpen, Wilson Ramos stepped to the plate against the new pitcher Adam Ottavino and immediately banged a home run off the left-field foul pole to tie the game. Could the Mets come from behind for the third game in a row?

Fate was not so kind this time around. After Aroldis Chapman shut down the Mets in the ninth, former Yankees flamethrower Dellin Betances took the mound in the bottom half. Betances walked Clint Frazier and allowed a one-out single to Jordy Mercer. He then threw a pitch way over Ramos’s head to bring Frazier home from third and end the game.

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Mets sweep doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, Steve Cohen closes in on team ownership

Posted on August 29, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

Yesterday was a rare night to be a Mets fan. After a Thursday in which we were treated to the usual dysfunctional management and social media embarrassment, on Friday everything went right. The Mets trailed by multiple runs in each leg of a doubleheader against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, but they came back to win both. In the early game, Pete Alonso, Dominic Smith, and Jake Marisnick all hit home runs in the sixth inning to turn a 4-1 deficit into a 6-4 lead. Edwin Diaz even struck out the side in the seventh to close out the win.

The Mets fell behind 3-1 in the night cap and trailed 3-2 in the ninth when Amed Rosario turned an Aroldis Chapman hanging slider into a laser beam over the left-field wall. The two-run home run gave the Mets a walk-off victory in enemy territory.

What a night. The Mets were suddenly within one game of .500 and in playoff position as the eight seed in the crowded National League race. Yet somehow, life was going to get even sweeter for Mets fans.

About an hour before Rosario broke Yankee hearts across the country, news broke that Steve Cohen was the lone bidder left standing in the Mets sale saga. Cohen initially agreed to purchase the franchise from the Wilpon family last year, but the deal ended up falling through. Now that Cohen is back in the driver’s seat, there’s hope that the Wilpons will finally relinquish control of the team that they haven’t been able to fully support financially since Bernie Madoff made off with a good chunk of their fortune.

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Mets gone wild: Brodie Van Wagenen criticizes commissioner on hot mic, Wilpons rush to defend the shield

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets did not play a baseball game last night, but there was still plenty of drama to stir up social media. It all started on Wednesday when The Milwaukee Bucks decided to go on strike in support of social justice rather than play their NBA playoff game against the Orlando Magic. That led to the entire league going on strike, which led to baseball and hockey teams also going on strike both Wednesday and Thursday. The Mets ended up playing and winning their game against the Marlins on Wednesday, but the players wanted to make a statement on Thursday.

Skipping games for human rights reasons is something everyone gets behind these days. That’s why the Bucks and other NBA teams are being praised instead of punished by sports reporters around the country. It should have been easy for the Mets to get a quick win with the media by taking the night off. But, of course the dysfunctional franchise found a way to mess everything up.

That’s general manager Brodie Van Wagenen criticizing the idea that the Mets should symbolically leave the field when the game was scheduled to start, only to come back and play the game an hour later. It seems like COO Jeff Wilpon wanted the team to make a statement while still getting the game in. Not a bad idea when the Mets are already behind on games because of the ones they missed due to COVID-19, a virus that can rear its ugly head at any time.

We’ve seen this before, though. Social justice always trumps virus precautions the way a queen always trumps a jack. The players had already decided they weren’t going to play, and that was how it had to be.

So just add another doubleheader to the schedule. That’s fine. The real issue was Van Wagenen criticizing commissioner Rob Manfred’s leadership, saying “he just doesn’t get it.”

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Mets get a big win, NBA will resume eventually

Posted on August 27, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets defeated Miami 5-4 last night thanks in part to seven strong innings from Jacob deGrom. He allowed a run, two hits, and two walks while striking out 14, but all anyone wants to focus on is the no-decision he was saddled with.

Aw bummer. Not another no-decision for ole Jake. Can’t blame him if he requests a trade! How about the fact that the Mets ended up winning anyway? How about the Mets being the team deGrom won back to back Cy Young Awards with? I’m all for ripping the franchise when it deserves to be criticized, but saying that deGrom needs to be freed from the Mets is lunacy.

