The veteran third baseman will rest his ailing left shoulder.
The Mets have announced that David Wright will miss the remainder of the 2014 season because of continued soreness in his left shoulder, a problem that arose earlier in the season and has obviously bothered him ever since. Here's the Mets' full statement.
Because of continued soreness in his left shoulder, David Wright was seen today by doctors at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, where David underwent an MRI. The MRI today showed persistent inflammation in the rotator cuff in the left shoulder. There may be additional diagnostic tests later this week as a follow up to the MRI.
Based on the MRI and examination today, David will not play for the remainder of the 2014 season. He will, instead, rest to abate the inflammation in the rotator cuff, and then begin a rehabilitation program to strengthen the entire shoulder.
In 586 plate appearances this year, Wright hit .269/.324/.374 with a .308 wOBA and 99 wRC+, all of which constituted the worst year of his major league career as a hitter. While Wright downplayed the significance of the injury, it seems reasonable that the injury cost him at least some of his ability as a hitter.
Despite the Mets' recent string of success, the team's odds of making an unexpected postseason push were incredibly slim. With Wright out, the team can find a silver lining here by giving Dilson Herrera the rest of the season at second base and slotting Daniel Murphy in at third base.
David Wright will miss the final three weeks of the season with persistent inflammation in the rotator cuff in his left shoulder, but the Mets third baseman doesn't need surgery, for now.
New York Mets third baseman David Wright will miss the final three weeks of the 2014 season with left shoulder inflammation, the team announced on Tuesday night.
Wright, dealing with soreness in his left shoulder, met with doctors on Tuesday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, where MRI results showed "persistent inflammation in the rotator cuff in the left shoulder."
The team said in a release that Wright will rest his shoulder then begin a rehabilitation program, though he may undergo additional diagnostic tests on the shoulder later this week.
Wright, 31, hit .269/.324/.374 with a career-low eight home runs in 134 games, along with 30 doubles and 63 RBI. The seven-time All-Star is a career .298/.377/.494 hitter, averaging 22 home runs, 90 RBI and 144 games played in his 10 full seasons.
Wright has six years and $107 million remaining on an eight-year contract extension he signed with New York in Dec. 2012.
On the night when the Mets announced David Wright would miss the rest of the season with shoulder inflammation, Jacob deGrom provided a glimmer of hope for the future with eight stellar innings.
Jacob deGrom has been a revelation this season, putting up numbers that give him serious claims on this year's National League Rookie of the Year. It's unfortunate that he would burnish those credentials even further on a night when it was announced his team's captain would miss the rest of the season with shoulder inflammation. It would have been even more unfortunate if the Mets had lost this game after deGrom's effort, but they nearly did. How could that possibly have (almost) happened? The short answer is, Collins gonna Collins.
In the early going, this game resembled a million pointless September contests you've seen before, in which neither team appeared all that jazzed to be on the field. Lethargy notwithstanding, deGrom did an excellent job of holding the Rockies (a team that, unlike the Mets, can hit a longball or two) off the board. After deGrom retired the Rockies in order in the first, he allowed a ground-rule double and infield single with two out in the second before striking out DJ LeMahieu to quell the threat. Following a 1-2-3 third, he rendered harmless a one-out double by Nolan Arenado in the fourth by striking out Corey Dickerson and inducing a pop up from Wilin Roasario. The fifth brought another perfect frame.
We have come to expect such excellence from the young Mr. deGrom. We have also come to expect futility from the young Mets batters, which is exactly what they delivered in the initial innings against Colorado starter Christian Bergman. In the bottom of the first Eric Campbell reached base on a two out error and was stranded. Curtis Granderson bunted for a single in the second, taking advantage of the shift, but he too stayed anchored to first. A two-out infield single by Daniel Murphy (fresh off the DL) in the third also went uncashed, while the Mets went down in order in the fourth.
The Mets couldn't solve Bergman until the bottom of the fifth, and then just barely. In that inning, Matt den Dekker lashed a one-out double over Dickerson's head in left, then moved to third on a deGrom grounder, Juan Lagares finally converted a baserunner with a two-out line drive single to score the game's first run. Another two-out rally materialized in the sixth when Travis d'Arnaud singled past short, followed by a long Granderson double to right-center that allowed the catcher to score all the way from first.
The home team then returned to form by doing little against Colorado relievers Yohan Flande in the seventh and Rex Brothers in the eighth. With two runs to work with, deGrom retired the Rockies in order yet again in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings, retiring the last 14 batters he faced. It was difficult to tell if this was due more to deGrom dominance or Colorado capitulation (the Rockies saw all of five pitches in the sixth), but it will look impressive in the box score, and therefore to ROY voters, all the same.
deGrom's eighth inning seemed to indicate he had more than enough left in the tank to go the distance, but Terry Collins chose to bring in Jenrry Mejia for the save because it was the ninth inning and that's when closers close, silly. The last time we saw Mejia, he was doing his best to throw away the finale in Cincinnati. Tonight he looked even worse, starting things off by surrendering a leadoff single to Charlie Blackmon. After Michael Cuddyer went down swinging, Mejia gave up a dribbler up the middle to Justin Morneau, putting the tying runs on base. He permitted those runs to get into scoring position with a wild pitch, then loaded the bases with a walk to Arenado.
At that point, even Collins was forced to recognize Mejia was toast and swapped him for Josh Edgin, who struck out the lefty batter Dickerson. Jeurys Familia was then summoned to face Rosario, and he induced a grounder to short to end the threat. Based on deGrom's eight innings of excellence, I don't think a blown lead in the ninth would have hurt his ROY chances any (which is pretty much the only thing the Mets have to play for now), but it would've stung anyway. It's nice to care about something this late in the season, isn't it?
I also want to point out, for the historical record, that the first inning saw Keith Hernandez allude to torturing banana slugs as a kid. It's been a long season for everyone.
