The Morning Report 4.9.2015 | Harvey Day Returns!, Kluber signs extension, Sandy has some fun

• At least we don't have to worry about trying for a perfect season anymore. Jordan Zimmerman was excellent last night and was the beneficiary of a few "less than ideal" calls as well as some excellent defense from 3B Yunel Escobar and 1B Ryan Zimmerman. deGrom was just as good as J. Zim and made only 1 mistake in the entire. Honestly...it wasn't even a mistake, I can't believe Ryan Zim was able to turn on that inside fastball. As a side note, boy was Montero solid out of the pen last night.

• The Cleveland Indians announced that they signed AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber to a 5 year $38.5M extension as they begin locking up a long term core for the future. The significance for the Mets is that it's builds a decent base should the club engage their own CY Young candidate Matt Harvey in extension talks. Both guys in their 1st seasons posted 3.30 FIP, both guys in their second seasons posted CY Young caliber numbers and K rates near 10 per 9 innings, and both guys entire 2015 with 2 years and 70ish days of service time under their belts. Kluber's deal covers all 3 arbitration years as well as 1 free agent years and contains 2 club options that can be worth up to $35.5M.  If Harvey comes out and dominates, he will probably get a little more money that Kluber but the 5 yr/$38.5M is an excellent starting point.

Associated Press | CBS New York- Terry Collins was meeting with reporters, preparing for questions about lineup decisions, when GM Sandy Alderson spoke up from the back of the room.
“Hey, Terry. Here’s your lineup for tomorrow,” Alderson said, then reached over and handed a blue card to Collins. Finishing the bit, Collins put the prop in a pocket and joked, “I was waiting for that all day.” Before their team even played its second game of the season, Collins and Alderson were drawn into a debate over whether the skipper or the front office is figuring out who bats where.

(Chris Soto: Gotta admit....that was quite funny. Alderson listens, he hears what fans are saying and sometimes he likes to have fun with the crazy conspiracy theories that are thrown around. According to TC, Bench Coach Bob Geren is actually the creator of the new line-up but that didn't stop Sandy from having a little fun with it. In my opinion, we honestly cannot draw any conclusions from only 3 games of data, especially considering we are facing Strasburg, Zimmerman, and Scherzer. I'll give this line-up until the end of the opening home stand before I draw a conclusion on it's results.)


Matt Vaccaro | New York Post- Harvey’s better! Harvey’s better! Harvey’s better! “It makes that matchup going forward even more special,” Harvey said. So that will make everything about Thursday — save for the weather, which is supposed to be even colder and rawer than it was on April 19, 2013 — perfect, when Harvey returns to a major league mound in a regular-season game for the first time in 593 days. Harvey versus Strasburg is precisely the kind of marquee pitching matchup designed to bring the best out of both pupils of Boras U.

(Chris Soto: It's here, the day we've all been waiting for. The Dark Knight of Flushing returns to the mound tonight in a role that he is meant to be in. The series is tied 1-1 against the Nationals...winning today means a leg up in the NL East heading into an opportunity to build that lead against weaker divisional opponents. The team needs a spark of any kind to fire up the offense and there is no bigger piece of flint then the return of arguably the best young SP in Mets history since Dwight Gooden. There's going to be electricity in the air today folks....and Harvey is going feed off of it, blow 98 mph fastballs by hitters, and prove once again why he's better.)

LETS GO METS!