Jacob deGrom
With Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and now Robert Gsellman, the Mets feature a team with a number a players with long flowing locks:
Whose flow is best? Reply with who you think rules the #Mets hair game. #LGM pic.twitter.com/aC2Dgbz86S
— New York Mets (@Mets) August 23, 2016
None of that could prepare you for the Gary Cohen photo from college during the game last night:
Who knew Gary Cohen was a hippy? Heck, who knew he had hair?
At this point, seeing Gary Cohen, it’s fair to say none of the Mets will beat either this photo or this hair style.
Ahead of a huge three game set against the St. Louis Cardinals, the 61-61 New York Mets are at .500 and are 4.5 games back of the Cardinals for the second Wild Card spot. Even with a good series here, nothing is guaranteed as the Mets are one of four teams currently withing five games of the last Wild Card spot. Here is where they all stand:
St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals are currently the second Wild Card with a 66-57 record. The team is hot having gone 7-3 in their last 10 games. The Cardinals hot streak is surprising given the fact that they are without Matt Adams, Aledmys Diaz, Matt Holliday, Michael Wacha, Seth Maness, and Trevor Rosenthal. The current Cardinals streak is a testament to their depth, resiliency, and the managing ability of Mike Matheny. Either that or it is a random hot streak, and the Mets are in prime position to take them down.
Miami Marlins
The Marlins are at 65-59 and are 1.5 games back of the Cardinals. Over their last 10 games, the Marlins are playing .500 ball. Worse yet for the team, they are starting to deal with some major injury problems. The team is most likely without Giancarlo Stanton and Wei-Yin Chen for the rest of the season. The team is currently without Adam Conley, and they have the prospect of having to shut down Jose Fernandez at some point in the season. Andrew Cashner was supposed to help alleviate some of these issues, but he has remained the same pitcher he was with the Padres. Offensively, first baseman Justin Bour has been on the disabled list for quite a while, but no one quite knows when he will return.
Over the course of the season, the Marlins have been a pleasant surprise (if you’re not a Mets fan). Ichiro Suzuki seems rejuvenated and got his 3,000 hit. Don Mattingly and Barry Bonds have changed the culture while helping young players like Christian Yelich reach their potential. However, now that they are no longer healthy, there is real doubt that they can stay in the race.
Pittsburgh Pirates
As we have seen with the Pirates the past few seasons, the Pirates a second half team. They are currently 62-59, three games back, and have a favorable schedule from here on out.
The Pirates are turning things around by turning over their rotation. They have traded away struggling and underperforming pieces in Francisco Liriano and Jon Niese and have replaced them with top prospect Jameson Taillon and former Yankee Ivan Nova. Nova seems to be the type of pitcher pitching coach Ray Searage thrives with, and it certainly hasn’t hurt him being reunited with his old catcher Francisco Cervelli.
Part of the reason the Pirates are in this position is not just their rotation, but it was also due to the struggles of Andrew McCutchen. McCutchen is having a big second half. Coupled with Starling Marte‘s terrific season, and the Pirates suddenly have a potent lineup.
In the end, the big question is if the young Pirates rotation and a bullpen without Mark Melancon can continue a second half charge to claim the second Wild Card spot.
New York Mets
The Mets have been a mess since April. Most of their players were hurt, stopped hitting, or both. However, now, the team is healthy, or as healthy as they can possibly be. Seeing Yoenis Cespedes in the lineup reminds you of the difference maker he is in the Mets lineup, and it is a reminder of the type of run the Mets are capable of making. For that to happen, the Mets are going to need more of the same from Jacob deGrom, and they are going to need Noah Syndergaard to keep pitching the way he did yesterday. The Mets will also need their other pitchers to step up especially if Steven Matz is going to be out for the season like Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler are.
In the end, if the Mets are goign to run, they have to start with them taking the Cardinals down a few pegs in this three game set starting tomorrow. If the Mets are not able to at least win two out of three, it is going to be an even steeper hill to climb to make it back to the postseason.
Editor’s Note: this was also published on Mets Merized Online.
On August 22, 1973, the Mets won their second game in a row to raise the Mets record to 57-67 leaving them 6.0 games out in the National League East behind the first place St. Louis Cardinals.
From that point forward, the Mets would be the hottest team in baseball going 25-12 carrying them to an unlikely division championship. The Mets rode the hot streak to beat the Big Red Machine 3-2 in a best of five NLCS, and they came within a win of disrupting the Oakland A’s dynasty.