Big winners: Jacob deGrom, 45.0%, Curtis Granderson, 13.7% Big losers: Jenrry Mejia, -20.0%, Wilmer Flores, -7.5% Teh aw3s0mest play: Juan Lagares RBI single, bottom fifth, 15.5% Teh sux0rest play: Justin Morneau single, top ninth, -7.4% Total pitcher WPA: 50.8% Total batter WPA: -0.8% GWRBI!: Juan Lagares RBI single, bottom fifth
The Rockies' road offense ran into a good pitcher tonight, so they basically had no chance.
The bullpen can't be blamed for this one. There was never a lead for them to blow.
Jacob deGrom handcuffed the Rockies for eight innings before three members of the Mets' bullpen danced around trouble in the ninth to secure a 2-0 shutout victory for the home team.
It's always hard to tell exactly how well an opponent is pitching when the Rockies are doing their typical sleepwalk thing on the road, but tonight I think deGrom can be credited for a least a good portion of it. He's been the Mets' best pitcher since he was called up in May, and he had all of his pitches working while getting stronger as the night progressed. Wilin Rosario and Nolan Arenado each recorded doubles early, but deGrom got out of both of those jams and retired the last 14 straight Rockies he faced.
It's not just the Rockies who've recently been stymied by deGrom either. This is the third consecutive outing the rookie hasn't allowed a run. His scoreless innings streak now stands at 21, and his ERA has plummeted to an impressive 2.62.
Here's what he's done over his last 13 starts:
#Mets Jacob deGrom is 8-2 with 86⅓ IP, 1.77 ERA, 0.996 WHIP, 9.07 K/9 (25.8 K%), & .210/.261/.274 against over his last 13 starts.
Then there's also the fact that the Rockies actually made some noise in the ninth when he left the game before coming up empty. Charlie Blackmon led off the final frame with a hit, and after Michael Cuddyer struck out chasing a pitch out of the zone, Justin Morneau singled up the middle and Nolan Arenado walked to load the bases.
This is where Terry Collins may have saved the game for the Mets. He correctly realized Jenrry Mejia didn't have it and pulled him to play lefty / righty match ups. It worked like magic as the Mets also then exposed the biggest holes in the swings of Corey Dickerson and Wilin Rosario.
First, Josh Edgin got Dickerson to strike out on a pitch he chased above the letters and couldn't catch up to, and then Jeurys Familia got Rosario to roll over on a slider on the outside part of the plate to end the ballgame.
Dickerson's weakness is sort of new and something teams have only recently started using as a full attack plan, so it's fair to give him time to adjust, but Rosario's inability to anticipate something other than a fastball when he comes to the plate with runners on base is absolutely mind boggling. Not surprisingly, he has the third lowest WPA of any hitter in the National League this season. This is a hitter who's consistently impatient, consistently unaware of how the opponent is going to attack him, and consistently fails to execute with runners in scoring position.
Major league pitchers get paid a boatload of money NOT to throw a hitter like Rosario fastballs he can drive, especially with men on base. Even Jacob deGrom, who pitched brilliantly for most of the night, found out the hard way what happens when you do in the second inning of this game as Rosario took an outside fastball the other way into the gap in right center. Until Rosario proves he can handle some of these off speed pitches, his ability to hit towering moonshots off fastballs won't matter most nights.
Meanwhile, Christian Bergman pitched six pretty strong innings for the Rockies. He wasn't overpowering, and he probably got some help from the weakness of the Mets lineup, but Bergman stayed true to the one thing he does best, and that's not walk opposing batters. Since his stuff is limited, the Mets scratched out a couple of runs against him in the fifth and sixth, but he never let the game get out of control, and that instantly makes him less frustrating to watch than a handful of other arms we've seen on the mound in purple pinstripes this season.
I don't want Bergman in the starting five next season, but he's the type of cheap depth I can live with as a seventh or eighth starter.
* * * * *
Not that it really matters at this point, but I'm obligated to alert everyone that this loss mathematically eliminates the Rockies from post season contention. Anyone with a brain however knows that this team's been realistically eliminated from post season contention since June. But hey, next year's opener is just 209 short days away. Actually, that's too long to wait for my next Tulo fix.
/Sigh
The good news though is that tomorrow's game is a Tyler Matzek start (5:10 p.m. MT). Those have been fun lately. Not only that, but his remaining games (four if the Rockies let him pitch to the finish line) are the most important as far as getting an idea of how the Rockies are going to look next season.
We're getting close to reaching a tipping point with Matzek. Each strong outing clustered together makes it harder and harder to chalk up his recent success to a hot streak. If he finishes the season on his current trajectory, it gets more and more likely that we're watching a pitcher take a legitimate step towards becoming a reliable major league arm. He's a very good reason to tune in tomorrow night.
In some ways, this is the beginning of the 2015 season.
AA: Richmond lost to Binghamton 5-2 (losing the opener in the best-of-five league championship series)
Richmond: CF Daniel Carbonell: 2 for 4, 3B, SB Richmond: C Tyler LaTorre: 1 for 3, BB, SO
Richmond: SP Clayton Blackburn: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K--1 HB Richmond: RP Kyle Crick: 1.0 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K Binghamton: SP Tyler Pill: 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K
Carbonell was the lone Flying Squirrel with two hits. He had his 2nd triple and 2nd SB of the post-season. LaTorre also reached base twice.
Blackburn allowed nearly half his batters (12 of 26) to reach base. In the 8th inning, Crick struck out three of his six batters but also allowed a couple insurance runs. Pill, whom the Mets drafted in the fourth round three years ago and who is the younger brother of the ex-Giant Brett Pill, delivered a quality start.
• The Raysshut down Let's Go Former Tiger Drew Smyly.
• The Indians have long been connected to Chase Headley. Well, he finally becomes a free agent this winter, which MLBTR details here. SB Nation doesn't even find him important enough to autolink his name.
In which Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel ad-libs a late-in-life career change. As good as it has been, we can always imagine a way it could be better.
The Stengel line quoted above appears in every book on the great manager and the crazy-as-a-fox things he said, every baseball quotation book as well. It came well into his retirement, somewhere circa 1973. Casey was asked if he ever thought about managing again. His full answer: "Well, I'll tell you, young fella, to be truthful and honest and frank about it, I'm 83 years old, which ain't bad. To be truthful and honest about it, the thing I'd like to be right now is an astronaut."
