This is as bad as it gets. You’re down a run against one of the best pitchers in baseball. Your guy is great, but he’s struggling. He just doesn’t have it. You lose this game, and your season is over. Someone has to do something and quick. That’s when Daniel Murphy did this:
With one stolen base, Murphy swung the momentum of that game. With his homer in the sixth, Murphy gave the Mets the lead:
Almost single-handedly, Murphy won Game Five of the NLDS. Without Murphy, the Mets lose in the NLDS.
Instead, the Mets won, and they hosted the Cubs in the NLCS. In his first at bat, Murphy let the Cubs know that 2015 wasn’t going to be their year:
Murphy went off on a homerun binge en route to winning the NLCS MVP Award:
This is all why you give Murphy a massive standing ovation when he steps to the plate tonight. Regardless of how you felt about his time as a Met or his move to the Nationals, you give him a standing ovation. That magical run to the World Series doesn’t happen without Murphy. If you enjoyed one iota of that run, you owe him a standing ovation.
Murphy’s earned it. Stand up and cheer.
The Mets are slumping. They had a rough 4-7 road trip that saw them fall from first to third place in the NL East. That will happen when your position players hit .209/.282/.336 over an eleven game stretch. The team hit .184 with RISP. The overreaction to the slump has caused some people to look for a solution.
Many have pointed to moving David Wright down in the order. With his spinal stenosis any slump could be a signal of the beginning of the end of his career. This is further exacerbated by his possible travel issues. That’s Wright’s new reality. Accordingly, the Mets and Wright should look to do what is best for the team even if that means Wright moves down in the lineup.
The argument for Wright moving down in the order focuses on the aspects of his game that are subpar starting with his strikeouts. According to Fangraphs, he’s striking out 32.6% of the time, which is by far the highest strikeout rate of his career.
Also of concern is Wright’s average with RISP. He’s only hitting .185 with RISP. That’s bad. However, it should make you question why someone would want to drop him lower in the lineup when people are on base. If he’s not driving in batters from the second spot in the lineup, there’s no evidence he will do it batting sixth or seventh in the lineup with more runners in scoring position.
No, you want Wright batting second and setting the table for the Mets big bats. Looking deeper into the numbers, Wright is succeeding in this role.
No matter how you look at the numbers, the fact remains Wright is getting on base. His 18.5% walk rate is the highest in his career. It’s fueling his .373 OBP. His OBP leads the team. That’s eight points higher than the second place Yoenis Cespedes and 20 points higher than the third place Michael Comforto. Cespedes and Conforto also happen to hit third and fourth in the lineup. In essence, Wright is getting on base in front of the team’s big run producers.
As for that tough road trip, Wright struggled like everyone else. He only hit .148/.361/.296. You’d like for him to hit for a better average and more power. However, it must be noted Wright’s .361 OBP was the second highest on the team next to Cespedes.
If we look at Wright’s numbers this year, the fact is he’s a table setter now. He’s the guy that gets on base in front of the Mets big bats like Conforto and Cespedes. So far this year, Wright is doing his job. It’s time the people behind him do their job and knock him in.
When you’re hitting .207/.296/.422 with a -0.4 WAR a month and a half into the season, you begin to wonder if a player is in for a rough year. When that player is 35, you start to wonder if this is the beginning of the end.
Those are the whispers that now surround Curtis Granderson. Are those whispers premature?
After a horrible 2014, Granderson was reunited with Kevin Long. The result was pure magic in 2015. Granderson hit .259/.364/.457 with 26 homers and 70 RBI from the leadoff spot. He had a 128 OPS+, a 132 wRC+, and a 5.1 WAR. As noted above, Granderson’s 2016 numbers are a far cry from that.
What’s happening?
First, Granderson’s BABIP in May was .152. Granderson’s career BABIP is .299 (right around league average). That would suggest Granderson is due for a little luck. With that luck, he could return to his 2015 form. However, there are some warning signs.
According to Fangraphs, Granderson’s hitting a lot of ground balls. His GB/FB ratio is now 0.98 (highest in his career). He’s hitting groundballs 41.2% of the time (highest in his career). Conversely, he’s hitting fewer line drives. He’s only hitting line drives 16.7% of the time (lowest in his career). He’s pulling the ball 45.6% of the time while hitting it up the middle 39.8% of the time.
Long story short, Granderson is getting affected by the shift. That’s going to happen when you hit more groundballs. That’s going to happen when you hit the ball up the middle and to the right side 85.4% of the time. The result is Granderson’s .152 BABIP in May and .227 for the season.
