Mets Rained Out, Yankees Drop a Veteran, and Big Upsets at Wimbledon

Posted on July 10, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

Ugh. The Mets were rained out on Wednesday night, so they’ll have to play twice against Baltimore today before jumping on a plane to Kansas City, where they’ll play on Friday night roughly 24 hours after the doubleheader ends. David Peterson is pitching for the Mets in the first game against Charlie Morton, who got off to a miserable start this season but has been better lately with just six runs allowed over his last four outings. The second game, which is scheduled for 5:05 PM, will allow the Mets to tee off on Tomoyuki Sugano with a mystery starter on the bump for New York. It will probably be some combination of Justin Hagenman and Austin Warren, who was just called up to be the extra man for the doubleheader.

I don’t know why Acuna is back in the majors so quickly. The infield is already crowded with Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Ronnie Mauricio in the mix and Acuna needs to play every day. Travis Jankowski hadn’t been getting much playing time as the utility guy. Anyway, let’s check out what else happened in sports on Wednesday.

The Yankees designated DJ LeMahieu for assignment. He was extremely productive for the Bombers when they signed him as a free agent in 2019 and then he hit .364 and won the batting title in the short pandemic season. However, his play has fallen off a cliff since then and he was almost impossibly bad in 2024, hitting .204/.269/.259 in 228 plate appearances. He hasn’t been nearly that awful this season, but the Yankees felt it was time to say goodbye with Jazz Chisholm playing well at second base and infield prospect Jorbit Vivas showing posting a .409 on-base percentage at Triple-A.

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Mets Win a Thriller and Penn State Hockey Becomes Elite

Posted on July 9, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

Something amazing happened last night. The Mets fell behind by four runs in the seventh inning, and instead of withering like a tulip the moment autumn arrives, they battled back and won the game! Jackson Holliday appeared to put the game away with his solo shot off of the newest Mets scrap-heap pickup Alejandro Carrillo, but Baltimore’s 6-2 lead would only last a few minutes. Brandon Nimmo opened the eighth inning with a single and was driven in by Francisco Lindor’s two-run bomb to center field. That worked so well that Juan Soto and Pete Alonso decided to replicate the sequence, and all of a sudden we were tied 6-6 with just two innings to play. Shout out to Bryan Baker. He has been a solid reliever for the Orioles this season, but he looked like he was throwing batting practice on Tuesday night.

The game ended up going into extra innings, and Soto quickly gave New York the lead with a leadoff base hit to get the ghost runner Lindor home from second. Alonso followed with a single of his own, and the Mets had a great chance to add a second run, but Luis Torrens struck out looking with the bases loaded after a Travis Jankowski bunt and an intentional walk to Jeff McNeil. At one point during the Torrens at-bat, it looked like the Mets would score on a passed ball by backup catcher Alex Jackson, but the ball bounced off the umpire and stayed within Jackson’s reach.

Fortunately, that break for Baltimore would not end up ruining the Mets’ evening, and neither would Carlos Mendoza’s questionable managing of the bullpen. Although a well-rested Edwin Diaz only threw 10 pitches in the ninth inning, Mendoza declined to bring him out for the 10th, even though Jordan Westburg, Gunnar Henderson, and Ryan O’Hearn were due up. Instead, it was up to Huascar Brazoban to pitch to the trio that gave Baltimore the lead in the sixth inning with consecutive base hits following Clay Holmes hitting Holliday on the foot with an 0-2 pitch. Brazoban has not been consistent lately, but he was at his best when it counted in this one and set down the Orioles in order to end the game.

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Mets Blow a Chance to Sweep the Yankees, but First Place is Within Reach

Posted on July 8, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets pulled off a fourth straight win on Saturday afternoon, defeating the Yankees 12-6 to move 14 games over .500 and remain a half game back from Philadelphia in the National League East. The Mets jumped all over Carlos Rodon in the first inning with Starling Marte leading off with a double and Brandon Nimmo hitting his second grand slam of the week following walks by Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso.

Frankie Montas helped the Mets maintain their advantage through the first five innings by pounding the strike zone and allowing a solo home run to Jazz Chisholm and another to Austin Wells. I’m fine with allowing solo shots when your offense spots you a four-run lead, and Montas made sure to make the Yankees earn their runs with zero walks on the day. The Yankees broke through with a crooked number in the sixth on Cody Bellinger’s two-run double, but by then the Mets had expanded their total to seven runs on Pete Alonso’s first home run of the day, an opposite-field smash that scored Francisco Lindor.

Alonso hit a three-run bomb in the seventh to put the game out of reach, but that didn’t stop Carlos Mendoz from using both Ryne Stanek and Edwin Diaz in a six-run game. For both relievers, it was their third appearance in four games, which made them unavailable for Sunday’s series finale. That’s a pretty big issue to begin with, but it’s even a bigger deal when your rotation has been decimated by injuries and you’re counting on guys like Chris Devenski, Zach Pop, and Brandon Waddell to keep the Yankees off the scoreboard.