Maybe that seems like a non-sequitur, and given Stengel's absurdist sense of humor, it probably was meant to be. Still, this remains one of my favorite change-of-pace quotations, along with a line spoken by Mel Blanc as Daffy Duck in the 1951 Warner Bros. cartoon "Drip-Along Daffy." Facing bad guy Nasty Canasta, Sheriff Daffy says, "Hankering for trouble, ay? Well, I would like..." He thinks it over for a second. "I would like?" he asks himself. "I would like a trip to Europe."
Any time I'm asked what I would like, regardless of the situation, my temptation is to respond either as Stengel or the duck. Any time someone else says, "I would like" and pauses to breathe, I mentally fill in one of the two responses. I don't know about them, but given the kinds of things I am usually asked to choose to "like" taking the game-theory route and opting for Door No. 3 always seems like the best bet. I mean, I live in the suburbs. If someone asks if you would like to meet for dinner at Applebee's or Olive Garden, a dangerous trip to outer space truly is your best option. Alternatively, you could just hang on "I could like?" like Daffy does, but for all eternity.
Charles Dillon Stengel in action with the New York Giants, for whom he hit .349/.413/.524 as an oft-injured platoon center fielder. (Getty Images).
When Casey said he would prefer to be an astronaut he had been in the Hall of Fame for seven years. Speaking of his playing career in his induction speech, he said, "I chased the balls that Babe Ruth hit." He wasn't a Ruth himself, although he was a good enough hitter that like production (120 career OPS+) today would be worth millions. That wasn't the important part; it was simply a privilege to be on the field at that time and place. It is one of the most joyous expressions of playing in baseball's hard-bitten early days (Casey was in the majors from 1912 through 1925) as you can find.
He had also won 10 pennants, tying his mentor John McGraw for the most ever, won seven World Series, which also ties for the most ever, and set a record with five consecutive championships. He also helped launch the New York Mets. Along the way, he became an international celebrity. Independently wealthy due to investments outside of baseball (the man owned oil rigs and a bank, among other things) what he accomplished as a manager he did not because he needed to financially, but because he had something to prove to himself and the world -- and he did it.
In 1970, he published an op-ed in the New York Times, and at the bottom of the page, where the Times lists the author's credentials, it said, simply, "Casey Stengel is the philosopher of baseball."
Not even Yogi Berra got to be the Philosopher of Swat. That's an exalted position to be in. Casey knew it, and insofar as I can tell from having talking to people who knew him, he enjoyed the heck out of being Casey Stengel. And yet, that's the funny/terrible thing about those people (and cartoon animals) who have the depth to live an examined life: You can always think of someplace else or someone else you'd rather be. At 83, Casey wanted to be Buzz Aldrin, probably with the rejuvenation that implies. You would have to ask Aldrin who he wanted to be back then, at 43.
A man who repeatedly threatened Mets players and staff has been given his sentence. The second part of that sentence is more surprising than the first.
These are great times for people that act like severely infected a-holes on the internet, at least to the extent that such people can ever really have a great time, what with the severity of the infection and all. Still, this is about as good as these particular severely infected a-holes have ever had it. Seemingly positive technological advances have ensured that there are now more ways for one severely infected a-hole to be worse to more people than ever before. Large swathes of virtual real estate have been ceded to the severely infected a-hole community, in which real estate that community can discuss the specifics of their infections, blame various parties, and so on.
These are crowded, lonely spaces; if they were real, the smell of abused terrycloth and defeated carpeting and ambient soul-deep dudestink would be stifling. Every now and then, the blinds fly open on one of these rooms and the pale seething mass within is revealed and recoils, hissing -- like bloated hairless cats, like lumpy vampires booming "get some" into $230 gaming headsets, like Lenny from "The Simpsons" whinging "please don't tell anyone how I live" when the walls of his house fall down, pick your simile. And then everyone sees what's going on in there, hears the various batshit boiling-mad monologues about whatever the hate-totem in that particular room is, and just -- backs -- away, content to let whatever's happening in that room go on happening, so long as it remains in that room, or at least doesn't happen to us.
This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, provided that everyone leaves everyone else alone; the difference between a respectful distance and a disgusted one is mostly a matter of aesthetics. This seems to be more or less how everyone dealt with Aryn Leroux, a man from Connecticut who fantasized about torturing and murdering members of the Mets front office and threatened a number of Mets players on Twitter, right up until he was arrested for it last October. Leroux's behavior began as that of a disgruntled fan with moderate to severe boundary issues, and eventually ranged into the darker turf of terroristic threats. The team took him seriously -- he was especially fond of talking about poisoning the food in the home team's locker room -- and brought formal charges.
On Friday, Leroux was given a 90-day suspended sentence, and instructed to have no interaction with Mets officials, ex-Met Justin Turner, or Turner's girlfriend, all of whom he threatened online. He can't go to Citi Field, either, although that part of the punishment seems almost cosmetic. Leroux's threats and general sour weirdness seem purely and perfectly in keeping with a way of being and acting that is more or less exclusive to the circa-now Internet. His sentence places no restrictions on what Leroux can or can't do online.
★★★
It is always shocking when some Kasper Hauser-y refugee from those other pissed-off virtual worlds washes up in ours, flat-affected and strange and so, so much angrier than anyone ever suspected. Recently, in the wake of some supremely tragic and awful things in the non-virtual world, these refugees have confronted the rest of us -- who are different mostly in that we are only really more prosaically fucked-up, more diverse or understated in our hang-ups -- with a worldview that is disordered in a strangely and frighteningly logical way.
It's tough to know how to engage a moral universe held in place by a metastatic and rageful narcissism.
Still, it's tough to know how to engage a moral universe that has been meticulously reordered so that it orbits the multiply-aggrieved individual in question, a whole tiny cosmos held in place by a metastatic and rageful narcissism. These worlds are distinct to and defined by their creators, but each comes complete with its own cockeyed gravitational field and graven commandments and various vicious codes.