The popular story was the Mets were spurred by Tug McGraw screaming “Ya Gotta Believe!” after a M.Donald Grant “pep talk” in July. However, the truth is that team just got healthy at the right time, and when the team was at 100%, they were among the best teams in baseball.
During that year, the team was hampered by injuries. Jerry Grote, John Milner, Bud Harrelson, and Cleon Jones all missed significant time. Rusty Staub player through injuries all year. On top of that phenom Jon Matlack was having a down year a year removed from winning the Rookie of the Year Award. He was joined by Jerry Koosman in having a surprising down year. Willie Mays looked to be every bit of his 42 years of age. Young fill-ins like Don Hahn just were not producing. The Mets were forced to do anything they could do to improve the team like releasing dead weight like Jim Fregosi. About all that went right that season for the Mets was Tom Seaver; that and the fact that no one ran away with the division allowing the Mets to enter the postseason with an 82-79 record.
Isn’t that what this Mets season has been. With Matt Harvey, David Wright, Lucas Duda, Adrubal Cabrera, and Yoenis Cespedes, we have seen this Mets team be hampered time and again by injuries. We have seen countless Mets play through injuries like Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz with their bone spurs. We’ve seen replacements like Eric Campbell, Ty Kelly, and Matt Reynolds not play up to snuff. Players like Travis d’Arnaud and Michael Conforto had surprising down years. About the only thing that has gone right for the Mets this year is the fact that Jacob deGrom has continued to pitch like an ace, and the fact that no one has ran away with the second Wild Card spot.
Maybe, just maybe, this is 1973 all over again. That 1973 team was much further back in both the standings and more teams to leapfrog in the standings. All they needed to do was to get healthy and to get hot. Right now, with Cespedes back and hitting home runs for the Mets again, this team is healthy, and they are on the verge of getting hot. If that happens, the Mets can very well take that second Wild Card spot and get into the postseason.
As we saw in 1973 as well as last year, with great Mets pitching, the Mets can beat anyone in the postseason. They can shock the world. Anything is possible so long as they get hot and get into the postseason.
Commissioner Rob Manfred has recently announced that he is interested in introducing a pitch clock to Major League Baseball. The pitch clock was first introduced last year in the upper levels of the minors, and it appears the Commissioner is pleased with it’s progress.
The rule as stated is that a pitcher must starts his windup or motion within 20 seconds of having the ball while stepping on the pitching rubber. The rule has initiated in the minors to help speed the pace of play which has been the Commissioner’s focus since he took over for Bud Selig. The Commissioner has considered various routes including limiting the use of relievers. However, it appears the Commissioner is focusing upon the pitch clock as a means to improve the pace a play. It’s a bad idea that may lead to pitcher injuries.
According to a recent study from the Journal of Sports Science, there is a link between the amount of time a pitcher takes between pitches and arm injuries. The researchers, Michael Sonne and Peter Keir analyzed the amount of time between pitches and arm injuries, and from there, they were able to make the correlation. According to Sonne, “One of the risk factors that we typically look at with muscle fatigue and injury is the amount of time people have to recover from doing effort.” (Brendan Kennedy, The Star). When a pitcher experiences fatigue according to Sonne, “you essentially lose the ability to stabliize the (elbow) joint as they throw.” Overall, when looking at pitchers, Sonne states you need to look “at the duration of exposure to pitching, but also the duration of rest.”
To that end, the researchers have concluded that baseball’s proposed 20 second pitch clock is a bad idea. Sonne states, “If you put in this pitch clock it’s a very cut-and-dry way of reducing the amount of recovery time that a pitcher has.”Sonne and Keir concluded that the 20 second pitch clock would create muscle fatigue for pitchers who take longer than 20 seconds between pitches, and as a result, it would expose them to injury. It may not seem like a big deal, but as Sonne points out, “It seems like a small amount, but when a pitcher is throwing at maximum effort, every bit of muscle force matters.”