By now means should we look at these numbers and say Granderson is in for a rough 2016. He hit .241/.347/.471 with four homers in April. He was able to hit that well in April despite starting the year on a 1-24 stretch. Also keep in mind, Granderson’s worst month last year was May.
Overall, there is still plenty of time left in the year. Like last year, Granderson can rebound from a rough May to put up terrific numbers. There are warning signs, but sooner or later, we should see the 2015 version of Granderson return . . . or at least the 2016 April version.
Editor’s Note: this article first appeared on metsmerizedonline.com
The Mets bullpen blew a lead, and they found themselves trailing going into the eighth inning needing to score a run to tie the game.
Because there was a lefty on the mound, Terry Collins pinch hit Juan Lagares for Michael Conforto. It paid off as Lagares hit a one out double. The Rockies then intentionally walked Yoenis Cespedes as he’s hitting lefties harder than Rougned Odor hit Jose Bautista. That brought Lucas Duda to the plate, who has been struggling of late. What ensued was an umpire making a horrendous call for the second straight game.
Duda hit a groundball directly at Nolan Arenado. Arenado lunged to tag Lagares, but Lagares juked out of the way. Arenado then threw the ball to first to get Duda for an inning ending double play. You tead that correctly. The umpires ruled Duda hit into an inning ending double play. The reason was the umpires determined Lagares ran out of the baseline.
Before commenting further, there are two things to keep in mind. First, Josh Harrison wasn’t deemed to be out of the baseline in this play against the Mets last year:
Second, Lagares gets three feet:
https://twitter.com/jschapiro_sbr/status/731976606835740672
It’s hard to tell from the angle, but it would appear Lagares was within the allotted three feet. Put it this way, Lagares didn’t step on the infield grass like Harrison did. What happened was the umpire made a horrendous call that potentially affected the outcome of the game.
Terry Collins ran out to argue, but he didn’t exactly get his money’s worth. Based upon his ejection and post game rant Saturday, I’m assuming the umpire told him that if Collins doesn’t pick his words carefully, the Mets won’t get another call the rest of the year.
Mostly, that play was a lot of bad luck for the Mets. First, Duda goes the other way with the pitch, and he hits a sharp grounder away from the shift. Unfortunately, he hits it right at Arenado. Lagares then runs right at the fielder. Now, Lagares could’ve read that ball better and either chose to go behind Arenado or stop thereby ensuring no double play. Instead, he busted it to third presumably hoping he could score.
What happened was Lagares was in a position that Arenado could make a play and the umpire could make a call. It seems when you’re struggling like the Mets are, the ball finds the lone fielder on the left side of the infield, and the umpire makes a bad call.
In any event, the Mets got swept by the Rockies and are returning home for an already over-hyped three game set against the Nationals. With the day off, the Mets should play much better. Hopefully, the umpiring will be much better too.
My first experiences watching baseball was the late 80’s. Back then, baseball had a code. If you show up a player, expect to he plunked. If you’re plunked, the middle infielders better be ready to be on the receiving end of a takeout slide.
The idea of this behavior was to let the players police themselves on the field. If all else failed, the players would just have to resolve everything with a good old fashioned benches clearing brawl. This way of handling things has largely been legislated out of the game, but Sunday, we saw a return of it in the Blue Jays-Rangers game.
As a matter of background, these two teams played a hard fought, five game ALDS. The Blue Jays win was highlighted by this:
Now, there’s some disagreement whether this bat flip had any impact on Sunday’s game. In any event, Sunday was the last regular season meeting between these two teams. Jose Bautista led off the eighth with the Rangers leading 7-6. He was hit with the first pitch of the inning. Here’s what ensued next:
Wow.
Certainly, Bautista felt the Rangers threw at him. He had a very late, but still low, slide into Rougned Odor. There are three possible reasons for this:
- Odor’s throw was in line with Bautista’s head forcing him to get down;
- Bautista was trying to break up a double play; or
- Bautista felt the Rangers threw at him, and he was getting his pound of flesh.
Whatever the case, Odor was offended, and he landed a right hook. Keep in mind, this was no sucker punch. Bautista’s hands were up. It sparked an old fashioned benches clearing brawl.
Of course, that didn’t end anything. Prince Fielder would be hit with the first pitch in the bottom of the eighth. It was an 83 MPH change-up. The benches emptied, but tensions didn’t escalate as Fielder took his place at first base. It was all over.
Baseball has made many rules to try to prevent this all from happening. It’s why there are warnings. It’s part of the reason why the new slide rules are in place. The main reason for the new slide rules is Chase Utley is a dirty player and the Gane Two umpires in the NLDS had no idea what interference was.