The shock at being confronted with all this weird vengefulness -- the realization of what a crazy thing these guys were building in there, all alone even while surrounded by the seemingly like-minded -- is now as familiar as the clockwork uglinesses that come of it, and neither is a great feeling, to be honest. It makes even an active citizen of the Internet feel not just old, but so incredibly tired. There is a futile bottomlessness to the prospect of scaling Elliot Rodger's personal mountain of murderous umbrage, or the idea of the long slog through whatever derp-o upside-down righteousness powers the awful and persistent harassment of women online, or the thought of diving into the murky depths of the part of the internet dedicated to the retroactive justification of an unarmed teen's death in Ferguson, Mo.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "The Tower of Babel" (Rotterdam)(1526/1530–1569); Google Art Project. (Wikimedia Commons)
We all want a home, we all seek community; these are human things, and blameless. More than that, this impulse can help us be good, and the communities we seek and find and make can be a way into our finer and greater-hearted qualities. But rotten communities nurture rotten values, and these recent concurrent eruptions of curdled male rage, online and off, suggest that there are a lot of things wrong in a great many of these uninvestigated rooms, and that there are both more of them and more angry people in them than we knew, or hoped.
This does not sound like a golden age for those livid isolates or anyone else, but there is one way in which it indisputably is, at least for them. We have done better at figuring out ways to be horrible to other people on the internet than we have at figuring out how to regulate any of that; there isn't broad agreement as to whether any of it should be regulated at all. The conversation about it, such as it exists, is high-minded and academic in some corners, and vicious and defensive and self-justifying in the main. In the meantime, a long and savage status quo spools out, one hothouse-raised brutality at a time.
There is nothing but personal values and human shame preventing people from being as terrible as they want to be to other people online, and if the values and shame are not doing their preventive work, then there is nothing at all. And that is how we get our thousand feral comments sections and disposable hate-speechifying egg-avatar Twitter accounts and the unique school of pissy loathing and cheap violent fantasy native to Facebook, and actual things worse than that.
"The Triumph of Death," Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/1530–1569), Museo del Prado (Wikimedia Commons).
In public, we have official and unofficial ways of regulating this sort of thing, which is why it is so much easier to find online than on a given city block. We simply do not often see men screaming profanities in women's faces on mass transit, or yowling racist epithets and loaded threats at minorities visiting an ATM, and this is because we've (tenuously and not unanimously) agreed that those are just not things people should do.
To be in a city, or even at a game, is to see this in action. People will tell the screaming person to stop. They will call the screaming person a jerk, and if the screaming person does not stop they will call the cops, and the cops will tell that screaming person to stop under penalty of law. That, or everyone will just sort of move away, leaving the offending dipshit all alone with his awfulness. It's not perfect, but there's a sort of rough justice in this.
We remind each other how to act in public. Those who will not or cannot conform often find themselves alone.
There are laws on the books, and there are laws that are not on the books, but we know what these are and mostly abide by them. We enforce them together, with varying degrees of effectiveness and zeal, and we're mostly better for it. We remind each other, always and everywhere, how to act in public, and those who will not or cannot conform often find themselves alone. This is not necessarily good for them, nor is it necessarily safe for us to leave them festering in either darkness or daylight, but it's not quite unjust, either.
More disturbingly, there is only a tentative and heavily qualified consensus online that all this is actually a problem. We start new conversations about things previously agreed upon -- things like, "could it ever somehow be okay to threaten to rape a stranger because you do not agree with her thoughts about video games?" or its subordinate question "are the toys you like more important than other people?" -- and those conversations are not good. When they are undertaken at all, they wind up dishonest and disordered and generally pretty selfish and awful -- so much so, in their more extreme iterations, that it's hard not to wonder how we ever agreed to enforce all those old golden rules in the first place.
It's unclear whether this truly reflects an inability to understand how real the internet and the people on it actually are, or whether there's simply a self-serving refusal to understand this. It's clear on its face that "those were just multiple tweets in which I threatened to kidnap and murder your family, it wasn't like I actually said it to you" is an idiotic evasion; it's obvious that deflecting responsibility through some dim catch-all -- somehow Political Correctness remains in circulation, here -- is a retreat so total as to be more or less a defeat. And yet: there it all is, over and over, stubborn and wrong and ugly and as loud as it ever was, on a goddamn loop.
"The Blind Leading the Blind" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568. (Wikimedia Commons).
To see people be this awful in the defense of bad politics and childish materialism, to see how small these various reflexive partisanships can make us -- this is depressing, but this is the internet, and it is not new here. But for all the ways in which we (happily, willingly) let sports make idiots of us, what's fundamentally chilling and fundamentally off about what Aryn Leroux did owes not just to its odiousness, but that it belongs to the larger, uglier world. As stupid as the conversation about sports can be, it should not be -- and generally is not -- consumed with the rage and fear that defines so many of these other conversations. It just shouldn't be this dark.
What's valuable about sports, I think, and what keeps us coming back to them as we do, is that the way they serve as an antidote to the abstractions and stresses and repressions that define so much of adult life. They remind us that we're human by opening up a range of feeling that's greater and deeper and brighter than the usual; love and friends and art and music all do this, too.
Caring about a game is, at the most basic level, a sort of play... it should defuse what's darker about it.
Even at a loss, even booing, we are vibrating differently, and working on a different and safer emotional frequency; we lose perspective, and that's the fun of it, but we are also safely in context. The Mets are an infuriating team, which of course does not justify or explain anything that Leroux did. But the frustration they inspire is, for most that feel it, a different and safer fury. Caring about a game is, at the most basic level, a sort of play. That is not at all to diminish what's good about that caring. But it does, or should, defuse what's darker about it.
Sports do not exist outside the greater world, of course, but they can offer an escape from it, to feel things we ordinarily wouldn't and be different than the world otherwise lets us be. It is maybe too hopeful to think that that the versions of ourselves that exist when we're gently and happily buzzed on sports are something more like our true selves. It is maybe too hopeful to think that we don't forget ourselves in the games we care about, but instead remember ourselves more fully. It would be a good thing to be like that all the time, of course: to feel that safe, and to feel safe in feeling so much. For the most part, though, we might as well just take that wellbeing and secret safety where we can get it.
It's one of the few things you can get for free at a game, and it's worth a lot.
