The Morning Report 10.6.2015 | Game 1 and 2 Start Times Announced, Kevin Long Confident in Mets Lefties vs Dodgers Lefties, Juan Uribe Unlikely for NLDS

Not much to talk about folks...I'm probably going to skip tomorrow's morning report to work on my "Tale of the Tape" report for Friday.

Mike Puma | New York Post- So much for the Dodger Stadium shadows becoming a factor for the first two games of the NLDS. MLB released the start times of the games Monday, and the shadows between the mound and home plate are expected to have passed by the time first pitch is thrown at 6:45 pm PDT  for Game 1 on Friday. The same goes for Game 2, which is slated for 6:07 p.m PDT Saturday.

(Chris Soto: It may not seem like much...but any sort of additional advantage that we can take away from Kershaw and Grienke helps immensely. The start times are a bit of an inconvience to Mets fans since it will be almost 10pm when the game starts but hey.....West Coast baseball.)

Brian Devine | Metsmerized Online- Even with the Mets scheduled to face three southpaws in the NLDS, hitting coach Kevin Long isn’t concerned about how his top left handed bats will perform. “It’s the playoffs, that’s the bottom line,” Long said. “We could have been facing [Gerrit] Cole and [A.J.] Burnett. You can face a team with great righties and it can be the same challenge. It doesn’t present a more difficult challenge, if that’s what you’re asking. We need our lefties to put together good at-bats,” Long said. “Not necessarily get hits, but grind on them and put together good at-bats.”

(Chris Soto: Coach Long makes a fair point...it's not just lefties who pose a problem in the playoffs, every team is throwing the best they got on the field every single game. It's up to the players to get it done whether its a lefty or a righty on the mound. Platoons work against middle SP but against the top tier, they can get anybody out.)

Matt Cerrone | Metsblog- GM Sandy Alderson said he would be “very surprised” if veteran Juan Uribe travels with the team for the NLDS. Uribe, who has missed the last eight games due to a chest contusion, is “iffy” for the NLDS, manager Terry Collins said. He initially hurt his chest diving for a groundball in the Mets-Yankees game on Sept. 20. He aggravated it in the middle of a pinch-hit at-bat on Sept. 25.

(Chris Soto: Kelly Johnson has been getting some work in at 3B over the past week to prepare for a situation where Uribe would not be available for the playoffs, so the Mets aren't completely off-guard here. That said, David Wright is going to be playing every single inning during the post-season so Uribe's role would have been more pinch hitting duties than anything. In that regard though, not having Uribe still hurts. While both have limited pinch hitting sample sizes, in his career Uribe has posted a .281 AVG, .823 OPS as a pinch hitter whereas Kelly Johnson only has a meager .209 AVG, .650 OPS himself.)