The Crane Pool Forum

The Mets take their four-game winning streak (eight of ten, babies!) to the left coast, where the Dodgies wait for them, ready to throw Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the pitcher who was the Mets' primary offseason target. The Mets counter with Sean Manaea, the guy they ultimately pivoted to, and what a sub-plot for a Friday-night showdown!

As Gary mentioned during today's game, the first outing for Y^2 lasted just one inning and was awful [9 batters faced, 5 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 2 K]
The next three have been much better: 0 Runs (StL), 0 R (CHC), 3 R (SDP) going exactly 5 innings each time. LAD is also using him more
sparingly going 9 days between starts one & 2 (due in part to the Korean series), then on the 7th day after start #2 and the 6th after #3
Friday will be one week since his last outing.
Going under the hood a bit more, the skinny is that his fastball appears rather straight and is the pitch getting hit most despite the high velo.




copyright pending

West coast trips give me nightmares

At least three of the next six out there are 'afternooners.' And
no Apple games. It's the little things...

kcmets wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 9:00 am At least three of the next six out there are 'afternooners.' And
no Apple games. It's the little things...

Yeah, this helps - essentially three late games (Friday, Monday and Tuesday) where I will miss nearly all of the baseball.

I'm not sold yet on the Dodgers being so great for now anyway

Sweep'em Mets

ashie62 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 8:55 am I'm not sold yet on the Dodgers being so great for now anyway

They probably are. Not that it's gonna matter as much in the playoffs. I think that the value and prestige of first place finishes and even WS titles have been greatly diminished under the new format.

But as of now, the Dodgers would be in third place and out of the money if they played in the NL East. They're only a half game better than the Mets in the standings.

The Dodgers are kind of weird-good right now.

They've got a great starting six: Freddie (142 career OPS+), Mookie (139), Shohei (150), Teoscar Hernandez (118), Will Smith (126 at C), Max Muncy (121)
but are suspect 7-8-9: James Outman, Gavin Lux, Chris Taylor. And while it's great that a guy like Mookie can come out of the OF and play middle IF, the
fact that you've got him playing SS means you don't have a real one which would allow him to play elsewhere.

And then there's the pitching.
Kershaw will be available second half at best. Shohei will be next year at best. Yamamoto is promising but unproven. Glasgow is good though now in his 9th
season he has one full one (2018 as a reliever) plus a 'full' 2020 (11 starts). Since then it's 14, 2, & 21 starts from '21-'23. And now at age 31 (mid-season)
he's signed for four years at north of $30m/per. James Paxton was good once but not consistently or lately and is now 35 y/o.

Other guys are injured and unavailable too. Some of that is bad luck, but you'd think spending a couple of billion would buy you better depth than this
on both sides of the ball. And (sss alert) a +12 RS/RA ratio thru 20 games (106/94) hardly screams 'Dominating'.

Have we heard if Baty is available to pinch-hit?
Later

Dunno, but read this before...

Brett Baty (hamstring) remained out of the Mets’ starting lineup for Friday night’s series opener against the Dodgers.
The good news, is that Baty was able to go through a full workout prior to the game and hasn’t been placed on the injured list, so the Mets seem to think that he’ll be back in relatively short order.

OE: posted without reading metirish post....

Game time

Wendle plays tonight. Mets optimistic Baty stays off the IL

Tonkin active, Hartwig optioned, Tyler Jay outrighted.

The DJ is playing some good tunes

Alvarez looked hurt but it was hard to see what happened!

Always a pleasure to see Mary Hart and Burt Sugarman, and an even bigger pleasure to take a 2-0 lead over their favorite team.

Than again, he’s giving high-fives so he must be ok.

That's one way to diagnose him.

Now we need to get eight innings out of Narváez, or it'll be Zack Short's turn to show what he's got.

I enjoy two-out RBI doink singles by Alonso more than his homers.

Hey the Mets look good this year.

Twas a 1 out Alonso hit

DJ Stewart telling JD Martinez to take all the time he needs, maybe see some old friends.

Literally logged in to make this exact joke.

Probably not as well.

Looks like took Alvarez out.

The Mets may chase this guy early.