The big news of the day was that the Mets have shut down David Wright for the rest of the season due to his lingering shoulder injury. Get well, David! With Wright out, should the Mets moveDaniel Murphy to third base in order to play Dilson Herrera at second?
Could the Mets move the walls in at Citi Field again? The organization is considering it and it'd probably serve to benefitCurtis Granderson, among others on the roster.
Jacob deGrom was outstanding last night and he's now up among the best pitchers in the league.
Terry Collins, Travis d'Arnaud, and Zack Wheeler took a trip to the 9/11 Memorial& Museum yesterday.
Brandon Nimmo is on fire for the Binghamton Mets, as they won the first game of the Eastern League championship series. Bingo is the only affiliate still active but the Mets had an outstanding season on the farm. Toby Hyde looked at the newcomers to the system in his August stock watch.
Author and Mets fan Paul Auster is looking for a baseball team to try his new idea to speed up baseball games. Do you agree with it?
Rumor has it that the Marlins are preparing to offer Giancarlo Stanton a franchise-record long term contract extension. It sounds like this is the moment of truth.
Did you know: around 1,750 baseball fans are injured by foul balls each year?
The New York Daily News has banned Chief Wahoo along with the name of the Washington NFL team.
Yesterday At AA
Jeffrey Paternostro scouted Savannah center fielder Champ Stuart.
We have performance meters for the Mets hitters and pitchers over the past week.
If you read an article or find a link that you think would be a great addition to a future edition of Mets Morning News, please forward it to our tips email address tips@grission.com and we'll try to add it in.
With the noise to relieve Terry Collins of his managerial duties growing louder, the person many fans want to see leading the Mets is Wally Backman. Does Sandy Alderson see it this way?
Barring a flourish to close out 2014, the Mets will finish with a losing record for a sixth consecutive season, something the franchise has not experienced since 1991-1996. Although most signs still point to Terry Collins returning as New York's skipper in 2015, nothing is guaranteed, and the whispers for his ouster have continued to grow louder.
Former Met and fan-favorite Wally Backman, currently the manager of New York's Triple-A club in Las Vegas, is the name most often mentioned as the guy to step in but to many, his candidacy is blocked by the man who oversees the daily operations of the club: Sandy Alderson. So are Backman's chances of becoming the 21st manager in Mets history dead in the water as many think, or is that line of thinking a complete fallacy?
John Fitzgerald, who directed the documentary series Playing for Peanuts that chronicled Backman during the 2007 season when he managed the South Georgia Peanuts, thinks much of the Backman-Mets issues are overblown.
Since Alderson took over as Mets GM, facts have been ignored, overblown or minimized, to suit the media’s "Wally vs. Sandy" narrative. The end result is a manufactured controversy that is unfair to Backman and Collins—whose careers may be at stake—and Alderson, whose legacy rests, in part, on the success of the Mets rebuilding efforts.
Fitzgerald also takes aim at the media for what he considers sloppy reporting on the relationship between the fiery skipper and Alderson, laying much of the conjecture and blame at their feet for creating a controversy where there isn't one.
In order to buy into the "Sandy Alderson vs. Wally Backman" myth, you have to believe that Sandy Alderson, Wally Backman, and Terry Collins share a bizarre mutual three-way personal and professional mistrust of one another. Unfortunately, it seems that most Mets fans have bought into this nonsense.
While Fitzgerald's views are based on little more than his own thoughts, is he wrong? The Backman vs. Alderson meme certainly has been perpetuated by the mainstream media, with nothing to back it up other than the usual "he's not a Sandy type of guy" quote being casually thrown around.
Backman's minor league credentials certainly merit consideration. The 54-year-old was recently named the 2014 Pacific Coast League Manager of the Year after a second consecutive division title with the 51s and has posted a 637-567 (.529) mark as a minor league manager, not counting his time with independent league clubs. However, he continues to suffer from the label of being a loose cannon, largely based on Fitzgerald's reality series and Backman's own issues which surfaced after being hired as the Diamondbacks manager for all of four days in November 2004.
It will be an interesting offseason for the Mets. Whether it's Collins, Backman, or someone else leading the club in 2015 is anyone's guess, but in Fitzgerald's opinion Backman isn't being ostracized, nor is he being blackballed. He's simply paying his dues.
Even 30 years later it's still hard to fathom how brilliant Dwight Gooden was. There was no talk of drugs, no talk of alcohol, no talk of rehab. Not yet. In 1984, the baseball world fixated on New York City and a teenager who simply toyed with the best hitters in the world.
The story of Dwight Gooden is well-known. From his beginnings as a 19-year-old phenom who somehow made the lights of the biggest city in the world shine brighter to his sad downfall, Dr. K was the epitome of a shooting star. However in 1984, the man they called Doc was simply the best pitcher on the planet. A teenager dominating a game full of men and for a short spurt late in his rookie season, he turned in one of the greatest—if not the greatest—stretches of pitching in major league history.
Gooden's starts were events in and of themselves throughout 1984, culminating in his appearance in the All-Star Game in San Francisco when he blew away Lance Parrish, Lou Whitaker, and Alvin Davis with his blazing fastball, a memory that lives on.
Armed with 98-mph heat and a curveball so good it earned the name "Lord Charles" as opposed to "Uncle Charlie," Gooden's final numbers were staggering: a rookie-record 276 strikeouts, a 2.60 ERA, a 137 ERA+, a FIP of 169, and the 1984 National League Rookie of the Year Award. According to FanGraphs.com, he faced 879 batters that season. A remarkable 31.4% of the best hitters in the world walked back to the dugout with a strikeout on their ledger courtesy of Dr. K.
Simply put, he was amazing.
Mets fans were already spoiled by Gooden and their club's unexpected success heading into September that year. Though New York would ultimately finish second to the Cubs in the NL East, they would end 1984 with 90 wins, the second-most in franchise history to that point, trailing only the Miracle Mets of 1969 who won 100 games.
Although September would end with an 11th consecutive playoff-less season for New York, it was also the month where Gooden put an emphatic stamp on his burgeoning legacy.
