3 UP

1. A New Man

Noah Syndergaard has been one of the most vocal pitchers over the new ball, and its impact on him. Specifically, it’s robbed him of his slider. For a moment, it made him little more than a two pitch pitcher.

As the season has progressed, he’s worked on things. As he said after Sunday’s game, “Right now I’m still working on finding that slider, but it’s forcing me to continue to develop my other pitches.” Against the Rockies, that meant more four seamers and curves.

The end result was a dominating performance. Over seven shutout innings, he allowed just one hit and two walks while striking out seven. No Rockies player reached scoring position against him.

Overall, with five of his last six starts being quality starts, he’s getting back to being Thor.

2. Forgive Me Toddfather

Despite calls to bench Todd Frazier or to shoot him into the sun, the Mets stuck by him knowing he was the team’s best option at third base (especially since Jed Lowrie is as real as the Tooth Fairy).

The Mets faith in him has been rewarded as he’s helped rejuvenate this Mets offense. Over the last three weeks, he is hitting .333/.442/.556 with four doubles, four homers, and 13 RBI.

That makes him the team leader in doubles and RBI over this stretch. Only Wilson Ramos and Dominic Smith have a better OPS over this tome frame.

With his glove and his bat, Frazier has proven those wrong who wanted him gone. He’s been a big piece to this club, and the team needs him to keep it up as they look to make a run here.

3. Mets Beat a Good Team

One. Just one.

That’s how the grand total of series the Mets had won against teams with a winning record so far this year.

With the Mets taking two of three from the Rockies, that list is now up to two teams. If the Mets play like they did in this series, they will beat other good teams as well. If that’s the case, they can definitely make up the four games in the Wild Card and/or the five games in the division.

3 DOWN

1. Cano Acquisition Keeps Getting Worse

As pointed out over at Mets Daddy, somehow Robinson Cano (-0.5 WAR) has actually been worse than Jay Bruce (1.2 WAR) and Anthony Swarzak (0.2 WAR). That’s not likely to change with Cano headed back to the IL because apparently, his precautionary limping didn’t work.

In the realm of reasons why this trade would backfire on the Mets, few considered the possibility Cano could not outplay either Bruce or Swarzak in year one of the five years $100 million remaining on his contract.

No one could have possibly foretold how Bruce and Swarzak would be playing for the Phillies and Braves respectively helping those teams get ahead of the Mets in the division.

2. Chances Of Winning Are Gagnon

As the Mets bullpen has suffered partially due to Mickey Callaway leaning too often on the same guys repeatedly, there had been calls for Drew Gagnon to get the ball in pressure situations. Apparently, that plan stunk as well.

In Friday’s loss, Gagnon destroyed any chance for the Mets to comeback and tie the score by allowing homers to David Dahl and Daniel Murphy. He’d then plunk Ian Desmond causing a benches clearing brawl.

Gagnon has now allowed runs in three of this past performances. The problem is that there are so few good options in that pen right now.

3. Nido Effect

As we saw on Friday night, Jacob deGrom can pitch like Jacob deGrom when Ramos is behind the plate. That should come as no surprise as he had an all-time great year with Devin Mesoraco behind the plate last year.

Still, there was a push to make Tomas Nido his personal catcher. The idea wasn’t unfounded as deGrom did not yet look comfortable with Ramos and was struggling. However, now, it no longer looks to be an issue.

Well, we may soon hear something with respect to Syndergaard. In fact, we are already. As noted by Wayne Randazzo of WCBS and CERA enthusiasts everywhere Syndergaard has a 1.98 ERA while pitching to Nido. Sooner or later, this could lead to a push for Nido to become his personal catcher much like Rene Rivera once was.

This was all well and good when neither catcher was hitting and Ramos was still building a rapport with the pitching staff. However, the pitchers are more comfortable pitching to him now, and he’s been the Mets best regular at the plate over the last three weeks.

Ramos needs to play, and not every Mets starter should get a personal catcher. Also, and perhaps more importantly, stats like CERA and catcher winning percentage need to be forever shelved.