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…But at this moment the pitchers are so far of the hitters, and the hitters don't know how to deal with defensive shifts, so the hitting is pitiful most of the time.
They can’t hit the opposite way to beat the shift and maintain their power. With all the K’s it’s pretty tough to string together hits, so they keep trying for the long ball.
The lack of any response to my proposed outlaw of the shift was interesting. Call it an illegal defense. I think it is the only way to solve the problem.
I just think smart gms will think through this. Analytics are showing that home runs are way down in part due to the new ball, and strikeouts are way up. So the solution may be to recruit and train hitters who can play effective small ball. Lay off bad pitches and go deep into counts. Take the walk or hit a single. That will start winning games.
FilmCarp said:
I just think smart gms will think through this. Analytics are showing that home runs are way down in part due to the new ball, and strikeouts are way up. So the solution may be to recruit and train hitters who can play effective small ball. Lay off bad pitches and go deep into counts. Take the walk or hit a single. That will start winning games.
I don’t see it. Guess time will tell.
Everyone thought Billy Beane was nuts at the time. The trick is to find what no one else is doing.
Nice one last night. Great to have Alonso back!
I'm a little worried about all the games the Mets will have to make up later in the season. I didn't realize until the announcers were talking about it last night how many games have gotten postponed for the Mets vs the rest of the division. It's going to be tough on the pitching staff.
mrincredible said:
Nice one last night. Great to have Alonso back!
I'm a little worried about all the games the Mets will have to make up later in the season. I didn't realize until the announcers were talking about it last night how many games have gotten postponed for the Mets vs the rest of the division. It's going to be tough on the pitching staff.
the only consolation I see is that almost all the makeup games are within the division, so that lessens some of the competitive advantages that the other teams might have had if it was only the Mets playing so many double headers. Still, none of them except the Nats have as many DHs scheduled as the Mets do.
And Peterson gave it all back He is not ready to be in the rotation.
FilmCarp said:
And Peterson gave it all back He is not ready to be in the rotation.
Are they going to stretch out Lugo and put him in the rotation? It's tough to keep winning having to play a bullpen game 2 out of 5 games. I have no idea why Arizona didn't walk Alonso there and setup the double play, but I'll take it!
jfinnegan said:
Are they going to stretch out Lugo and put him in the rotation? It's tough to keep winning having to play a bullpen game 2 out of 5 games. I have no idea why Arizona didn't walk Alonso there and setup the double play, but I'll take it!
Lugo will stay in the pen, I’m sure.
Nice win today.
Gsellman is a good candidate for the rotation. He is under utilized in the pen, and now that Lugo is back they sent down a good pitcher. Bring him back up and send Peterson down
FilmCarp said:
Gsellman is a good candidate for the rotation. He is under utilized in the pen, and now that Lugo is back they sent down a good pitcher. Bring him back up and send Peterson down
I’m confused - who did they send down?
Gsellman pitched yesterday.
They sent down the hyphenated guy, Reid somebody, who is pitching to a 1.4 or so ERA, and actually pitching well. So I'd demote Peterson and promote him back up. I'd have Gsellman start in Petersons slot and plan to follow him after 3 or 4 innings with Lugo for 2 or three innings, since they both would need to be stretched out a little. The rest of the pen will be fine until Gsellman is established. If Carrasco is slow returning they can add Lugo as well, if they are no good trade candidates available.
the only problem I see with Peterson is that when he's bad he's terrible and doesn't give the team enough innings to spare the bullpen. He's made ten starts, and in four of them he's been a disaster, he was ok in one, and in five he's been pretty good.
Four disastrous starts: 9.1 IP 17 ER
Six other starts: 35 IP 12 ER
I attended a talk by Paul DePodesta and he talked about why the Mets signed Bartolo Colon even though they expected him to have an ERA in the upper 4, nearly 5 range. He said Bartolo gave his team innings, and the ERA was a product of him being hit hard one game, and alternating that with games where he'd only give up one or two runs. For a back end starter, they could live with a guy who gave them a very good chance to win in half his starts.
I'd let Peterson stay in the rotation for a while longer because he's been good in half his starts, even very good in a few. He just needs to figure out a way to suck it up when he starts out badly, and get out of an inning and give the team four or five innings in his rough starts.
FilmCarp said:
They sent down the hyphenated guy, Reid somebody, who is pitching to a 1.4 or so ERA, and actually pitching well. So I'd demote Peterson and promote him back up. I'd have Gsellman start in Petersons slot and plan to follow him after 3 or 4 innings with Lugo for 2 or three innings, since they both would need to be stretched out a little. The rest of the pen will be fine until Gsellman is established. If Carrasco is slow returning they can add Lugo as well, if they are no good trade candidates available.
