Your Friday morning dose of New York Mets and Major League Baseball news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
New York was shut down by Mike Minor and fell to the Braves 6-1. Jon Niese was solid with thee runs allowed in 7.1 innings, but the Mets managed just four knocks all night. Emilio Bonifacio racked up four hits by himself himself for Atlanta.
Recap Parade: Amazin' Avenue short, long, MLB.com, ESPN NY, New York Times, Post
The Mets announced that Daniel Murphy and his "day-to-day" calf injury will be heading to the 15-day disabled list. Perhaps a bigger deal is who will be taking the second baseman's place: 20-year-old Dilson Herrera, who was traded to New York just over a year ago.
In other injury news, Vic Black is now on the DL with a herniated disc in his neck. Daisuke Matsuzaka is returning from his rehab assignment just in time to take Black's place in the bullpen.
With Travis d'Arnaud now starting to look like a big part of the Mets' future, Terry Collins said that the team has discussed moving the catcher to left field in order to keep him from getting injured. With no full-time left fielder on the current roster and Kevin Plawecki heating up in the minors, the move seems to make sense on paper.
Something that doesn't make sense on paper: The Mets partnering with the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s on a player development deal. Nevertheless, the two franchises will continue to be linked for at least the next two seasons.
Larry Brooks of the Post says that Curtis Granderson should be benched. The left-handed slugger has been awful lately, but he is a rare source of power in the Mets' lineup.
The Mets invited the RBI World Series Senior Division champions from Jersey City to Citi Field for a fun time.
Around the NL East
The sad news coming out of Atlanta is that left-handed reliever Jonny Venters has torn the UCL in his elbow for the third time.
Phillies president David Montgomery is taking a leave of absence to get treatment for cancer. Get well soon, Dave.
Like star-crossed lovers, Giancarlo Stanton and the rest of the Marlins organization just didn't meet at the right time.
As awesome as the 2014 season has been for the Nationals so far, they have plenty to look forward to in the future as well.
Around the Majors
Former Mets farmhand Yusmeiro Petit set a major league record by retired his 46th consecutive batter on Thursday afternoon against the Rockies.
Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is hitting just as poorly as Granderson is, and that guy probably won't be getting benched either.
Speaking of the Bronx Bombers, they might become cool again if they call up the amazing switch-pitcher Pat Venditte.
Joe Posnanski breaks down the chances of Royals outfielder Alex Gordon to win the American League MVP Award.
Craig Calcaterra takes on the "can women play in the majors?" discussion.
FanGraphs scouted a confrontation between extreme power pitcher Aroldis Chapman and extreme power hitter Javier Baez.
Here's a video of beleaguered Tigers closer Joe Nathan reading mean Tweets about himself.
Yesterday at AA
Steve Sypa gave us a complete scouting report on Cuban second base prospect Pavel Quesada.
The freshest episode of Amazin' Avenue Audio is now available.
Eric Simon's AMA continued.
On this date in 2009, Carlos Beltran was clutch. Oops, that must be a typo that I'm too lazy to fix.