Good morning, Mets fans!

Star center fielder Brandon Nimmo received treatment on his injured hip — labeled a mild impingement — on Monday.

Luis Rojas said Nimmo could be back in the lineup as early as today, and he even pinch hit in Tuesday night’s game (and eventually struck out).

Now let’s get into the morning briefing.

Latest Mets News

The Mets lost 2-1 to the Red Sox Tuesday night after a great start from David Peterson. A solo home run from Jeff McNeil provided the only run for the game. Read the recap here.

The Mets optioned Stephen Tarpley back to the alternate training site and recalled José Peraza from the same location before Tuesday’s game.

Jerry Blevins announced his retirement Tuesday. He tried making a return this spring, eventually being optioned to the alternate site for the start of the season, but Blevins ultimately made the decision to retire after 13 season in the bigs.

Read Elizabeth Merrill’s story about how the 1969 Mets have stuck together through the pandemic here. It really emphasizes how the team needs to make sure the team gets all of its flowers while its remaining members are still with us.

ESPN previewed their upcoming four-part 30 for 30 documentary Once Upon A Time in Queens about the 1986 World Series team. It will be released some time in 2021, and one would assume they’d do it some time during baseball season.

The documentary will feature players pictured below, including Keith Hernandez, Doc Gooden, and Daryl Strawberry, and others, as well. It’s executively produced in part by Jimmy Kimmel and his cousin, Sal Iocano, and it will feature “hours of never-before-seen footage,” according to Variety.

MLB.com released its first 2021 mock draft this week. It currently slots Wake Forest righty Ryan Cusick to the Mets at No. 10. The draft is loaded with top-end pitching talent, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Mets go starter there–especially if one of the premier guys somehow falls.

Former Met Sean Gilmartin signed with the Long Island Ducks, according to the club. L.J. Mazzilli and Ty Kelly, both former Mets products, also signed with the Ducks for the upcoming season.

Latest MLB News

This isn’t exactly MLB news, but the Pioneer League — an independent league in the Midwest and Big Sky regions of the country — revealed its new rules for the upcoming season. The most intriguing: sudden death home run derby.

The rule will kind of work like soccer free kicks, but imagine one player getting all the kicks. In the Pioneer League, one player will be designated for each team as their representative. Each player will get five pitches to hit as many home runs as they can. If it’s tied after a round, each team will send up new representatives. JJ Cooper said on Twitter he believes each team will get to select its own person to throw the pitches.

Madison Bumgarner‘s no-hitter, which he threw in a seven-inning game Sunday, will for now be in the record books as a “notable achievement” rather than a no-hitter, according to Jon Heyman. Take that for what you will, but MLB pussyfooting about whether to call a spade a spade isn’t a fabulous look. MLB set the rules that seven-inning games were complete games. No-hitters within the scope of those rules should count as such.

An injury-riddle season continues for the White Sox as they announced Tuesday that Luis Robert was placed on the IL due to “flu-like symptoms.” It’s not a confirmed COVID-19 case yet, but this will still put Robert out for a couple days at the minimum.

In other injury news, the Cardinals put Yadier Molina on the injured list with a foot injury. Former Met Ali Sanchez was called up in his place.

Jon Morosi also reported Braves pitcher Mike Soroka won’t return until at least June as he waits for inflamation in his repaired Achilles tendon to heal.

MLB.com‘s Bryan Hoch says Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka will get more playing time, taking plate appearances away from Gary Sanchez in all likelihood.

The Yankees also announced a trade for reliever Wandy Peralta from the San Francisco Giants in exchange for Mike Tauchman, whose is being dealt after his playing time dropped following a breakout 2019 season.

The Mariners claimed Jack Mayfield of waivers from the Angels after he was designated for assignment over the weekend.

The Phillies sent down reliever Spencer Howard to their alternate training site earlier this week, but Matt Breen of The Philadelphia Inquirer says that was done to stretch him out to become a starter after poor back-end rotation performances. Howard hasn’t performed particularly well out of the bullpen, giving up four runs in 4.1 innings so far this year. The 24-year-old started six games for the Phils last season.

MLB Network announced Yonder Alonso has joined the network as a contributor.

Latest on MMO

Read Mathew Brownstein’s exclusive interview with former Met T.J. Rivera.

Brian Devine gives Jacob deGrom (of course) and Pete Alonso Players of the Week honors for their performances last week.

More analysis from the Mets’ previous week came from Anthony J. Parelli here.

Rich Sparago previewed the Mets’ two-game set with the Red Sox here.

John Flanigan also analyzed the moment David Wright became the fastest Met to 1,000 hits yesterday.

Beyond the Blog

Empire State of Mind: On the fifth episode, host Zachary Grady sits down with Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic and Ryan Schofield of the “Running With The Devil” podcast to talk Red Sox and Cardinals.

Jen McCaffrey of the Athletic talks about the surprise first place Boston Red Sox and the return of Alex Cora. Also, we preview next week’s four game set against the St. Louis Cardinals with Ryan Schofield, host of the “Running with the Devil” podcast and lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan.

Make sure to vote on this week’s twitter poll. Like, rate, review, and subscribe @EmpireStatePod on Twitter and @EmpireStateOfMindPod on Instagram.

Locked On Mets: On today’s episode, host Ryan Finkelstein laments another loss where the Mets couldn’t produce offensively. He talks about Garrett Richards dominance against the Mets and their propensity to lose to bad starting pitchers.

Ryan also previews tonight’s game with Jacob deGrom on the mound, squaring off against a familiar face in former Phillie Nick Pivetta.

On This Date in Mets History

On this date in 1967, Mets radio legend Lindsey Nelson broadcasted a game against the Astros from above second base.

The story, as this article tells it, is a radio producer asked Astrodome officials if the “gondola” above the field would hold a couple people and if it would be possible to call a game from there. When the official said yes to both questions, Nelson and the producer headed up, of course.

Nelson apparently did play-by-play for the seventh and eighth innings while Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner handled duties and communicated with Nelson via walkie talkie, as the article recalls. Nelson said calling the game from 200 feet in the air: “Everybody looked the same height, everybody looked short. You couldn’t tell a line drive from a pop fly.”

If a ball hit Nelson or Joe Gallagher, the producer, it would be considered in play, according to the umpires, because the contraption the pair were sitting on was deemed in play, too.

Though we see broadcast teams like Gary, Keith and Ron call games from the stands, no one has ever called a baseball game from the field of play since then.

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Dillon Gee celebrates his birthday on this day, too! Happy 35th to the man who currently ranks 23rd in Mets history in games started.

Let’s go Mets!