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Joey Chestnut Eats Hot Dogs and Jeff McNeil Does Everything Else on Exciting 4th of July

Posted on July 4, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

Happy 4th of July! Today is the day that we celebrate our independence in the United States of America with hot dogs, fireworks, and baseball. The baseball part went especially well with my Mets defeating the Yankees in a home run slugfest. 10 of the game’s 11 runs were scored on dingers, and the game’s deciding blast came off the bat of Jeff McNeil in the bottom of the seventh. He drove in two runs with one big swing to turn the Mets’ 5-4 deficit into a 6-5 lead.

McNeil also helped the Mets preserve the lead with his awesome defensive play in the top of the ninth that turned DJ LeMahieu’s infield blooper into a big out and prevented Aaron Judge from getting another at-bat. Judge had already homered in the first inning, and the Yankees would end up with three long balls off of Mets starter Justin Hagenman, but Huascar Brazoban and Reed Garrett got some redemption by keeping the Bombers off the scoreboard for the final three innings.

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Knicks Finally Sign a Head Coach and Rangers Continue Their Rebuild

Posted on July 3, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets constantly getting on my nerves has distracted me from the Knicks and Rangers making some big moves recently. The Knicks have a chance to reach the NBA Finals in 2026 with two of their key rivals having star players suffer serious Achilles injuries during the 2025 Playoffs. The Pacers will probably be without Tyrese Haliburton for the entire season and the same goes for the Celtics and Jayson Tatum. That left the Knicks with the second best odds to win the East, but they were also missing an important piece since Tom Thibodeau was surprising fired following the disappointing loss in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Knicks are a little more whole now that they’ve found a veteran head coach to lead the team in the new season. That man is Mike Brown, and while he may not have an NBA title as a head coach like my preferred candidate Mike Malone, he does have plenty of experience and a history of success. Brown burst onto the scene as a head coach in 2005, and he led LeBron James and the Cavaliers to 50 wins in his debut season. Cleveland reached the NBA Finals in Brown’s second year at the helm, but the next three years featured disappointing playoff exits against the eventual conference champs.

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Mets Split Doubleheader with Brewers While Yankees Tease Without Pleasing

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

I thought that the Mets had a much better chance to win Game 1 of Wednesday’s doubleheader than Game 2, so of course they ended up dropping the early game 7-2 before pulling off a surprising 7-3 win in the nightcap. New York might have even swept the pair of games from the Brewers if not for a Reed Garrett meltdown that allowed Milwaukee to come from behind in Game 1. The Mets were in control of that one after five innings with Clay Holmes having settled down after allowing a leadoff home run to Sal Frelick back in the first. There was even some competent offense on display by the home team with Luis Torrens executing a beautiful hit-and-run that put Jeff McNeil in position to score on a Brett Baty sac fly in the third. An inning later, Juan Soto stole second base following a leadoff walk and scored on Pete Alonso’s single up the middle.

All that proved to not be enough, though, since Reed Garrett allowed the first four batters he faced in the sixth inning to reach base. The streak culminated with Joey Ortiz and his sub-.600 OPS hitting a grand slam to instantly turn the game into a Brewers rout. Garrett had a great first two months of the season, but he has been unreliable lately.

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Mets Rained Out on Tuesday, Will Face Brewers in Wednesday Doubleheader

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

Welp. The Mets were supposed to be back to playing baseball tonight after one day off. Instead, they are rained out and will play a split doubleheader on Wednesday. They’ll try to pull out of their tailspin that appeared to be over when they beat the Braves in two straight games last week. The Pittsburgh Pirates were supposed to be a soft landing spot, but instead the Mets played their worst ball of the year and were outscored 30-4 while being swept in the three-game set.

Up next are the Milwaukee Brewers who have quickly become a Wild Card rival of the Mets. Despite losing 13 of their last 16 games, the Mets are still on top of the National League Wild Card race, but they are only a half game in front of Milwaukee. If the Mets don’t start winning consistently soon, they could fall out of the Wild Card race altogether with teams like San Diego and San Francisco nipping on the heels of the current three Wild Card holders.

New York will send Clay Holmes to the bump in one of the games on Wednesday. He faced Atlanta in his two most recent starts and combined to allow four runs in nine and two thirds innings, but he needed 200 pitches to complete those innings thanks to a very poor ratio of seven strikeouts to 10 walks. With Mets starters struggling to get deep into games lately, the key for Holmes will be to throw strikes and generate ground balls to greatly increase his pitch efficiency.

