Inside Yolk

You won’t believe what happened to the Mets last night. They lost to the lousy Red Sox again! For the second straight night, Boston catcher Christian Vazquez was the nemesis, driving in three of his team’s four runs on two home runs. Both were off of Steven Matz, who didn’t look as sharp as he did in his first start of the season.

Even so, Matz wasn’t a disaster. He only gave up three runs in five-plus innings and left with a one-run deficit thanks to Jeff McNeil’s two-RBI single in the third. The Mets had two big opportunities to get the tying run across in the seventh and eighth innings, but failed miserably both times.

In the seventh, Robinson Cano continued to make himself useful by lacing a pinch-hit single to right. Future All-Star Andres Gimenez came on as a pinch runner and stole second base with nobody out. However, he never even reached third because Wilson Ramos, Brandon Nimmo, and Amed Rosario were all retired by Heath Hembree without hitting the ball out of the infield.

It was only a slightly different story when the Mets faced Matt Barnes in the eighth. Pete Alonso led off and got hit by a pitch. With one out, he busted his ass from first to third on a J.D. Davis single. Michael Conforto had a chance to tie the game with a sac fly, but he struck out in a big spot for the second night in a row. After Yoenis Cespedes walked, Gimenez grounded out to end the threat.

Bad news first. The Marlins won’t be playing until Monday at the earliest because even more of their players tested positive for COVID-19 today. It sounds like MLB is okay with every team not playing exactly 60 games, and now the expanded postseason looks like a good idea because we’re less likely to have good teams miss out for virus-related issues.

The good news is that no Phillies players have tested positive even though they just finished a series against Miami. Hopefully they’ll be back in action soon. If the MLB can remain flexible and players can remain calm, we can have a baseball season.

Will baseball season make it to October? That’s what everyone is asking after two baseball games were postponed today due to COVID-19. The Orioles vs. Marlins and Yankees vs. Phillies games won’t be played in the near future because a whole bunch of Miami players came down with the virus. Baseball will still continue for now, but you have to wonder when Miami and Philadelphia, who played in a three-game series over the weekend, will be able to get back in action. If they miss too many games, it’s going to be hard to make all of them up.

The Mets don’t have a virus problem yet, but they do have a baseball problem. That problem is that the team is not playing very well right now. Luis Rojas’s boys just lost to Atlanta 14-1 in front of a national audience on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. The defense was so bad that Rick Porcello gave up seven runs in two innings without allowing a home run. But don’t worry, because relievers Corey Oswalt and Paul Sewald gave up plenty of those, including a bomb by Austin Riley that is still hasn’t started to come down.

The New York offense, meanwhile, has scored five runs in three games. I think the bats will come around, but I’m worried that it won’t be enough to overcome poor defense and a pitching rotation that has been hampered by injuries to Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman. Hopefully Michael Wacha can throw some quality innings in Boston tonight and give fans hope that the back of the rotation won’t be a dumpster fire.

The Red Sox will be starting a left-handed “opener” named Josh Osich who is expected to give way to Zack Godley after one or two innings. Since Boston just dropped two of three games to the lowly Orioles, the loser of tonight’s game will have a one-way ticket to Panic City.

I heard Panic City is handling COVID-19 surprisingly well, though, so there’s that.