After a rough start to open the month where he allowed four runs in eight innings against the Padres, albeit with 10 strikeouts, Gooden would cement himself as the next great thing and hands-down, the best pitcher in baseball.
Over his final four starts, Doc allowed but three runs (two earned) in 34 innings, good for a 0.54 ERA. He surrendered 18 hits and five walks, holding the opposition to a batting line of .154/.189/.171 while striking out 52 of the 122 batters he faced (42.6%), netting him a tidy 13.8 strikeouts per nine innings ratio in the process.
Sandwiched within those four starts were two consecutive outings that dropped jaws everywhere and can arguably be labeled the best back-to-back outings by a starting pitcher in the modern era.
It began on September 12 against the Pirates, when Gooden hurled his second straight shutout, blanking the Pirates 2-0 while fanning a career-high 16 batters without issuing a walk. In the process, he claimed the rookie record for strikeouts in a season, held previously by from Herb Score who punched out 245 batters for the Indians in 1955.
Amazingly, Dr. K followed up that performance with another start for the record books five days later in Philadelphia. He again struck out 16 without walking anyone over eight innings but suffered the loss as a balk forced home the eventual winning run in a 2-1 defeat to the Phillies. However, his 32 strikeouts in successive starts set a new National League mark and tied the major league record, held jointly by Luis Tiant and Nolan Ryan, all of which meant little to the soft-spoken Gooden at the time.
''I struck out 16? I didn't know it was that many. I didn't know anything about the strikeout records until a couple of guys came in the clubhouse and told me. But I'd give up the records just to win.''
Two starts, 17 innings, 12 hits, two runs (one earned), zero walks, 32 strikeouts, and the adoration of baseball fans everywhere. At the time, Gooden seemed destined not just for greatness, but immortality and a place in Cooperstown. His shy persona only added to his gravitas, which clashed perfectly against the backdrop of the most boisterous city in the world. Baseball had found its next superstar.
Fortunately for Gooden, fans and baseball, the best was yet to come.
Ownership is in hot water as a lawsuit has been filed by a former high-ranking employee.
The Wilpons would be a lot easier to tolerate if they would stop getting themselves and their money into so much trouble. Unfortunately, today comes the report of another misstep by team ownership, this one at the expense of Leigh Castergine, the Mets' former head of marketing and ticket sales.
Castergine was let go by the Mets last month, but she just recently filed a lawsuit saying that she was terminated not for poor performance, but for being pregnant and single. According to the suit, it was COO Jeff Wilpon, son of owner Fred Wilpon, who took the greatest exception to Castergine's condition. From the suit:
"He frequently humiliated Castergine in front of others by, among other things, pretending to see if she had an engagement ring on her finger and openly stating in a meeting of the Team's all-male senior executives that he is ‘morally opposed' to Castergine ‘having this baby without being married."
We have no way of knowing how valid this lawsuit is. We do know that the club is having trouble getting people to fill in the empty seats at Citi Field. Without the necessary financial resources to improve the team on the field, perhaps the Wilpons are just looking for a new executive who can magically drum up excitement for the team without improving the on-field product.
On the other hand, Castergine is a veteran of the sports industry who has also worked for the Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, and Boston Bruins. According to the lawsuit, she was terminated shortly after complaining about Jeff Wilpon's behavior to the club's human resources department.
Either way, this story will do nothing but raise the ire of fans, many of whom already think that Jeff Wilpon and his father are unfit to run the Mets.
One day after learning that David Wright would miss the rest of the season due to his injured shoulder, All-Star second baseman Daniel Murphy will move to the hot corner to make way for Dilson Herrera.
Just one game back after a stint on the 15-day disabled list, Daniel Murphy will move across the diamond to third base in order for the Mets to get a continued look at Dilson Herrera. Murphy will bat third and Herrera seventh in tonight's series finale against the Rockies.
A first-time All-Star in 2014, Murphy is hitting .301/.343/.424 in 127 games this season. He returned to action last night after missing 13 games with a strained calf. Murphy played 196 of his 240 career minor league games at the hot corner, but has not played the position since appearing there 28 times (25 starts) in 2011.
Herrera has drawn positive reviews since his call-up from Double-A Binghamton on August 29. The 20-year-old is batting .243/.317/.459 and has slugged two homers with seven RBI in his first 10 major league games.
In tonight's baseball game, the Rockies will try to win, because that is good
Tonight is the last game against the Mets, who are bad. The Mets won the first two games of the series, which is also bad, from a Rockies fan's point of view. Thus the Rockies will attempt to avoid the sweep by winning tonight's game, which would be good.
Tyler Matzek will be starting this game, and he has been good more often than he has been bad, especially recently. In his last start he threw a complete game shutout, which is worthy of another adjective: it was very good. A couple more good starts like that and he might finish the year with an ERA below four. That'd be good.
The Mets are starting Rafael Montero, who is a good prospect and has been good in the minor leagues, but who has been bad so far in the majors. His 5.23 ERA and 6.06 FIP are bad. He has also given up 2.2 home runs per nine innings, which is also bad.
Also bad: overly ripe bananas, Subway's bread, the trailers before movies at AMC Theatres, and scratched DVDs.
2014 has been bad. This series with the Mets has been bad. But a win here would make it less bad, even if said win would not drag it up into good territory.
It has now been 20 innings since the Rockies scored a run
The Rockies continue to be stymied by Mets pitching as they recorded their second straight shutout loss. This time it was Rafael Montero and the Mets bullpen that squelched the Rockies bats, and they will now slink out of town after a three game sweep at the hands of the lowly Mets. Being down by two runs felt like being down by 30.
Tyler Matzek started, and did pretty well for himself. He was cruising through six innings, having only allowed one run off an Eric Young triple that just skipped past Drew Stubbs's glove. But two walks and a single loaded the bases after recording an out in the seventh inning, and Weiss went to Matt Belisle. Miraculously, he only allowed one of those guys to score, but that made it two to zero, aka down by 30.
Matzek's line was 6.1, two runs, four walks, seven strikeouts, and four hits. The slider was still pretty damn good. But the walks got him.
