Francisco Lindor didn’t start Thursday afternoon’s game, much as he didn’t finish Wednesday night’s. He was said to be suffering from flulike symptoms. As someone who’s been enduring some of those myself, I can relate. I don’t have a Joey Wendle standing by to fill in for me, however. Wendle was an All-Star as recently as 2021, Lindor not since 2019. Without knowing anything else about their respective skill sets, you’d have to say shortstop was in good hands despite Francisco’s absence. We know anything else. We know Wendle is…not an optimal infielder for nine innings this week, maybe not for ..read more

Pete was actually out, and no, Miguel Amaya wasn’t blocking the plate, or at least not sufficiently to arouse the ire of officialdom. And even if he had been blocking the plate, the Buster Posey rule is stupid. Good decision to send Pete — unfortunately Nick Madrigal made a perfect relay throw, and so he was out by an eyelash of a whisper. It happens. Boy, that was really exciting watching the Mets and Cubs stand around while umpires put hands over their earpieces and waited for other people to look at TV. They’ll be replaying that thrilling finish for years. On the other hand (or is it the ot ..read more

That DJ Stewart home run in the sixth inning was a thing of beauty. Soaring on a friendly trajectory. Pulled, but easily fair. For all the times fans overreact to any ball in the air, the crowd occasionally gets one that makes its Pavlovian anticipation worthwhile. Going, going…no doubt about it, it was gone. Stewart had hit a three-run homer up onto Carbonation Ridge, the Mets led the Cubs, 4-1, and if the relievers who followed Sean Reid-Foley — who’d followed five innings of Sean Manaea — could do their job, the rest of the way would be a breeze. One fine frame from Revelatory Reed Garrett ..read more

I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but that was a great game. It zipped along taut and tense, it featured a great pitchers’ duel and a brush with history, it turned on a player’s split-second decision, and it ended with a crushing reversal of fortune. If you were in the park — and I was — you got your money’s worth, even if the outcome wasn’t what you desired. It ought to say that on the back of the ticket: DESIRED OUTCOME NOT GUARANTEED. Luis Severino does not get tossed on the pyre with the other feckless nibblers in the Mets’ rotation. He was aggressive and confident as he stalked ..read more

Intrigue lurked here and there among the Mets and Cardinals for seven innings Sunday afternoon. So, frankly, didn’t boredom. As a baseball fan, you don’t want to dismiss a game with little scoring as boring; as a baseball fan, you are conditioned to appreciate tautness and tension, and there was a little much action between nothing happening to write this one off as action-challenged. Three fabulous catches by St. Louis left fielder Brendan Donovan reminded you of how Whitey Herzog’s Running Redbirds used to break our hearts. Conversely, Donovan couldn’t nab everything, and his teammates didn ..read more

Adrian Houser seems like a decent sort. And he pitched cromulently enough for the Brewers last year: eight wins, a 4.12 ERA, a 3.99 FIP that suggested he’d earned his more conventional numbers. Yet he’s the first 2024 Met I can’t stand. Houser’s been horrible, which he admitted after the latest debacle on Saturday, calling his pitching “pretty unacceptable.” He also noted that he’s been putting his teammates in a hole at the beginning of the game: Saturday saw Houser allow four runs in the first, which isn’t ever a good idea and particularly isn’t a good idea when the opposing pitcher is Sonny ..read more

For Saturday, it will be City Connects getting our attention. On Friday, it was what we might quaintly refer to as a national telecast. Or should we say a globally available stream? Whatever it is called, it was Cardinals at Mets on Apple TV+, which meant the visuals (even if you took advantage of the syncing to local radio option, a godsend when it works) would strive to be evenhanded. In baseball as in political coverage, bothsidesism rarely satisfies. To illustrate to the audience just tuning in before first pitch that the Mets and Cardinals have played one another before, Apple showed high ..read more

If you’re a dispassionate observer of New York Mets baseball, you’d take Francisco Lindor’s 4-for-4 day with a pair of homers and a quartet of RBIs on Wednesday and interpret that as a long overdue breakout that augurs well for an established star getting back to his career norm and likely having a characteristically terrific season now that he appears thoroughly untracked. If you’re a Mets fan who’s been around a while, you instinctively think, “Bobby Bonilla had a game like this in 1992 and it didn’t help in the long run.” Jason Bay doing something similar to fleeting ends in 2010 rings a be ..read more

Well, at least this time Mets pitchers didn’t walk anybody. Luis Severino wasn’t giving out free passes Tuesday night in San Francisco, and for four innings he wasn’t let any Giant earn his way onto the bases either. But the well ran dry in the fifth as lousy sequencing and buzzards’ luck combined to turn a scoreless tie into a 3-0 Giants lead. That was more than enough for the Giants, as Logan Webb had all his pitches working. That Bull Durham line about ungodly breaking stuff in the Show? It could have been written for Webb, who dismantled the Mets with sinkers, changeups and the occasional ..read more

Pete Alonso homered. Michael Conforto homered. Just like swell not so old times. Except they didn’t come close to tearing each other’s shirts off. Things change and move on. The Big Man can still bust the Citi and other ballparks in half, but he cycles through new handshake partners all the time. Does anybody in San Francisco refer to Conforto as Scooter? Conforto and Alonso dingered to a draw Monday night on the Coast, each going deep once with the bases empty. Alas, Conforto’s Giants beat Alonso’s Mets, 5-2, on Monday night. It was 4-0 before each of our home run heartthrobs of 2019, when th ..read more