By the way, with Holmes pushed to Wednesday, the Mets don’t have a pitcher for the series finale vs. the Yankees on Sunday. They should have at least made an effort to play on Tuesday.

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LeBron James Questions Direction of Lakers Immediately After Deciding to Rejoin Them

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

NBA free agency is in full swing and the moves have been coming fast with all 30 teams trying to bring themselves a little closer to where the Oklahoma City Thunder are at the top of the mountain. One of the biggest transactions of the summer came when LeBron James opted into his $52.6 million player option with the Lakers. It wasn’t a surprise that James would want to return to Los Angeles and pursue a championship alongside Luka Doncic, but then James’ agent Rich Paul made some comments that made me think maybe we should have been surprised that he opted in.

That sounds like a guy who wants to be traded from a rebuilding team to a contending team. Why not opt out then? Probably because James and Paul think that they can have their cake and eat it too. James might not get $50 million if he chose free agency, but he thinks that if he can engineer a trade from the Lakers, he can choose a new team while keeping his mega salary. He’s LeBron James, so he’ll probably get what he wants, but it’s stuff like this that makes James less likable than the guy he’s constantly compared to, Michael Jordan.

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Is This Rock Bottom? Mets Crushed by Pirates for Third Straight Loss

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

It’s hard to imagine the Mets’ season getting to a lower point, but then again they are still 48-37 and just two losses behind Philadelphia in the National League East. It’s possible this gets a lot worse before it gets better, but it’s also possible that the Mets make a couple of trades to help the pitching staff and get the offense ramped up again before any hope of the Postseason melts away in the summer sun. Which fate will the Mets become? We don’t know, and that’s why we watch.

This weekend was a Frank the Tank rage tweet come to life with the Mets deciding that it wasn’t enough to lose 9-1 to the last-place Pirates on Friday night or to lose again 9-2 on Saturday. Carlos Mendoza’s squad had to let go of the rope and fall 12-1 on Sunday afternoon to maximize despair. The 30-4 aggregate score was the worst run differential that the Mets have ever suffered in a three-game series, and it happened to a “good” Mets team against the second-division Pirates. That’s baseball, Suzyn.

Frankie Montas appeared to be on his way out of the first inning when Brett Baty made a great snag on a Spencer Horwitz line drive to keep two runs off the board, but Montas let those runs in anyway when Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a two-out, two-RBI single. Based on Hayes’ overall stats and his stats against the Mets, I’m starting to think that he doesn’t have a hit against any other team this season. Anyway, Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham followed Hayes’ knock with back-to-back home runs to make the score 5-0 Pittsburgh after one.

As has been the case recently for the Mets, they couldn’t do much on offense against the opposing starting pitcher. Mike Burrows and his 4.15 ERA limited New York to just one run on a Luis Torrens solo shot in four and a third innings. Former Met Genesis Cabrera followed up with a scoreless frame and Carmen Mlodzinski kept the Mets off the scoreboard for the final three and two thirds innings.

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Mets Players Hold a Meeting After Another Horrible Loss in Pittsburgh

Posted on June 28, 2025 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets followed up their 9-1 loss in Pittsburgh on Friday night with a 9-2 loss on Saturday evening. This one got off to a decent start with Francisco Lindor hitting a leadoff double and scoring on a seeing-eye single by Juan Soto. However, after the game was delayed by 90 minutes due to rain in the top of the second, Carlos Mendoza made the decision to keep Paul Blackburn on the mound in order to save the bullpen. That turned out to be disastrous as Blackburn allowed five straight singles without recording an out. Jose Butto came in to put out the fire, but Adam Frazier hit a sac fly off of him to charge a third earned run to Blackburn and give the Pirates the run they needed to win the game.

Butto, Brandon Waddell, and Reed Garrett all did a good job keeping the Mets in the game, but they only scored once more when Pete Alonso doubled with one out in the fifth and was driven in on a Brandon Nimmo single. The Mets blew a golden opportunity an inning earlier when Brett Baty led off with a double, but he was tagged out on a bizarre play when Luis Torrens hit a chopper to third that was misplayed by Ke’Bryan Hayes on the infield grass. Baty would have advanced to third easily if Hayes had fielded the ball cleanly, but instead Isiah Kiner-Falefa picked up the ball behind Hayes and tagged Baty out while he was sliding into third. Even the least superstitious person on Earth can look at that play and say, “Wow, these Mets are cursed.”

Carlos Mendoza was ejected for arguing balls and strikes with home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz in the fourth inning, but New York only mustered one hit the rest of the way following Nimmo’s RBI single in the fifth. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, would get a lot more hits because Huascar Brazoban has devolved into the worst pitcher on the planet. He walked Joey Bart and Spencer Horwitz in the bottom of the eighth to set up Ke’Bryan Hayes’ RBI single that added a key insurance run for the Pirates.

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