Is there any reason to spare a paragraph for the Rockies' offense? Because good lord, it was horrible. They had their chances after receiving five walks. But RISP hitting was again entirely absent; they went one for seven, and the one was an infield single that didn't score anyone. That was a Morneau single to short stop after a Stubbs lead off double, so we had first and third with nobody out. But Nolan struck out, Dickerson tapped out, and McKenry made some sort of out, I don't have the heart to go back and check what he did. It was super annoying.
So here we are. Swept by the Mets in mid-September, and the dominant emotion is apathy. Just waiting for the season to end.
The Mets defeated the Rockies to move within four games of the .500 mark.
If you blinked, you might have missed this one.
The Mets, despite getting only five hits all game, managed to sweep the Rockies, defeating the latter 2-0 in tonight's contest. Eric Young Jr., facing his former team, was responsible for three of those hits, and drove in the only run the Mets needed on a triple in the second inning. Other than that, Rockies starter Tyler Matzek had very little trouble against a Mets lineup without Lucas Duda or David Wright.
In what may have been his final start of the season, Rafael Montero pitched fairly well. He held the Rockies hitless through four innings, and didn't have any serious issues until the sixth, when he exited the game with one out and runners at first and third. While it was hardly effortless, as he walked four and threw 106 pitches in less than six innings of work, he struck out seven, and, overall, his performance tonight represented a nice note for the Mets prospect to go out on as a starter.
The Mets got five hits all night—with Eric Young Jr. had three—and won to take seven of eight from Colorado this year.
A sweep is a sweep, and tonight, the Mets swept the inept Rockies right out of town. Despite the fact that David Wright has been shut down for the year, Mets fans can take some solace in the fact that the Amazins are only four games under .500 with a little more than two weeks left to play thanks to their 2-0 win on Wednesday night.
In what was likely his final start of the season, Rafael Montero managed to get his first win as a major leaguer, despite struggling with a high pitch count. His first inning was a great example. After striking out the first two batters he faced, Montero issued walks to both Justin Morneau and Nelson Arenado before inducing a fly ball out off the bat of Corey Dickerson to get out of the inning. It took him 23 pitches to finish the frame, and it didn't get any less strenuous for him as the game wore on.
Rockies starter Tyler Matzek pitched well enough to win tonight and shut down the Mets during most of his time on the rubber. In the second, however, the Mets got on the board and scored the only run they needed. After Matzek struck out Eric Campbell and Curtis Granderson, Dilson Herrera walked to put a runner on for Eric Young Jr., who made his former team pay, as he tripled to right-center field to drive in Herrera and give the Mets a 1-0 lead. It was the first earned run Matzek had given up in twenty-three innings.
Montero set down the Rockies in order in the second and third, despite throwing a bunch of pitches. In the fourth, he issued another walk to Morneau, but thanks to an Arenado pop out and a ground ball double play, he again made it through the inning without allowing a hit.
In the fifth, Montero ran into his first bit of real trouble. After setting down the first two batters he faced, the righty walked DJ LeMahieu. This brought up Matzek, who roped a double to left, which also represented his team's first hit of the night. Montero recovered, though, and got Charlie Blackmon to pop out end the inning and strand the runners to keep his hard-fought shutout intact.
The sixth also proved difficult for Montero. After the Mets stranded two runners in the bottom of the fifth, Drew Stubbs led off with a double on the first pitch he saw in the inning. Justin Morneau then singled on a groundball that skipped past Wilmer Flores to put runners on the corners with no out. Though he then struck out Nolan Arenado, Montero had thrown 106 pitches, and Terry decided to go to the bullpen to escape the jam. Dario Alvarez and Carlos Torres got an out each, with the former inducing a weak ground ball off the bat of Corey Dickerson for out number two, and the latter causing Michael McKenry to pop out to Wilmer Flores to end the inning. Torres returned for the top of the seventh, and worked around a one-out single LeMahieu to put another goose egg on the board.
After squandering Eric Young Jr.'s second hit of the night and a Matzek fielding error in the fifth, and going down in order in the sixth against the Rockies starter,the Mets finally added to their lead in the bottom of the seventh. After a Curtis Granderson ground out, Dilson Herrera got on with his second walk of the night, and Herrera advanced to second as "The Eric Young Jr. Redemption Journey," continued when the Mets left fielder notched his third hit of the game. Josh Satin then came up to pinch hit for Torres and drew a walk. While Matzek had set down next batter Juan Lagares without issue the whole game, Walt Weiss decided to bring in Matt Belisle with the bases loaded. Thankfully, Lagares managed to pad the Mets lead by hitting a sacrifice fly to left field that drove in Herrera to put the Mets up by 2-0. However, Wilmer Flores popped out to second to strand the runners and keep the game exciting going into the final two innings.
Jeurys Familia replaced Carlos Torres in the top of the eighth. After getting Charlie Blackmon to ground out, Drew Stubbs walked to bring the tying run to the plate in exactly who Familia probably wanted to face in this situation: Justin Morneau. Joking aside, Familia managed to retire Morneau for the first time all night by inducing a ground out to second. Stubbs advanced to second on the play, and though he then stole third, Familia struck out Arenado to end the inning and keep Montero in line for the win.
Finally, after the Mets again failed to get some insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth, Jenrry Meija came in to earn the save, pitching an adventure-less ninth to redeem himself after his poor showing the previous night.
Big winners: Carlos Torres, 18.8; Eric Young Jr., 15.4 Big losers: Travis d'Arnaud -7.7; Curtis Granderson, -6.0 Teh aw3s0mest play: Eric Young Jr. triple, bottom of the second Teh sux0rest play: Justin Morneau single, top of the sixth Total pitcher WPA: 54.5 Total batter WPA: -4.5 GWRBI!: Eric Young Jr. triple, bottom of the second
The Rockies lefty put together his fifth straight quality start in the team's 2-0 to the Mets last night, and received plaudits from the media for his effort.
The promise offered by Tyler Matzek - RoxPile At RoxPile, Hayden Kane has a more long-term view of Matzek's impact on the Rockies both this season and what the 23-year-old can provide going forward for 2015 and beyond.