This proposed rule is a huge problem for the Mets young pitchers. As per Fangraphs, the young Mets starters have needed more than 20 seconds to throw a pitch
| Name | Team | Pace | Pitches |
| Noah Syndergaard | Mets | 23.9 | 2,238 |
| Steven Matz | Mets | 18.7 | 2,153 |
| Jacob deGrom | Mets | 21.1 | 2,065 |
| Matt Harvey | Mets | 21.5 | 1,514 |
It should be noted that according to FiveThirtyEight, a pitcher’s pace is the one statistic that remains consistent each and every year. A pitchers ERA, WHIP, K/9, etc. will rise and fall each and every year, but pace is the one thing that remains largely unchanged. This means that Syndergaard’s, deGrom’s, and Harvey’s health would be at risk in the event that the 20 second pitch clock were implemented.
Keep in mind that Harvey, Matz, and deGrom have already had Tommy John surgery. Additionally, Harvey recently had surgery to remove a rib to help alleviate the symptoms from his thoracic outlet syndrome. While Syndergaard has not had Tommy John surgery, he has been dealing with bone spurs in his elbow. Syndergaard also throws the ball at a high velocity, has begun throwing a slider with much more frequency, and he is experiencing a large jump in his innings pitched from 2014. Adding a pitch clock will only further serve to create another possible avenue by which Syndergaard, and really all young pitchers, could injure themselves.
The pitch clock sounds good in theory as a faster pace of play will certainly be more enjoyable for the fans to watch. However, the pitch clock will be counterproductive if it prevents the best and most exciting pitchers from taking the mound. The best fix might be to instill the good habits in the minor leagues and hope they carry those good habits forward.
For the first time in quite a while, I was legitimately excited to watch a Mets game as we were guaranteed a great pitching matchup with Jacob deGrom and Madison Bumgarner. Admittedly, when I saw a lineup with Ty Kelly and Justin Ruggiano, I was less excited. Still, whenever deGrom takes the mound, the Mets have a legitimate chance to win.
I didn’t even make it to the fourth inning. I missed Ruggiano giving the Mets false hope with the grand slam. I missed deGrom and Bumgarner failing to hold up their ends of the bargain in the pitching duel. I missed the Mets show some fight in the sixth by them trying to crawl their way back into the game with a Kelly triple scoring Ruggiano and Travis d’Arnaud to make it 8-7.
I did manage to wake up in the eighth inning. I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as I could. As I watched Addison Reed give up a two run RBI double to Buster Posey, I asked myself why I was bothering. If the Giants are lighting up Reed, there really is no chance for a comeback. With that, I went back to sleep. While I missed the ninth, I was pretty certain the Mets were going to lose by a score of at least 10-7. As it turns out, that was the final score.
The Mets are back to a game under .500, and they fell to 4.5 games behind the idle Cardinals. The hope is that Yoenis Cespedes and Asdrubal Cabrera coming back will help spark this team, but I’m not holding my breath, especially now with the Mets having to skip Steven Matz in the rotation with bone spurs – no wait, they have to skip him now due to bone spurs and a shoulder injury.
Sooner or later this bad dream has to end, right?
One of the issues surrounding Jacob deGrom all year is what has happened to his velocity. According to Brooks Baseball, deGrom’s fastball velocity has dropped from 96 MPH to 94 MPH this year. Part of the reason was his lat injury to start the season. Another reason could have been the troubles he had at home with a sick child. Whatever it was deGrom has admitted he wasn’t as prepared this season as he had been in years past.
The result was deGrom getting off to a sluggish start for him. For the first two months of the season, deGrom allowed batter to hit .246/.301/.354 against him. Midway through June, deGrom had a 2.96 ERA and a 1.137 WHIP. Now, these are not poor numbers to say the least, but they did represent a step back for deGrom who emerged as an ace last year going 14-8 with a 2.54 ERA, a 0.979 WHIP, and a 149 ERA+.
Starting in the end of June, deGrom has started to piece things back together. His June 25th start against the Braves saw him go on a nine start streak where he has been dominant. In that nine start stretch, deGrom has gone 4-1 with a 1.49 ERA and a 0.945 WHIP. In this stretch, deGrom pitched his first ever complete game shutout, and he has allowed one run or less in seven of his nine starts. As the season as progressed, deGrom has slowly but surely gained velocity with him throwing 95 MPH during the month of August. Overall, deGrom has completely turned his season around.
Now, deGrom has a 7-5 record with a 2.30 ERA, 1.050 WHIP, and a 177 ERA+. The ERA and ERA+ figures are better than the numbers deGrom put up during his breakout 2015 season. Not only has deGrom gotten better as the season has progressed, he has just gotten better. Diminished pitcher or not, deGrom is putting up the best numbers in his career, and he is doing it at a time when the Mets need him the most.
