Photo by Allen Greene Photography

Kiensa Lehigh Valley (63-70) 5, Syracuse (71-63) 3 Box

The Mets took a quick 2-0 lead, but Gagnon quickly gave the lead back up by giving two runs in the second and three runs in the third. Gagnon allowed three home runs, making it the sixth time this season he’s had an outing allowing multiple home runs. Even with his ugly outing, Gagnon has been one of the best pitchers in the International League this season. This was only Pounders’ second appearance since being DFA’d on August 20th.

The Mets struck out 11 times and tallied only five hits. Despite that paltry offensive production, they still managed to tally three runs on the board. Jason Krizan‘s hit .333/.417/.548 since his promotion to Syracuse.

Herrera’s hit a bit of a skid over the last week; he’s hitting only .195/.283/.244 over his last 11 games. Sam Haggerty could position himself as a late-season reserve with a strong few weeks in Syracuse.

Brandon Nimmo continued his rehab stint with his sixth game with the Syracuse Mets. He walked and scored a run in the first inning. The Mets could activate him from the IL as soon as this weekend per Mike Puma of The New York Post. 

Portland (58-74) 5, Binghamton (63-70) 3 Game 1 | F/7 Box 

  • RHP Tony Dibrell (L, 0-8, 9.40 ERA): 4.2 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 4 K, 3 BB
  • RHP Joseph Shaw (1-4, 4.06 ERA): 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 K, BB

Dibrell hasn’t found the transition to Double-A quite as easy as expected. After excelling at St.Lucie earlier this season, the 23-year-old right-hander hasn’t been able to enjoy the success in Double-A. He’s been lit up almost every start and currently owns the highest ERA in the Eastern League. Since his fastball currently sits in the high-80’s/low-90s, so he’ll need up to curtail the walks and increase his fastball velocity up a couple of ticks in order to advance to the next level of the minors.

Gimenez has himself a nice little hot streak, which is an especially encouraging sign taking into account his season-long struggles with the Rumble Ponies. Jeremy Vasquez has a .294/.368/.353 line in his first 17 at-bats with Binghamton. He’ll need to add a bit of power to succeed at the upper levels of the Majors.

Down 5-0 entering the seventh and final frame, the Ponies rallied to score three runs, but Austin Bossart grounded into a game-ending double play with the bases loaded to prevent any more runs from scoring.

Portland (59-74) 1, Binghamton (63-71) 0 Game 2 | F/7 Box 

Binghamton couldn’t get anything going from an offensive standout with Brodey’s sixth-inning single representing their only hit of the game. A Jeremy Vasquez walk in the fifth was the only other baserunner that the Binghamton was able to tack on against a trio of the Sea Dogs’ pitchers.

Campos made only his second start of the season, but was able to get through 2.2 innings with minimal damage. He was a strict pitch count and was removed after his 50th pitch of the night. Taylor, who’s been a revelation this season, didn’t allow a hit over the next 2.1 frames, tacking on three strikeouts as well. However, the only Rumble Pony reliever that’s been arguably better than him has been Uceta, who’s followed up an injury-plagued 2018 with a dominant 2019 campaign.

Columbia (52-78) 3, Hickory (79-50) 2 Box

  • RHP Alec Kisena (5-2, 3.32 ERA): 6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 6 K, 2 BB
  • RHP Justin Lasko (W, 4-2, 1.69 ERA): 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, K, BB
  • RHP Willy Tavares (6-11, 5.14 ERA): 1 IP, H, 0 R
  • RHP Allan Winans (1-3, 2.95 ERA): 1 IP, 0 H, 2 K

The Mets might want to start stretching out Kiensa and deploying him as a starter for the 2020 campaign. As a starter for the Fireflies in 2019, he’s hurled 14 innings of three-run ball. He’s turned it up a notch in the second half, pitching to a 2.05 ERA over 30 innings. Yesterday, Kisena turned in his finest start of the season, striking out six over 6.2 innings, facing a lineup that included Josh Jung, the eighth pick of the 2019 draft. With a few more starts like that, he could emerge as another promising starting pitcher rising up the ranks of the Mets minor-league system.