OK, yeah Reid-Foley. He was pitching well.
Gsellman has been pretty poor historically when he starts.
I expected the Mets to have trouble against San Diego. But I expected them to score against the first two starters in the series. I expected the San Diego offense to win. Instead we are back to anemic hitting against two guys with ERAs around 5 or 5.5. And my pal Familia yet again walked in a run that gets charged to someone else. This does not bode well for DeGrom tonight.
FilmCarp said:
I expected the Mets to have trouble against San Diego. But I expected them to score against the first two starters in the series. I expected the San Diego offense to win. Instead we are back to anemic hitting against two guys with ERAs around 5 or 5.5. And my pal Familia yet again walked in a run that gets charged to someone else. This does not bode well for DeGrom tonight.
Blake Snell is not the typical 5 ERA pitcher. The way the pitching lined up for the two teams, the first two games of the series were going to be tough for the Mets. It's not going to get much easier tonight although Musgrove has mostly been a 5 inning pitcher since his no-hitter.
FilmCarp said:
I didn't get that gag during the game. What was it about?
Say the name now, for there may not be many chances for your tongue to caress the five syllables in the name Travis Blankenhorn. It seems like only yesterday we were in the midst of the Johneshwy Fargas era and it's already receding into the mists of memory.
I think in each game in which Blankenhorn has appeared, Gary and Ron have discussed in detail his being from Pottsville PA, without once including in such detail (as far as I heard) that Pottsville is the home of Yuengling, "America's Oldest Brewery."
In other news, incredible today when Ronnie prefaced Marcus Stroman's at bat with "Hit a double...Mets pitchers hit well in this ballpark," after which Stroman hit the first pitch for an RBI double. Great stuff.
The best part about this season so far is that they don't even need to think about making any trades. They're likely to get five position players and at least one starter back before the trade deadline. The IL is their reinforcements.
Another tidbit is that the Mets have thus far played only 20 home games (they are 15-5 at Citi). They have a ton of games to make up but at this point in the season they have thirteen more games left at home than on the road.
It is surprising where they are all things considered. But I did see that their record against winning teams is very bad, maybe 5-14? As far as trades, if a future bedrock third baseman were available I'd try to get him.
FilmCarp said:
It is surprising where they are all things considered. But I did see that their record against winning teams is very bad, maybe 5-14? As far as trades, if a future bedrock third baseman were available I'd try to get him.
I think it's even fewer games than that. I think they are 4-12 against winning team. But it's not the Mets fault that the Braves and Phils are still under.500.
And fwiw 14 of those 16 games were on the road. The only home games were 2-1 and 1-0 losses to the Red Sox.
True, but I am still a little hesitant to call them any sort of juggernaut. They seldom win big, and really good teams play 500 against other good teams while clobbering bad teams. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to look back at this post in August and call myself an idiot. But right now I think the subs are the guys impressing us, because usually we expect nothing from them.
FilmCarp said:
True, but I am still a little hesitant to call them any sort of juggernaut. They seldom win big, and really good teams play 500 against other good teams while clobbering bad teams. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to look back at this post in August and call myself an idiot. But right now I think the subs are the guys impressing us, because usually we expect nothing from them.
the Mets are not by any stretch an elite MLB team right now. They're only in first place because the other teams in the division are struggling. But they are banking wins right now with a lineup that's not much better than AAA. They could just have easily found themselves in the same position as the Nats at this point in the season. It may turn out that the postponements will be a good thing in that the regulars should be back when those games are made up.
If the subs can just play .500 ball for the next 3-4 weeks, the team will likely still be right in the thick of the division race. As Mets fans we get used to a constant state of pessimism, so I hate to say it, but I'm starting to like this team's chances the rest of the way. We know we've got the best pitcher in baseball, and two very good starters behind him. The bullpen has been good, the fielding and baserunning are light years better than last year. So reasons to at least be cautiously optimistic.
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the game will evolve again almost certainly. But right now there is such a lack of hitting outside the occasional HR, that there's very little action during most innings. We went to 3 baseball games on Thursday, first game of the DH at Citi, and both games at the Stadium. We realized that after the first two games we had seen exactly one play on the bases (outside of guys being thrown out at 1B) -- a stolen base in the first game. The scoring across the first two games was exactly 3 solo HRs.
Thankfully we finally saw the teams string together some hits in the nightcap, and a couple of pretty relays by the Blue Jays to throw two runners out at the plate.
But at this moment the pitchers are so far of the hitters, and the hitters don't know how to deal with defensive shifts, so the hitting is pitiful most of the time.