213 Miles From Shea

Today’s picture of the day comes from Harvey’s performance in Philly on 4/11/17, before the struggles on his season, and the Mets season, started.

The Dark Knight. Happy Harvey Day! #Roadtrip3 #ElliotTakesALongDrive

A post shared by Elliot Lester (@eteich1100) on Apr 11, 2017 at 4:37pm PDT

Things in Mets land are bad. The Mets were winless on the away trip and for a second time this season, it feels like they are in a tailspin. After the last tailspin, the Mets took the next four series and over the course of two weeks were able to get back to .500, when this spin started. Hopefully the Mets can start that process of rebuilding themselves back up tonight with Jacob deGrom on the mound.

Jacob will find himself playing stopper tonight. He’s 2-1 over 8 games and 48.2 innings with a 4.07 ERA, 3.39 FIP and 1.356 WHIP. In the month of May, he has now allowed 12 ER over 17.0 innings with 23 K’s. He missed the Angels the last time the Mets and Angels met in 2014 (his rookie season) but the Angels have some familiar names to the NL East that Jacob has faced before:

• Simmons 5-13, 2B, 2 BB
• Revere 1-12
• Espinosa 0-8, 5 K
• Maybin 0-6
• Valbeuna 2-3, 2B

The Mets bats will get to deal with an old foe in Ricky Nolasco who is 2-2 over 8 starts and 45.2 innings with a 4.34 ERA, 5.67 FIP and 1.292 WHIP. His last two starts have been pretty good with Ricky totaling 13.0 innings of work with 5 runs off of 10 hits and 4 walks and 14 K’s. The Mets have the following numbers against Nolasco:

• Reyes 18-53, 2B, 3B, 4 HR, 3 BB (.998 OPS)
• Bruce 5-18, 2B, 2 HR, BB (.982 OPS)
• Duda 2-15, 3 BB
• Walker 5-16, 2B, HR, 6 K
• Flores 1-3
• Lagares 0-3

Let’s Go Mets!

Today’s picture of the day comes from Columbia, SC on 4/12/17 as Harol Gonzalez (in the top 30 Mets prospects by Baseball America) tossed in the first inning. I can’t say enough nice things about the Columbia Fireflies. Great minor league experience.

Bonus: If you flip the picture you’ll get a shot of Tebow before he struck out.

After many hours, made it to Columbia, SC to see the Baby Mets! (Second picture is Tim Tebow before grounding out to third) #Roadtrip3 #ElliotTakesALongDrive #Fireflies #LetsGlow #LGM

A post shared by Elliot Lester (@eteich1100) on Apr 12, 2017 at 4:54pm PDT

Today’s picture of the day is from 4/13/17, of Robert Gsellman, prior to giving up a Grand Slam. That negative mojo aside, it was a beautiful night in Miami and the roof was open.

Made it! Seeing my boys in Miami tonight. Let's go Mets! #ElliotTakesALongDrive #Roadtrip3

A post shared by Elliot Lester (@eteich1100) on Apr 13, 2017 at 4:19pm PDT

Baseball is still not clicking for the Mets on all cylinders as they dropped another game last night. Last night, their starter gave up all the runs and the bullpen was able to keep it together, but it didn’t matter as the offense couldn’t over come the 5 runs that Milone allowed (but Grandy homered, despite being lowered to 8th in the lineup). So the Mets have some work to do today as Matt Harvey takes the mound against Patrick Corbin.

Matt Harvey is 2-3 over 7 games and 40.0 innings this year with a 5.63 ERA, 6.47 FIP and 1.425 WHIP. His last three starts have been torrid as he has allowed 17 runs over his last 14.2 innings (10.43 ERA). Prior to that, he had a 2.84 ERA over his first four starts. He last faced the Diamondbacks in 2015 where he allowed 11 hits and 5 walks leading to 4 runs in 14.0 innings (2.57 ERA). The Diamondbacks have the following numbers against Matt:

• Goldschmidt 1-8, HR, BB
• Blanco 0-7
• Descalso 1-5, BB
• Owings 0-6
• Peralta 1-5, HR, BB
• Tomas 2-6
• Mathis 0-4

The Mets bats will get a chance at Patrick Corbin who is 3-4 over 8 starts and 45.1 innings with a 4.17 ERA, 4.14 FIP and 1.390 WHIP. May has been rough to Corbin. He started the month allowing 8 runs over 4.0 innings in Colorado and then allowed 4 runs over 6 innings in Pittsburgh. Last year he only pitched 2.0 innings against the Mets where he allowed 1 hit and a 1 walk and nothing else. The Mets have the following numbers against Corbin:

• Bruce 2-11, HR, 3 BB
• Lagares 1-9, 2B
• Reyes 4-8, 2B, BB
• Flores 06
• R Rivera 1-4
• Walker 0-3
• Duda 1-2, HR
• Harvey 1-2, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

Today’s Picture of the day comes from 4/14/17 in St. Lucie with Justin Dunn, one of the top pitchers in the system getting some work in.