Also I love how it’s just taken for granted that some athletes actually respect the contracts they sign. Mike Trout knew what he was getting into when he agreed to stay with the Angels for the next decade. Maybe I’ll root for him to win a title one day, but I’m not going to cry if he doesn’t get one. He signed a deal with the Angels. Now they have to deliver for him.

I guess that’s what makes baseball different than other sports, at least on a superficial level. NFL quarterbacks carry their teams to championships and NBA superstars are expected to do the same, but in baseball, the front office has to contract a full roster in order to win big. I still believe that the supporting casts of those NBA and NFL stars are vastly underrated, but top players in those sports still have more control of their destinies than deGrom and Trout.

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Try not to panic, but the Mets scored zero runs in last night’s doubleheader against Miami

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

I still think that this team is going to the playoffs. The Mets, I mean. They have too much talent, and more importantly, there are too many teams allowed to make the playoffs for them to fail. Maybe a couple more games like the two that happened last night will change my mind, but for now I’m still Team Optimism.

That was from last night when the Mets fell behind 2-0 in the late game. We had already endured one seven-inning game in which New York went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base. Rick Porcello allowed four runs in his three innings despite allowing no walks and no home runs. Corey Oswalt pitched four shutout innings in relief to keep the Mets in it, but it didn’t matter. Miami’s Daniel Castano allowed six hits and three walks without making it out of the fifth inning. The Mets could just not get a hit when it mattered.

The night cap rolled around, and we saw a lot of the same stuff. Seth Lugo pitched three perfect innings, but then gave way to Jared Hughes, who let up a two-run double by Brian Anderson. The Marlins scored a third run in the most ridiculous way possible.

Yes, that’s Jon Berti tripping over himself and still stealing home off of Jeurys Familia and rookie catcher Ali Sanchez. I feel bad for Sanchez because the recent Tomas Nido injury forced him into a tough spot, but he just stunk last night. At the plate, Sanchez came up with the bases loaded in the second and with two runners on in the fourth. Without spoiling too much, he ended up being responsible for five of the Mets’ eight runners left on base in that game.

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Mets return to baseball after five days off

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

I feared the worst for the Mets’ 2020 season when we found out that two members of the team had tested positive for COVID-19 last Thursday. Fortunately, all subsequent tests have been negative and the team is set to resume play tonight after having four games postponed.

The Mets will get the action restarted with two seven-inning games against Miami tonight, but ace pitcher Jacob deGrom won’t be on the mound for either of them. Instead, he’s slated to start on Wednesday. It’s a strange decision since it means deGrom would miss all five games against the Yankees (two doubleheaders to make up for last weekend and one standalone game) this weekend.

I guess what the Mets are trying to do is save deGrom for nine-inning games in which they need the starter to go longer. I get the appeal of deGrom easily completing a shortened game by himself, but with the rotation already in shambles, it’s easy to defend what the Mets are doing. Plus, games against division rivals are more valuable in the standings than the Subway Series games, no matter what your heart or the back pages might tell you.

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We’re probably not getting a major original title from Nintendo this year, but fun remakes are still on the table

Posted on August 22, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

Which Nintendo game will everybody be firing up this winter? That’s the big question that has been on my mind since E3 got canceled. Since then, Nintendo has announced Pikmin 3 Deluxe and a Pokemon Snap sequel, but the latter isn’t set to launch until 2021. The former is a remaster of a Wii U title. What I’m really pumped up for is the next Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC that’s coming in the fall, but that’s not even a full game.

We’re still searching for that big title that is going to move Switches and excite the fan base. Fortunately, news could be coming soon in the form of a Nintendo Direct, if the rumors are true.

What could we learn from a Nintendo Direct? We already think that a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is coming to Switch thanks to an Amazon UK listing, and there are expectations that Nintendo will do something big for the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. That could include HD versions of titles like Super Mario Sunshine or the Super Mario Galaxy games.

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