Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning, Mets fans!

Jacob deGrom left Friday night’s game after six innings with a little bit of inflammation in his right elbow. After a little bit of concern about if he’d miss his next start, Luis Rojas confirmed deGrom will pitch Wednesday night against the Cubs.

The best pitcher in baseball sports a 0.56 ERA over 64 innings in 10 starts. He has 103 strikeouts to just eight walks.

Now let’s get into the morning briefing.

Latest Mets News

The Mets won an intense game 3-2 over the Cubs Tuesday night behind a stellar Taijuan Walker start. Pete Alonso supplied all three RBIs, and Seth Lugo finished the final two frames (the ninth being particularly nerve-wracking) to give the Mets their second win in a row. You can read the recap here.

Jeff McNeil joined Triple-A Syracuse for his next step in rehab after a game with High-A Brooklyn. McNeil had a single in four at-bats in his first game with Syracuse Tuesday night. He played five innings at second base.

Johneswhy Fargas is slowly coming back from his shoulder injury, as John Flanigan points out.

J.T. Ginn threw four scoreless innings for the St. Lucie Mets in his third career start. He’s now allowed just one run in his first 11 professional innings.

Read Devan Fink’s partly serious, partly absurd article arguing why hitters should just not swing at Jacob deGrom‘s pitches, and why they might be more successful doing so. (Hint: it has something to do with the fact deGrom’s 21 strikeouts in his last two starts all came outside of the strike zone.) (Also hint: I bet deGrom reads this and is now a step or two ahead of a batter he senses might use this strategy.)

The Mets purchased pitcher David Griffin‘s contract from the Gary Southshore Railcats of the American Association of Professional Baseball. Griffin pitched to a 4.30 ERA over 31.1 innings for the Railcats, according to the team’s press release.

Latest MLB News

Major League Baseball officially released its memo regarding pitchers using foreign substances Tuesday. The highlights are each starting pitcher will be required to be checked at least once per game. Relief pitchers will also be checked. (So much for pace of play, right?) Pitchers who are caught will serve a 10-game paid suspension. If a position player is found to be the one who applied the foreign substance, both the player and pitcher will be ejected and suspended.

Baseball Reference updated their site Tuesday to properly represent swaths of stats from the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948. This is proper due for the players of the Negro Leagues.

Major League Baseball finally recognized the Negro Leagues as a major league this offseason, and people speculated what that would mean for stats and records of major-league players who spent time solely in the Negro Leagues (like Josh Gibson) and both in Negro Leagues and MLB (Jackie Robinson). Baseball Reference made clear that the Negro Leagues in their eyes “have always been major leagues.”

“We are not bestowing a new status on these players or their accomplishments,” the site said. “We are changing our site’s presentation to properly recognize this fact.”

Max Scherzer, perennial Cy Young contender and potential prize jewel of the 2021 trade deadline, was placed on the injured list with groin inflammation.

In other news about aces, Tyler Glasnow was diagnosed with a partially torn UCL and right flexor inflammation (we’ve gotten familiar with that recently), according to ESPN‘s Jeff Passan. He will try to rehab and avoid surgery for now, though. It still is a big bummer for the Rays and baseball in general.

Britt Ghiroli and Eno Sarris take a dive for The Athletic into the results of spin rates the last week or so since MLB cracked down on pitchers using foreign substances.

Injuries woes continue for the White Sox as Nick Madrigal was officially declared out for the rest of the season following hamstring surgery. Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez have also been out extended periods of time.

Chris Sale made another step in his recovery from Tommy John surgery, practicing with the Triple-A Red Sox affiliate.

The Marlins called up their fifth-ranked prospect Jesús Sánchez. He had 29 plate appearances in 2020 at the major-league level and had one hit and four walks.

Former Met Wilson Ramos was designated for assignment by the Tigers. After hitting six home runs in his first nine games, Ramos hadn’t hit a single one since April 13. He was hitting .200 with a .630 OPS at the time of his release.

The Phillies signed Brock Stassi to a minor-league contract. The Long Island Ducks, who Stassi played 14 games for this year, announced the deal.

For anyone interested in MLB jobs, the -30- newsletter just dropped a resource with over 100 jobs currently available across baseball. You can subscribe to the newsletter and get it here.

Latest on MMO

Jacob deGrom and Billy McKinney were dubbed Players of the Week by John Flanigan.

Flanigan also analyzed the team’s latest injury updates and Billy McKinney’s playing time situation once Michael Conforto returns.

Anthony Parelli took a look at Dominic Smith‘s breakout game from Monday, and John Jackson looks at what went right in David Peterson‘s six-inning scoreless outing. Jack Ramsey piggybacks on that with an analysis of the back-of-the-rotation guys.

Beyond the Blog

Empire State of Mind: Episode Ten: A Home and Home.

ESPN Radio’s Charlie Voelker joins the Empire State of Mind Pod for the back half of a home and home from our debut episode. Co-Host of “The Drive with Charlie & Dan” on 104.5FM The Team, Charlie Voelker is our guest as we discuss Mets trade rumors, the return of the rotation, and how the Mets have remained in first place despite having a league-leading sixteen players on the injured list. Make sure to follow the Empire State of Mind Podcast on Instagram @EmpireStateofMindPod and on Twitter @EmpireStatePod.

Locked On Mets: On today’s episode, host Ryan Finkelstein talks about last night’s victory over the Chicago Cubs, as Taijuan Walker’s brilliant season continues. Seth Lugo got the two-inning save in the contest and Ryan talks about what his return has meant to the Mets bullpen. Also, who gets taken out of this starting lineup when Jeff McNeil returns from the IL? Listen to find out.

On This Date in Mets History

The Mets and Yankees played their first game against each other ever on June 16, 1997.

The Mets won 6-0, and Dave Mlicki threw a complete game shutout. (One of two in his career.) John Olerud had three RBI for the Mets. Joe Girardi had three of the Yankees’ eight hits. I hope you’ve had some fun remembering some folks.

Despite the win, the Mets went 12-28 over their next 40 regular season games against the Bombers. Overall in the regular season, the Mets are 54-74 against the Yankees. (There are five other games we don’t talk about much.)

The Mets play the Yankees six times this season — three on July 4 weekend, and three more (at Citi Field) on weekend of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Check out some of Mlicki’s highlights below.

Let’s go Mets!