Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning, Mets fans!

The Mets lost a heartbreaker 6-5 to the Diamondbacks Tuesday night. The team was up 4-0, and the game went to extras, where Trevor May couldn’t close down a 5-4 lead in the 10th. You can read a recap of the game here.

The potential future of the Mets put on a show last night in Brooklyn.

Francisco Alvarez, the team’s top prospect, hit a massive dinger, and Brett Baty hit one to the opposite field, too, for Brooklyn. Ronny Mauricio, not to be out-done, had a two-run triple in the game. This Brooklyn offense is nasty right now, which makes sense when you have your first, second and fourth prospects batting in the middle of the order…

Now let’s get into the morning briefing.

Latest Mets News

The team claimed Travis Blankenhorn off waivers from the Mariners and release Wilfredo Tovar before Tuesday night’s game. He’s on the active roster, but he didn’t appear in last night’s game.

A handful of young Mets prospects received promotions or roster placements in the minors on Tuesday. They include: pitcher J.T. Ginn and outfielder Alexander Ramirez now on St. Lucie’s roster, and Tylor Megill was promoted from Double-A to Triple-A Syracuse.

In other Mets minor league news, Joseph Langan recapped the last week of games in the minors, including Jake Mangum continuing his welcome advancements with the bat.

Check out Francisco Lindor voicing support for Naomi Osaka with a message that players are people first.

There’s a Robinson Cano sighting today, too, as he celebrated the students graduating from his school in San Pedro, Domincan Republic, on Twitter.

And to end on a lighter note, here’s one FanDuel bettor who made almost $30,000 off a Mets parlay on Monday night. (Hitting those first three innings results is INSANE.)

Latest MLB News

Major League Baseball has been rumored to get into the NFT game — the process of selling and purchasing “non-fungable tokens,” or unique digital pieces of work, that give the buyer a exclusivity on certain digital properties. Tuesday, they announced the league officially will sell NFTs, similar to how the NBA sells its own NFTs under the Top Shot brand.

Moments or plays that will be able to be purchased as an NFT are ones Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan points out. Really, any moment — a strikeout from the 25th man on a roster up to the final pitch of a perfect game — could eventually be purchased, should MLB or an owner of a piece of digital art (like a photograph, video, gif, etc.) want to sell it.

MLB is partnering with Candy Digital to sell the NFTs.

Here’s some injury news from around the league:

The Yankees received Connor Cannon from the Giants to complete their trade of Mike Tauchmann to the Bay. Cannon is the “player to be named later” in the deal.

And in COVID vaccine news, the Marlins are one of the latest teams to reach the 85 percent vaccination threshold, according to Craig Mish.

Latest on MMO

Read Rob Piersall’s recollection of Johan Santana‘s no-hitter in 2012.

John Flanigan writes about Billy McKinney‘s burst of power with his short stint with the Mets thus far. He also crowns Marcus Stroman and James McCann as Players of the Week last week.

There were also recaps of a big Monday night performances from Pete Alonso (by Michael Nebbia), Kevin Pillar (by John Flanigan) and Jacob deGrom (by John Jackson).

Beyond the Blog

Empire State of Mind: Episode 09: Meet The Mets…Merized Team

We raise the curtain a bit this week when MMO Executive Editor Rob Piersall joins The Empire State of Mind Podcast. Host Zachary Grady and Rob talk about the past, present, and future of MetsMerized Online. Get to know the guys who put together your daily Mets content, and how MMO has became the pillar that it is today.

Locked On Mets: On today’s episode, host Ryan Finkelstein talks about last night’s frustrating extra-inning loss, as the Mets outstanding bullpen finally faltered in a close game. Ryan also discusses the performances of Trevor May and Jeurys Familia this season, and how the two pitchers have performed compared to their respective expectations.

On This Date in Mets History

A couple former Mets (and my brother, who played with the West Pines Mets) celebrate birthdays today, including: Kevin Chapman (65), Tim Stauffer (39 — he pitched 5.2 innings in the 2015 season, so it counts), Reid Cornelius (51), Kurt Abbott (52 —I somehow had about 17 of his baseball cards growing up) and Mike Stanton (54).

June is of course typically draft season, so a couple former Mets were drafted on this day, too, like Todd Hundley, Angel Pagan, Mike Jacobs and Ty Wigginton.

Let’s go Mets!