This should come as no surprise to Mets fans. We saw him outpitch Clayton Kershaw to start the NLDS last season. In Game One he only allowed five hits over seven shutout innings while walking one and striking out 13. Perhaps more impressive than that was him defeating Zack Greinke in Game Five of the NLDS. In that game, deGrom had nothing going for him, and yet he still won the game allowing just two earned runs over six innings. In that game, deGrom dug deep and was able to figure out how to get batters out.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that deGrom has been even better this year despite his having less velocity on his fastball. It should never come as a surprise that deGrom is coming through when the Mets need him most. In the end, it should come as no surprise that once again deGrom has emerged as the best pitcher on the Mets staff.
Recently, Neil Walker has been the hottest hitter in all of baseball. Over his last 19 games, Walker is hitting .455/.488/.740 with two doubles, one triple, six homers, and 14 RBI. He is making last year’s version of Yoenis Cespedes look like Mario Mendoza. For a Mets team that is struggling to get above .500, let alone be relevant in the Wild Card race, the team can ill afford to lose his bat especially with injuries to players like Asdrubal Cabrera and the aforementioned Cespedes.
And yet, that is exactly what is going to happen. Neil Walker’s wife is expecting to deliver the couple’s first child – a daughter. Walker keeps his cell phone close waiting for the notice saying, “I’ll pretty much have my phone on me everywhere but second base. You try to bottle up those three hours any way you can. In between at-bats, I’ll shoot in [the clubhouse] just to check my phone and make sure nothing is going on.” (MLB.com).
Once that happens, Walker is on the next flight out to New York as he intends to take paternity leave. He is going on paternity leave with full knowledge that his team needs his bat in the lineup, and that his taking time off may have an impact on his production. Walker joked, “Obviously, when you are swinging the bat well, you want to continue to get as many at-bats as possible, but I certainly am not going to go blaming my newborn if I don’t stay on fire. I’ll be mentally taking at-bats.” No matter what happens with Walker’s bat, he is doing the right thing by going to be by his wife’s side.
What is bizarre is that someone actually had to say that.
Back in 2014, when the Mets weren’t expected to go anywhere, Walker’s predecessor, Daniel Murphy, took paternity leave, and he was outright chastised. Boomer Esiason, a former New York athlete himself, said, “Bottom line, that’s not me. I wouldn’t do that. Quite frankly, I would have said ‘C-section before the season starts. I need to be at Opening Day. I’m sorry, this is what makes our money, this is how we’re going to live our life, this is going to give my child every opportunity to be a success in life.” (Boston.com). Obviously Boomer wasn’t the only one to chastise Murphy, but he was one of the few that had the audacity to challenge both Murphy’s commitment to the team while instructing Murphy’s wife how she should deliver their baby.
Lost in the shuffle was the fact that Murphy’s wife needed to have surgery. As Murphy would say, “It’s going to be tough for her to get up to New York for a month. I can only speak from my experience — a father seeing his wife — she was completely finished. I mean, she was done. She had surgery and she was wiped. Having me there helped a lot, and vice versa, to take some of the load off. … It felt, for us, like the right decision to make.” (ESPN.com).
A husband needs to be there for his wife because you never know what will go wrong. We were reminded of that this year with Jacob deGrom.
Back in April, deGrom found himself on the Bereavement/Family Medical Emergency List as his newborn son had difficulty breathing with apnea. The deGrom family went through the harrowing process of not knowing if their child was healthy. At the time, deGrom was home to not only be there for his wife emotionally, but also to spend time with his son Jaxon. Fortunately, deGrom’s son would be alright allowing him to put in the work he needed to for the baseball season.
Fortunately, Murphy’s wife and deGrom’s son were ultimately okay. During that time, Murphy and deGrom got to spend time with their families that desperately needed them home. But that’s not the only reason for the paternity leave.
The birth of your child is the greatest experience of your life. It certainly was for me. In fact, each day with my son is better than the next. No father should be robbed of that experience. Not me, not you, and not Neil Walker.
Furthermore, your wife needs you. There are no words to describe what your wife goes through not just during pregnancy, but also during labor. Her reward after that grueling experience? She has to feed a baby every two hours followed by burping and changing the baby. By the way, she also has to find some time to sleep. She needs all the help she can get, even if it is just a day or two with her husband.