The Fireflies scratched across three runs, which was enough to take down the Crawdads with Kisena’s strong start. Rasquin’s seventh-inning homer was the difference-maker. Sharp collected two hits, his second one being his 12th double of the season. He has some of biggest raw power among Mets farmhands, but has found it difficult to translate both that and his hit tool into games this season

Daytona Tortugas (65-67) 6, St.Lucie (67-65) 5  Box

Can someone confirm that the St.Lucie Mets losing 13 games in a row is not good? With their 6-5 defeat at the hands of Willians Astudillo‘s honorary team, the Mets have set a franchise record with their 13 consecutive loss. Rennie had a pretty solid outing, but was killed by his defense, which allowed three earned runs to score. Manny Rodriguez was the main culprit as his throwing error in the fifth led to three more runs to score in that inning.

The Mets offense wasted an above-average night. Zach Ashford had a four-hit night while Mitch Ghelfi and Manny Rodriguez also had multi-hit efforts. All of the Mets’ damage came during their five-run fifth. After Ashford singled in Hansel Moreno and Blake Tiberi to take the lead and Matt Winaker hit a sacrifice fly, Rodriguez hit a booming line into left field to extend the lead to 5-1. However, over the next two frames, Rennie would proceed to give the lead right back.

Ashford was given a promotion to St.Lucie to finish off the season and he’s started off strong, racking up five hits over his first three games.

Vermont (31-39) 3, Brooklyn (39-30) 2 F/10 Box

This one had to go to extras to determine a winner. But unfortunately, the Cyclones weren’t the victors in this contest. In the tenth inning, Matt Mullenbach uncorked a wild pitch that allowed the go-ahead run to score. That pitch ruined an impressive outing by Valentino, who limited the damage to two runs over 5.1 innings. He also struck out eight.

Much like their fellow affiliates, the Cyclones struggled with making contact last night. As a team, they struck out 13 times. However, they had solid offensive showings from both Garay and Reyes, who both contributed multiple-hits outings. Reyes has emerged as a player to keep an eye on with his increased defensive versatility and quality offensive production this season. That being said, he’ll need to work on his plate discipline as his current 2.8% walk percentage doesn’t cut it.

Johnson City (34-33) 9, Kingsport (34-33) 4 Box

Mets lost a crucial game last night. They were sitting a game ahead of the Bristol Pirates, the Elizabethtown Twins, and the Johnson City Cardinals, but after last night’s loss to the Cardinals and Elizabethtown’s win, they are tied with the Cardinals. Tomorrow’s game will decide the season.

  • LHP Cesar Loaiza (1-4, 5.71 ERA): 1.2 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 2 K, 3 BB

The Cardinals knocked out Loaiza before the second inning was over. It went down as a season-worst outing for Loaiza, who gave up more runs than outs recorded. Loaiza did get a little bit unlucky with his defense as Christopher Pujols committed a key error that led to two unearned runs in the first and a passed ball on a strikeout led to the three-run second.

Brett Baty continued his hot stretch with a 1-for-3 that included a walk, RBI, and run. After struggling mightily with the GCL on the outset on his career, he’s slashing .318/.388/.591 over his last ten games. The Mets couldn’t really get much going offensively, striking out ten times throughout the game. Francisco Alvarez had a rare 0-for-4 showing.

GCL Nationals (25-23) 9, GCL Mets (29-24) 1 Box

  • RHP Adrian Aybar (1-3, 4.61 ERA): 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 5 K

Senger, the Mets’ 26th round selection in the 2019 draft, had the worst outing of his professional career, giving up four runs in only 0.1 of an inning. Ronnie Taylor has 21 strikeouts in his 14 innings, but that also comes with a troubling 5.79 BB/9 mark.

Half of the Mets’ hits came courtesy of the catcher O’Neill. Freddy Valdez recorded his first hit in the Gulf Coast League with an RBI single in the second inning. Federico Polanco has recorded eight stolen bases in only 14 games with the GCL Mets.