SI:AM | Something Finally Went Right for the Mets
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m back from my vacation just in time for the slowest point in the sports calendar.
In today’s SI:AM:
???? James Harden’s tricky spot
???? Saquon Barkley’s negotiations
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Four in a row is a nice start
The Mets are probably the biggest disappointment in baseball this season. After an offseason shopping spree that included signing Justin Verlander (two years, $86.6 million) and Kodai Senga (five years, $75 million), and re-signing Brandon Nimmo (eight years, $162 million), New York has the highest payroll in the majors this season, at $359 million. But what has that money bought owner Steve Cohen? A team that’s well under .500 after going 7–19 in June.
If the Mets are going to salvage their season, they need to turn things around in a hurry. Last night’s dramatic win over the Diamondbacks was a good start.
The game had all the makings of a classic, brutal Mets loss. Senga was brilliant, striking out 12 and allowing just four hits in eight innings. The only run he allowed came on a solo homer by Christian Walker in the seventh. But the Mets’ offense was inept, picking up just three hits in the first eight innings as the game moved to the ninth with Arizona up 1–0.
Diamondbacks closer Andrew Chafin got two quick outs to start the ninth, leaving rookie Francisco Alvarez as the Mets’ last hope. Chafin had the Mets down to their final strike after pushing Alvarez to a 2–2 count, but he stayed alive and crushed an outside fastball for a game-tying home run. The next batter, fellow rookie Brett Baty, singled and then scored when No. 9 hitter Mark Canha hit a triple to center. David Robertson then pitched a 1-2-3 inning to get the save and give the Mets their fourth straight win.
“It’s really the adrenaline that heightens that moment for me,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “That’s my favorite part of the game. When that game’s on the line, I’m not afraid of failure. I’m comfortable.”
As satisfying as it was for Mets fans to be on the other side of a brutal late-inning collapse, the team is still a long way away from playoff contention. Last night’s win brought New York’s record to 40–46. That’s a whopping 18 games behind the first-place Braves. A wild-card spot isn’t out of the question, but it’ll be an uphill battle to get there. The Mets are 6.5 games behind the Phillies and Giants, who are currently tied for the third and final wild-card spot, but there are nine teams within 10 games of one another at the top of the NL wild card race.
Time is running out for the Mets, too. Cohen held a press conference last week and said there’s a possibility of trading top players like Verlander and Max Scherzer by the Aug. 1 deadline if the team doesn’t make up ground in the standings.
The four-game win streak to begin July is a good start, but as Tom Verducci wrote last week, the Mets’ roster has flaws that won’t be easy to fix on the fly.
The best of Sports Illustrated
Orlando Ramirez/USA TODAY Sports
- Tom Verducci also wrote about another underwhelming team: the suddenly injury-plagued Angels.
- Whether or not he gets traded, James Harden is going to face tremendous pressure to raise his level of play, Chris Herring writes.
- Matt Verderame explores how one mural in Green Bay captures the city’s complicated feelings about Aaron Rodgers.
- Conor Orr is disappointed that the Giants’ negotiations with Saquon Barkley appear to be following the same script as every franchise-tag dispute.
- Here is the full eight-man field for this year’s Home Run Derby.
- Mike Trout underwent surgery to repair his broken right wrist.
- Watch the Mets close out their three-game series against the Diamondbacks on Thursday, with seats at Chase Field starting at $30.
The top five...
… things I saw last night:
5. Pro wrestler Eddie Kingston’s emotional reaction to winning the first major championship of his career.
4. Chet Holmgren’s big block in NBA Summer League action.
3. Elly De La Cruz’s upper-deck home run after Nationals manager Davey Martinez had umpires examine his bat.
2. Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia’s spinning throw on a ball hit up the middle.
1. The Marlins’ wild walk-off win to improve to 21–5 in one-run games.
SIQ
On this day in 1992, MLB commissioner Fay Vincent ruled that four NL teams would be switching divisions, prompting an ultimately successful legal challenge from which club and leading to today’s three-division structure in the AL and NL?
- Cubs
- Pirates
- Cardinals
- Braves
Yesterday’s SIQ: On this day in 1991, MLB owners approved expansion franchises in Denver and Miami to begin play in ’93. Which of the following cities was not among the other finalists?
- Buffalo
- Nashville
- Orlando
- Tampa
Answer: Nashville. The National League announced in June 1990 that it would add two expansion teams and in December of that year said that it had narrowed down the list of possible home markets to six: Buffalo, Denver, Orlando, Tampa Bay, Washington and Miami.
Prospective ownership groups from Charlotte, Phoenix, Nashville and Sacramento also made pitches early on in the process before the list was cut, according to The New York Times. Other potential options, according to the Washington Post, included New Orleans; Vancouver; Indianapolis; Columbus, Ohio; Nashville; San Antonio; Honolulu; and northern New Jersey. (Those last two seem the most outlandish. Could you imagine the travel strain on a team based in Hawai‘i? Or a third team in the New York metro area?)
Buffalo may seem like an outlier among the list of finalists, but it was actually considered a favorite to land a team at one point—until a statement by the prospective owner torpedoed the bid. Days before the finalists were announced, Bob Rich (the owner of the Triple A Buffalo Bisons) wrote a letter that appeared in the Buffalo News in which he said that he would like to bring big league baseball to the city but that “we do not believe in baseball at any cost.” In Sports Illustrated, before NL owners announced the winners of the expansion bids, Tim Kurkjian wrote that Buffalo “has a beautiful stadium and terrific fans” but, thanks to Rich’s letter six months earlier, “the expansion push is, for all intents and purposes, dead.”