Upon review of Sunday’s game, you could say the rules worked. Bautista was called for interference. There were six ejections stemming from the incident. However, the rules didn’t work as intended. The players attempted to police themselves and all hell broke loose. In many ways it was a throw back to 30 years ago when incidents like this would happen. No, they were not common place or even likely. It was just possible. In today’s game, it didn’t seem like this was possible anymore.
Overall, I don’t think anything that happened on the field has a place in baseball. There’s no reason to bean someone in the fashion the Rangers beaned Bautista if it was intentional. Late slides or throwing it at someone’s head is unnecessary. Furthermore, Odor’s punch shouldn’t happen on a baseball field. With that long caveat, I enjoyed it.
It reminded me of the baseball I grew up watching. It reminded me of a time when teams would use this as a rallying cry for the rest of the season. It reminded me of a time when teams generally disliked each other and wanted to beat each other’s brains in. It reminded me of a time where the Mets were on top of the baseball world. So yes, I enjoyed it.
However, one day of nostalgia is nice. What happened Sunday has no place on a baseball field, and I hope to never see it again.
Personally, I’m a big fan of Matt Harvey because he gave us all hope in 2013. Each and every time he took the mound, you didn’t know what was going to happen. It could be a no-hitter. Better yet, it could be a perfect game. He may strike out over 20 batters. You didn’t know. In 2013, anything was possible.
He had to have Tommy John surgery meaning nothing was possible in 2014.
Once Harvey returned in 2015, anything was possible again. We saw that as the Mets won the pennant. Harvey was through the thick of it all. He pitched more innings than anyone has post-Tommy John. He came so close to sending the World Series back to Kansas City.
In my household, there was only one man who pitched for the Mets:
Now, Harvey is struggling. Yes, anything is still possible. However, with Harvey’s struggles this year some of the magic is gone. Unfortunately, he’s been replaced by another Harvey:
With Harvey’s struggles, this is who my son thinks of when I ask him who Harvey is. This Harvey is not just a crane. He’s an engine too.
I wonder if he could pitch into the seventh inning.
So it looks like Carlos Torres finally get his revenge against Terry Collins for abusing his arm all these years.
In the third inning, the Rockies had already played a run extending their lead to 3-1. Tony Wolters swung and missed at strike three making it two outs with the pitcher coming up. Logan Verrett had minimized the damage. Nope, Home Plate Umpire Carlos Torres (no relation to the former Mets relief pitcher) called a pitch Wolters clearly swung and missed a foul tip. No strikeout. Here’s the replay.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGbNNFfTx9g
Apparently, Wolters at bat was extended to prevent Curtis Granderson from assassinating Queen Elizabeth II.
In any event, Wolters at bat was extended, and he hit a two run double to make it 5-1. Terry Collins was tossed. The Rockies put a five spot up the inning. Verrett was eventually chase after throwing 75 pitches in 2.2 innings. In total, he allowed 10 hits, seven earned, and three walks with no strikeouts.
Verrett wasn’t good all night, BUT his outing would’ve been drastically different had the umpire actually made the correct call.
The Mets did show some character in the game despite being down 7-1. Neil Walker snapped out of his cold spell with a solo homer in the fourth. Lucas Duda singled home Yoenis Cespedes, who had a lead off triple, in the sixth. Duda later scored when Asdrubal Cabrera grounded into a double play. The sixth inning rally was ended when D.J. LeMahieu robbed Granderson of a base hit. LeMahieu had a terrific game in the field robbing the Mets of a few hits.
The Mets couldn’t muster another rally. They did fight, but it was all for naught. They lost 7-4.
On the bright side, the Mets bullpen was terrific. They went 5.1 innings allowing no runs, two hits, a hit by pitch, and no walks while striking out three. Sean Gilmartin deserves special mention for going two innings after pitching three innings on Thursday.
With that said, the Mets still lost. The loss guaranteed a losing road trip. It guaranteed the Mets lost their first series since the April 11 -13 series against the Marlins. The Mets dropped to third place in the NL East. But remember, it’s still just May, and it’s the end of a long West coast trip.
The Mets will be fine, and they’ll start winning games and series again. Avoiding a sweep by winning tomorrow will be a good start before heading home for a big series against the Nationals.
Game Notes: Ron Darling went into full Keith Hernandez mode. In the fifth inning, he sent Nate from the production crew behind home plate to get some guy to stop continuously waving. When the Mets were rallying in the sixth, he referred to the game as a Coors Light type of game. In the seventh, he referred to a mound visit between Wolters and Gonzalez Germen before a pitch was thrown as an embarrassment to the game.