Walker making the decision to remove himself from the lineup at a time the Mets need him most does not make him a bad teammate, it makes him a good husband and father. Walker’s place is with his family. It is his teammates job to pick him up during his absence the way Walker picked them up in April and over the course of August.
Approximately 117 games into the season 2.5 games is all that separates four teams for the final Wild Card spot. As we have seen repeatedly this season and again this past weekend, injuries have played and will continue to play a major role in this Wild Card race.
Over this past weekend, it was announced that Giancarlo Stanton is going to miss the rest of the season with a groin injury. It’s a devastating injury for Stanton and the Marlins as Stanton had turned his season around hitting .287/.349/.588 with 10 homers and 30 RBI since July 1st. With him gone, the Marlins have lost both the most feared hitter in their lineup, but also the only hitter in all of baseball that can truly say owns Jacob deGrom.
Stanton’s injury comes on the heels of the Marlins having to send back Colin Rea and his torn UCL to the Padres as it turns out he was damaged goods. The Marlins also do not anticipate their big free agent addition, Wei-Yin Chen, to contribute for the rest of the season as he is dealing with elbow issues of his own. Joining Stanton and Chen on the disabled list is Adam Conley, who is arguably the Marlins second best starting pitcher. In addition to losing two of their starters to injuries, the Marlins are without their closer A.J. Ramos as he was put on the disabled list with a fractured middle finger on his pitching hand. Add all of that to the Marlins needing to skip a couple of Jose Fernandez starts to manage his workload, and the Marlins are in real trouble on the pitching front.
The Marlins have been relatively healthy all season, and now it seems as if they are starting to get bit by the injury bug at the wrong time of the season.
A team that has been decimated by injuries all year has been the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals season got out on the wrong foot when they began the year without starting shortstop Jhonny Peralta as he was recovering from a surgically repaired thumb.
Joining Peralta on the disabled list this year has been his replacement Aledmys Diaz with a broken thumb of his own. The Cardinals are also without Matt Adams, who had been the starting first baseman during the stretch that the Opening Day first baseman, Brandon Moss, was on the disabled list. Centerfielder Tommy Pham has spent much time on the disabled list this year leading to the Cardinals experimenting with Kolten Wong in center. This is the same Wong who had to be sent to the minors due to his struggles at the plate and at second base. The most recent and possibly most devastating injury is Matt Holliday going down with a broken thumb.
As bad as things have been for the Cardinals position players, their pitching staff is just as decimated by injuries. Lance Lynn has not made one start for the team this season as he is still recovering from Tommy John surgery. He has been joined on the disabled list by one time NLCS hero Michael Wacha who may not only be done for the season, but also may need to have his role as a starting pitcher be re-evaluated all together with his scapular issues. This duo joins a number of Cardinals bullpen arms on the disabled list.
Neither Jordan Walden or Mitch Harris have thrown one pitch this season as they have dealt with injuries. Kevin Siegrist was recently put on the disabled list with arm fatigue, and Tyler Lyons is done for the year as he is dealing with a stress reaction in his right knee. The reliever problems are only exacerbated by the fact that their closer Trevor Rosenthal was first ineffective to start the year and then landed on the disabled list with a flexor tendon injury. Like most of this Cardinals team, it is questionable whether he can return this season.
Unlike the Marlins and the Cardinals, the Mets are starting to get healthy. This weekend the Mets not only had Jose Reyes return from the disabled list, but the team also saw him score a Reyes Run on Sunday.
Reyes should soon be joined by some of his teammates. Today, Yoenis Cespedes is expected to start his rehab assignment. Tomorrow, Asdrubal Cabrera will begin his own rehab assignment. Their return will dramatically improve a Mets lineup that has been starting Ty Kelly and his .200 batting average in left field all too frequently. Matt Reynolds and his .211 batting average had already been sent to the minors when Reyes was activated from the disabled list.
Long story short, the Mets will soon be as close to full strength as they have been all season. They are getting healthy as two of their main competitors for the Wild Card are dealing with some disastrous injuries. With all these injuries, the Mets are a better team than the Marlins and the Cardinals meaning the Mets are out of excuses. It is time for the Mets to go on a run and take control of the Wild Card race.