Morning Briefing: Lucchesi Looks to Continue Successful Run Against Nationals

Good morning, Mets fans!

The Mets fell to the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night by a score of 2-0. It ended the Mets’ three-game winning streak. Marcus Stroman pitched well, going seven innings while giving up four hits and striking out eight. His only blemish was a first inning two-run home run by Javier Baez. That was all the run support Cubs pitching needed.

They held the Mets to just two hits. Starter Kyle Hendricks pitched well, going six innings and giving up two hits while striking out seven. Andrew Chafin, Ryan Tepera and Craig Kimbrel all threw scoreless innings in relief to give the Cubs the victory.

The Mets head down to the nation’s capital on Friday to start a four-game, three-day series against the Washington Nationals, including a doubleheader on Saturday. The Nationals have won four games in a row, the last three coming courtesy of a sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates to start the week.

Left-hander Joey Lucchesi (1-4 5.18) gets the ball for the Mets. Lucchesi has given up just three earned runs in his last 17.1 innings pitched. He looks to try to continue that success on Friday. Erick Fedde (4-4 3.86) takes the hill for the Nationals in the series opener.

Latest Mets News

Mets manager Luis Rojas gave an update on pitcher Jacob deGrom prior to Thursday’s game against the Cubs. Rojas said that deGrom had an MRI done on his shoulder and the team received opinions from multiple doctors. All the doctors said that deGrom is ‘fine’ and that his latest rash of injuries are unrelated. There seems to be some confusion on why the injuries keep happening.

The club has not put deGrom on the injured list and has yet to make a decision on whether or not he will make his next start. According to a tweet from Ken Rosenthal, at least one of deGrom’s latest injuries came from him swinging the bat as a hitter in the National League. Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman joked with deGrom about the pitcher’s plate presence and his recent trend of injuries via text messaging.

Broadcaster Gary Thorne will be take over play-by-play duties during an upcoming Mets series on SNY. The news was mentioned during Wednesday night’s game broadcast and later confirmed by Mets Rewind. Thorne will fill in for Gary Cohen during the July 16-18 series in Pittsburgh against the Pirates. He will be teamed with Keith Hernandez.

Thorne is a familiar voice to Mets fans having broadcasted on both TV and radio for the team in the past. Most recently, he called Mets games for PIX11 from 1998-2002. His last stop was as the lead broadcaster for the Baltimore Orioles on MASN from 2007-2020. His contract was not renewed for the 2021 season.

Latest MLB News

For the second time in the 2021 season the New York Yankees turned a triple play. This time it was against the Toronto Blue Jays in Buffalo on Thursday night. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a ball back to pitcher Michael King with runners on second and third and nobody out. King threw the ball to first to get Guerrero for the out. From there, the Yankees got Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette on the bases to complete the triple play.

The Yanks swept the Toronto Blue Jays with an 8-4 victory on Thursday.

Cubs President of Baseball Operations, Jed Hoyer, made some news on Thursday night. He said on ESPN 1000 in Chicago that the team has to make good decisions and not emotional decisions when deciding on who the club will retain following the 2021 season.

Several key players on the Cubs are coming up on free agency including Javier Baez and Kris Bryant.

Jon Weil, Assistant General Manager of Scouting for the Colorado Rockies, will leave the team, according to Nick Groke of The Athletic. Weil has been with the organization for the past 16 years and has been in that position with the club since 2014.

Baseball insider Ryan Spaeder backtracked on a Twitter expose that he released on Wednesday. The expose attacked the integrity of the game and revealed information that cheating or getting an strategic advantage was more of a problem than originally though. Spaeder pulled the thread from his Twitter feed.

Spaeder gave many tidbits including one in which he claimed the New York Yankees used a camera to spy on the grip of an apposing pitcher and suggested that’s why Aaron Judge had such a discrepancy in his statistics from 2017-2018. He also made an allegations that the Kansas City Royals had a video department near their dugout in 2015. The Royals beat the New York Mets for the World Series title that season. Spaeder has now stated that he regrets leaking the information and that his life has been turned ‘upside down.’

The New York Yankees traded infielder Mike Ford to the Tampa Bay Rays for cash considerations and a player to be named later, the team announced via their Twitter page on Thursday. Ford signed with the Yankees as an amateur free agent in July of 2013. He made his major league debut with the team on April 18, 2019. His career got off to a great start hitting .259 with 12 home runs and 25 RBIs in just 163 plate appearances with the Yanks that season. However, Ford has struggled at the big league level since.

This season, he hit just .133 with three home runs and five RBIs in 72 plate appearances and was designated for assignment by the club on June 12. The Belle Mead, New Jersey native will be sent to the Rays Triple-A affiliate in Durham, North Carolina.

Latest NL East News

The Atlanta Braves defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0 on Thursday behind a solid effort from starter Charlie Morton. Morton had a no-hitter going until Paul Goldschmidt broke up the bid with one out in the seventh inning. The win put the Braves at 31-35 and they trail the Mets by 6.5 games in the NL East.

Latest on MMO

Trevor May spoke on his vlog about Major League Baseball’s crackdown on sticky substances. Alexis Farinacci has the details.

The starting rotation for the New York Mets has been a big reason why the club has had so much success so far in 2021. Matt Musico discusses just how good they’ve been.

Of all the offseason additions the Mets made, Aaron Loup never gets talked about. Michael Mayer thinks that’s wrong as Loup has been a key addition to the club in 2021.

Beyond the Blog

Mets Maniacs: Tune into the latest edition of Mets Maniacs, where hosts Ty Wilkes and Uncle Mike (Mike Breznak) talk about the Mets three wins against the Cubs, Taijuan Walker’s continued brilliance, excellent team defense, and of course, deGrom’s latest injury news and impact. The Mets are now 20-6 at home…get excited, get maniacal, and give it a listen!

Locked On Mets: On today’s episode, host Ryan Finkelstein is joined by Joe Kilgallon, host of Locked On Cubs for a recap of this series. Joe talks about the Cubs season so far and the growing disdain amongst fans over ownership’s lack of spending, despite having a team still ready to win now.

Also could this series have been an early preview of the NLDS this season and what else do these teams need to add to get there?

On This Date in Mets History

2012: R.A. Dickey threw his second consecutive one-hitter when he beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-0 at Citi Field. He struck out a career-high 13 batters t0 bring his record to 11-1. First baseman Ike Davis hit a first inning grand slam to give Dickey all the cushion he needed. It was a signature win in his Cy Young award-winning season.

Birthdays: Ben Johnson (40), Felix Heredia (46), Sandy Alomar Jr (55), Dave Schneck (72)

Let’s go Mets!