Breaking up my drive up north with the baby Mets in St. Lucie and the #3 Mets prospect Justin Dunn (rhp) #ElliotTakesALongDrive #Roadtrip3

A post shared by Elliot Lester (@eteich1100) on Apr 14, 2017 at 3:59pm PDT

The Mets were on their way last night to ending their losing streak until the 8th inning when the bullpen imploded for a second straight day and the Mets ended up having a tied game at 1-1 and entered the 9th inning trailing 7-1 (and made it a bit closer to 3-1). So now the Mets find themselves mired in a five game slide against the ace of the Diamondbacks staff who has returned to form this year in Zack Greinke.

Before we get to that, let’s talk about the Mets starter. The Mets will send out Tommy Milone for his second start as a Met. Last time out he allowed 2 ER over 5.0 innings with 6 hits and 2 walks, which is pretty serviceable for your 5th starter. The concern right now for the Mets is the bullpen and with Tommy on the mound, the Mets will probably have to go to the pen early as he is still being stretched out. The Diamondbacks have the following numbers against him:

• Mathis 2-9
• Blanco 1-2, BB
• Goldschmidt 2-3, HR
• Herrmann 0-1

Zack Greinke has bounced back this year going 4-2 over 8 starts and 51.2 innings with a 2.79 ERA, 3.05 FIP and 1.026 WHIP. His better seasons, not surprisingly, have come when his WHIP stays below 1.200. May has been particularly good to him as he has allowed 3 ER over 15.0 innings with 7 hits and 1 walk while striking out 18. Last year he was average against the Mets allowing 5 hits and 1 walk over 6.0 innings leading to 3 runs. The Mets have the following numbers against Zack:

• Granderson 14-61, 3 2B, 2 3B, HR, 3 BB
• Cabrera 15-35, 3 2B, 3B, 5 BB (.500 OBP)
• Bruce 7-37, HR, 2 BB
• Walker 7-27, 2B, 4 HR, BB, (.310 OBP, .741 SLG, 1.051 OPS)
• Duda 3-17, HR, 3 BB
• Flores 4-14
• Conforto 1-9, HR
• deGrom 2-7, 2B, BB
• Lagares 1-8, HR
• Plawecki 2-6, 2B
• R Rivera 3-5, 2 2B

Lets Go Mets!

Curtis Granderson playing catch before the first pitch of the game on 5/9/17

After not dropping 4 series in the row, the Mets laid a goose egg this weekend as they got swept by the Brewers and now are on a 4 game losing streak. Yesterday the Mets had a 7-1 lead at one point but squandered it as the bullpen went into full meltdown mode. Rather than focusing on that, let’s file that under “things that happen to the Mets when the play in Milwaukee” and move on to Arizona.

For the second time this season, Zack Wheeler will face a “Zack” (first time I believe it was a Zac, but I’m not sure). This will be the first time this year that both starting pitchers spell “Zack” the same way. Now that we got that fun fact out of the way, Wheeler is 2-2 over 6 games and 32.1 innings with a 4.18 ERA, 4.22 FIP and 1.206 WHIP. In his last two official starts he has allowed 3 runs, 2 earned over 6.2 innings however he has allowed 8 walks which have been blowing up his pitch count. Arizona has the following numbers against him:

• Goldschmidt 2-9, BB
• Blanco 1-7, 2B
• Owings 2-6, 2B
• Pollock 0-5, BB
• Mathis 0-4, BB
• De La Rosa 0-1

The Mets bats will try to move Heaven and Earth against Godley today who is 1-0 in two starts and 12.0 innings with a 2.25 ERA, 3.09 FIP and 1.000 WHIP. Last year he was 4-5 in 27 games and 9 starts for the Diamondbacks with a 6.39 ERA, 4.97 FIP and 1.487 WHIP. He picked up a win two game (one start) against the Mets last year holding the Mets to 5 hits and 2 walks with 2 runs over 8.1 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Zack:

• Bruce 1-6
• Reyes 1-4
• Granderson 0-3
• TJ Rivera 1-3, 2B
• Flores 0-1
• Reynolds 0-1
• R Rivera 0-1

Let’s Go Mets!

Apple and Clouds above Citi Field on 5/9/17