3 UP

1. Walk-Off Magic

On Monday, the Mets won the first game of the doubleheader. on a Wilmer Flores walk-off homer. This gave him the Mets record with 10 walk-off hits.  His four walk-off homers tie him with Mets legends like Mike Piazza and Cleon Jones for most in team history.  If he wears “Ca Tire” instead of “Walk-Off Wilmer” on his jersey for Players’ Weekend, we should all be severely disappointed.

One other note on Flores is he is hitting .306/.337/.576 since coming off the disabled list.  As we saw with his over the shoulder catch and throw home, this is a guy who is playing hard on a team 16 games under .500.  He’s a player with real integrity, and he’s a guy who loves to be here.

Speaking of players who always play hard and love being here, Brandon Nimmo won last night’s game with a walk-off three run homer.

Armed with his trademark smile, Nimmo said what we were all thinking when he thanked the fans for continuing to support a team who is playing this poorly.

Overall, these are two players who make it easy to be Mets fans.  They seemingly love us as much as we love them.  More than that, they delivered with big homers to give the fans something to cheer about in this lost season.

 2.  Jake is Great

With his eight shutout innings, Jacob deGrom has now tied Dwight Gooden‘s team record for best ERA (1.68) heading into the All-Star break. Of course, Gooden had 13 wins against deGrom’s five.

As the season progresses, we can continue to be completely dumbfounded how this Mets team can only manage to get five wins for the best pitcher in baseball.  Instead, we can focus on more positive things like how with each pitch and each start deGrom further cements himself into Tom Seaver and Gooden territory.

We are all watching a special pitcher do special things.  We should appreciate it even if his offense, defense, bullpen, and ownership don’t.

3.Young Pitching

With the Mets being 16 games under .500, one of the things the team should be focused upon is learning something about the young players on the roster.  This includes their young pitching. That young pitching acquitted themselves well in this series.

Corey Oswalt rebounded from his last start to limit the Phillies to notch the first quality start of his career.  In six innings, he allowed three earned on just one hit with three walks and seven strikeouts.  What was really impressive was after that very difficult fifth inning, he rebounded to pitch a scoreless sixth.

In his one appearance, Tyler Bashlor allowed one earned on three hits in 2.1 innings, and P.J. Conlon had his best appearance as a professional pitching two scoreless innings while striking out three.

Additionally, Tim Peterson picked up his second win of the season after Flores’ walk-off homer.

Where each of these pitchers go from here remains to be seen, but their performances in this series was encouraging.  It is also encouraging they got opportunities in the first place.

3 DOWN

1. What’s the Point?

With Todd Frazier landing on the disabled list, there was an avenue for the Mets to call-up Jeff McNeil.

The Mets opted not to call-up McNeil citing their belief he’s just a second baseman. They said that despite McNeil playing 148 games at third as opposed to 209 at second.

Regardless, the Frazier injury did permit the Mets to shift Wilmer Flores to second or third and put Dominic Smith at first base.

No, apparently that’s not an option either.

Instead, we looked on with a lineup with includes Jose Reyes at third, Ty Kelly in left, and Drew Gagnon on the mound.

Kevin Kaczmarksi was sent down in favor of Matt den Dekker because while the Mets couldn’t find at-bats for Kaczmarski, they could start den Dekker in center the first game he was recalled.

It’s one thing to be a bad team.  It’s another thing entirely to actively try to do things which hurt the development of your prospects for the sake of getting playing time for players like Reyes.

2. Trade Assets Go Bust

So much for Asdrubal Cabrera playing well of late.  He’s now sitting with a hyper-extended elbow.

After his incredible walk-off grand slam, Jose Bautista is 2-for-19.

Since June 1st, Devin Mesoraco is hitting .227/.310/.333. More than that, his pitch framing numbers are poor, and he’s only thrown out 25 percent of base stealers.

It’s funny when you think about it. They’re getting this playing time to help them build up trade value.  Instead, they’re ruining what little value they were perceived to have.

3.  Can’t Hit At Home

Currently, the Mets ranks dead last in the majors in almost every offensive category at home:

  • Hits (316)
  • Runs (143)
  • RBI (140)
  • Batting Average (.207)
  • OBP (.283)
  • SLG (.337)
  • OPS (.620)
  • wOBA (.273)
  • wRC+ (77)

As noted by Gary Cohen in last night’s broadcast, if the Mets follow this trajectory, they will have the worst home team batting average since the 1910 White Sox.  As we see from the other stats, the Mets offense at home is much worse than that.