Over at the Oh Murph, or OMDC, I explained why Mets fans should be voting for Daniel Murphy to start at second for the NL in the All Star Game. Here’s the link.
Albert Eistein once said, “the definition of insanity is seeing 2016 Matt Harvey pitch over and over again and expect to see him pitch well into the fifth inning.” Well, it was something like that.
Coming into tonight’s start Harvey had a 1.93 ERA in the first four innings. In the fifth, he had a 7.71 ERA. In the sixth, he had a 16.20 ERA. Each and every game, Mets fans think from innings 1-4 that Harvey’s back. Each and every game, Mets fans are trying to figure out what’s gone wrong again in the fifth and sixth innings. Tonight was more of the same.
Harvey pitched 5.2 innings allowing 11 hits, five earned, no walks, and six strikeouts. Three of the earned runs were scored between the fifth and sixth innings. The other two were scored in the fourth with a little help from a Michael Conforto misplay in left. Somehow his allowing a single to drop in front of him and roll past him was scored s triple.
Harvey’s undoing was the sixth . . . again. Harvey had stifled a rally the fifth only allowing a run. He allowed a one out double to D.J. LeMahieu. LeMahieu scored on a Tony Wolters single. Harvey had previously dominated Wolters. He struck him out twice. However, it’s hard to dominate someone when your fastball drops from the 95+ MPH range to the 90 MPH range. It also doesn’t help when the pitches are over the middle of the plate. By the way Harvey allowed these many hits and saw this much of a velocity drop?
That 13-hit performance by the Tigers in 2013 was Harvey's last start before the Tommy John surgery.
— Adam Rubin (@AdamRubinMedia) May 14, 2016
Jerry Blevins relieved Harvey with two outs in the sixth, and he allowed an RBI double to Charlie Blackmon. It closed out the final line for Harvey. Again, Mets fans are just left with questions as to what is happening with Harvey.
Rockies starter Jon Gray dominated the Mets over seven innings to earn his first career win in his 14th career start. Kevin Plawecki was the only one really able to touch him up when he hit a two RBI double in the second. Those would be the only runs the Mets would score in Coors Field tonight. The Mets lost 5-2 in Coors Field.
Where has the Mets offense gone? The Mets offense was once again stymied. Put it this way, Plawecki’s two RBIs were the first from a Mets position player in 26 innings. It’s been 33 innings since a position player other than Plawecki has had an RBI.
Mets offense has disappeared. Hopefully, they’ll find it tomorrow. They are playing in Coors Field.
Game Notes: Once again David Wright struggled in the first game after a flight. He was 0-4 with three strikeouts.
On October 31, 2015, Jose Reyes allegedly grabbed his wife by the throat and shoved her into the sliding glass doors leading out to a lanai at their Hawaiian resort hotel room. His wife was taken to the hospital for treatment of her injuries while Reyes was arrested for these alleged acts.
If convicted, Reyes would’ve faced anywhere from two days to five years in prison. If convicted, Reyes could’ve been deported. If deported, Reyes would’ve had to forfeit the remaining $44 million left on his contract. Fortunately for Reyes, he didn’t have to face these consequences for his alleged actions because his wife didn’t cooperate with the prosecutors. Reyes walked off scot-free.
This left the ball in Major League Baseball’s court to punish Reyes. They dropped the ball.
Reyes was only suspended 51 games. Major League Baseball believed the hospitalization of a person violently grabbed around the throat and shoved was only worth 51 games. They believed whatever role Reyes played, if any, in preventing his case from coming to trial was worth 51 games.
The combined Chapman and Reyes suspensions equate to half a season. Half a season for two women allegedly being choked.
Major League Baseball had been opportunistic in announcing their Domestic Violence policy. There were good provisions like getting perpetrating players help. There were other interesting provisions like leaving the matter of suspensions open-ended. It was an interesting provision as it arguably allowed each case to be judged on its own merits.
The results have been vastly underwhelming. Reyes went from potentially facing deportation, thereby effectively ending his big league career, to a 51 game suspension. That’s only 31% of the season. He gets to keep roughly $36 million of his money. Additionally, he gets a $100,000 tax write-off for his donation to the cause of stopping domestic violence. With this suspension, Major League Baseball set forth a powerful message for all to hear:
Grabbing a woman by the throat and shoving her into a sliding glass door wasn’t as bad of an offense as using PEDs.