LOLMets is popular all over the internet, so we figured we'd add a little context to it. We introduce to you The LOLMets Index!
As much as the Mets are known for the "Miracle Mets", Tug McGraw's "Ya Gotta Believe" rally cry, and the little grounder up along first that got through Buckner, the Queens baseball franchise is also well known for its frequent blunders and mistakes. As the Mets have spiraled in recent years, the term LOLMets has grown in usage among baseball fans across the internet. For the uninitiated, LOLMets is the phrase that people use to designate something unflattering, embarrassing, or downright moronic that the Mets do.
Whenever the Mets make a misstep on or off the field, it's labeled "LOLMets!" and laughed at. The amount of potential LOLMets moments in the universe is practically uncountable and if there's one organization that will figure out how to make an unthinkable gaffe happen, it's typically the Mets. Too often, the organization is unable to get out of its own way, even when they have the best of intentions. In light of yesterday's news that the team and their owners are facing a brand new lawsuit, we've decided to aid all of you in your LOLMets-ing this time by creating "The LOLMets Index". This index allows you to rank just how LOLMets an LOLMets moment is in context to some of the most infamous LOLMets moments in recent history. Believe it or not, there are a number of degrees of LOLMets.
The LOLMets Index runs up to 5, the highest level which is the rare Extreme Level of LOLMets, and each level is associated with a different color. Let's run down some previous examples of the different levels of LOLMets:
The late season collapses in 2007 and 2008 (also prominently featuring the "sad Mets fan")
Willie Randolph getting fired on the west coast after a win at 3 AM EST
As a Mets fan, it can understandably be aggravating to see your team laughed at so often but it's important to remember that baseball is just an entertaining game and there's little reason for fans to be uptight about it. The Mets are embarrassing, they often do things wrong, and they'll likely keep doing things wrong unless they make some very big organizational changes (and heck, that might not even do it. Look at their past. Embarrassing moments seem to be written into the organization's DNA). Laughter is often the best medicine and as the saying goes: if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?
Are there any notable moments we may have forgotten to include? Go ahead and add them in the comments below and be sure to note which level they'd rank on the Index!
In light of the recent allegations of sexual discrimination against Jeff Wilpon, a reflection on what it means to root for the Mets.
The Mets are hard to root for sometimes. Let me expand on that: It can be frustrating, in an ultimately harmless way, to root for the Mets when it’s a simple matter of baseball. Are they signing the right players and making the right trades? Gaah. Are they really fielding a mediocre team with a small-market payroll for what feels like the bajillionth year in a row? Aww, man.
This time, however, it feels actually, truly difficult. Leigh Castergine’s allegations against Jeff Wilpon and certain members of his executive cohort describe behavior that is illegal, sexist, and abominable; and regardless of whether those allegations prove true or not, I feel kind of sleazy up here in my silly little perch in the stands, so to speak.
Many Mets fans, myself included, have detested the Wilpons-as-owners—pugnacious Jeff in particular—for years, if not decades. Many of us have yearned for the day when a grim-faced Fred Wilpon announces he is selling the team to a rich and enthusiastic ownership group that will finally provide the type of actual “skill sets” a successful sports franchise requires of its chief executives, i.e., deep pockets and an awareness of who to hire and when, who to fire and when, and how to get the heck out of the way.
If Castergine’s allegations are true, we Mets fans may very well see that long-standing wish fulfilled (with regards to Jeff, at least). But while I would shed no tears in watching the Wilpons get kicked to their gilded curb, I would take no joy in it, either, for these allegations have the potential to render all of our old squabbles over the Wilpons’ incompetence as baseball people utterly small, insignificant, and beside the point.
Though I am obviously not an “insider,” and though I have not conducted formal research on the matter, it takes no great leap of logic to assert that Major League Baseball is a Good Ol’ Boys Club. It is a network of organizations comprised almost entirely of men, particularly at the upper levels. To wit, with the rarest of exceptions, women don’t play, coach, manage, construct, administer, or own Major League Baseball teams. It is no stretch to assume that such a paradigm could, in any industry, give rise to the type of rampant, unchecked sexism that is alleged in Castergine’s lawsuit.
It gives me additional pause to consider my participation in this whole thing. After all, I’m a baseball fan. I’m a Mets fan. In no small part, I have hitched the wagon of my identity and emotional life to the very franchise that, as it turns out, has very possibly harbored a Chief Operating Officer who has perpetuated actual “morally objectionable” behavior. I have spent untold hours of my life thinking, talking, watching, and writing about the Mets. I have spent who-knows-how-many dollars of my money on attending Mets games, buying Mets apparel, and subscribing to the cable and Internet TV options that deliver Mets games to my home. By virtue of my participation, I have been, and am, despite what I would prefer to think about myself, complicit with the same Good Ol’ Boys paradigm that has given rise to some very horrible human behavior. It makes me question myself, a complicit, heretofore silent, bystander.
I sincerely hope that the court system does its full diligence on the matter, and that justice is served, whatever that means in this case. I hope the allegations are untrue. I also hope that, if the allegations are true, Major League Baseball will take swift action against Jeff Wilpon and whomever else participated in the harassment.
Regardless of the outcome, and my feelings of ambivalence aside, I will continue to root for the Mets. Why? Because the Mets (and any team, sport, organization, state, country, etc.), thank the stars, transcend individuals and groups of people who behave like scumbags; and they most certainly transcend its incompetent, allegedly abusive Chief Operating Officer.
The Mets are, and will continue to be, about my heritage, my family, and my friends. The Mets are interwoven in some of my most treasured memories. The Mets represent some very human experiences and values that I hold dear, like rooting for miracles, persevering through hard times, maintaining a sense of humor, and having a shot at experiencing sheer joy from time to time.
For my part, short of swearing off baseball altogether, what I can do is work to ensure that I treat my fellow humans—particularly those who hold less power than I do—with respect and decency. And I can speak out in favor of an inclusive environment in professional sports (and in other industries), wherein abuse and harassment are not tolerated. If Leigh Castergine truly was a victim of harassment and wrongful termination as she alleges, my heart goes out to her, and I hope she is well compensated for her suffering. We will see what unfolds.
