Friday night’s game was some bullshit.
Oh, you want me to expound? Gladly. The first thing you should know is that Francisco Lindor left the game after a swing in the top of the 5th. As he was grounding out to second base, he winced, reached at his side, and never ran to first.
That’s code for “oblique”. And obliques are tricky. We shouldn’t see Lindor for a while no matter what, and we might not have a choice.
The second thing you should know is that Marcus Stroman, after a very pedestrian five innings of work, got into a fight.
When a team wins a Super Bowl with a certain playbook, everybody steals it. John Nogowski obviously took the page from the Josh Rojas playbook that contains the “getting under Marcus Stroman’s skin” play. Stroman got animated with himself, Nogowski yelled at him, Stroman then said “nobody is talking to you” and then it was on. So many weird things about that, not the least of which is that when both players moved towards each other, they made sure that they moved towards McCann. Sure, McCann was trying to break them up, but I don’t think they had to. They both gravitated towards him as if they wanted to create the illusion of a fight, but not really fight.
But at least only one of them was backing up afterwards. And it wasn’t Stroman.
The third thing you should know is that the Mets were absolutely abysmal tonight. I know that the Mets haven’t hit with runners in scoring position all year, But tonight was a brick and mortar Stranded Runners Museum built on the intersection of Comedy and Fury. They’ve been bad against good pitchers. They’ve been bad against bad pitchers having good games. But on Friday they were bad against a starter who had absolutely nothing. He had no concept of the strike zone, and his off speed stuff was as lazy as Mary. But the Mets did nothing with him.
In the 3rd, Chad Kuhl walked Stroman, which is a mortal sin. Then he walked Brandon Nimmo. His pitches weren’t close. There is no way the Mets should have let him wriggle out of this. But Lindor grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, and then Dom Smith struck out on three pitches, the last one being a flail at a pitch that was nowhere close. In the 4th, Kuhl walked Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil reached on an error. Michael Conforto got a pitch he should have hit to the Susquehanna. Instead, he flied harmlessly to right. Jonathan Villar topped a garbage slider to short to score Alonso, and then McCann grounded out to short to end that threat.
3 comments:
Comforts is killing this team. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s hurt (yet) again..time for a demotion to hope he gets his head on straight
Great piece! Why Guillorme wasn’t sent down so they can keep McKinney, I don’t understand. And when you make a mistake, it’s obvious immediately. Lindor gets hurt and a space opens up. McKinney isn’t great, maybe a Neuwenheis kind of player, but he has three years of control left, has some ability, and it’s not his fault the rest of the guys are sleep walking.
I like John’s idea of promoting the Syracuse hitting coach - or was it Tom’s? I can’t check right now.
Gus - Trying to get an interview with the Syracuse hitting coach - was scheduled to talk to him today but the game was rained out. Will try again tomorrow. Will keep you posted.
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