Your Sunday morning dose of New York Mets and MLB news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
The Mets dropped their second game in a row to the Reds 5-2 in front of a sold out Citi Field crowd on the day of David Wright’s number retirement. The Mets got out to an early 2-0 lead thanks to a first-inning rally and a Brett Baty homer in the second inning, but the failure to put up a crooked number instead of just the one run in the first came back to haunt the Mets, as their struggles with runners in scoring position continued. They squandered a bases-loaded, one-out opportunity in the sixth and could not pull off a miracle in the ninth despite bringing the tying run to the plate. In total, the Mets went 1-for-10 with RISP. Meanwhile, the Mets struggled defensively as well; fielding miscues were responsible for most of the Reds’ scoring. The silver lining in this loss was Brooks Raley’s season debut, in which he pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning with two strikeouts, looking very much like the pitcher he was before his Tommy John surgery.
Choose your recap: Amazin’ Avenue, NY Post, Newsday, Daily News, MLB.com, North Jersey, The Athletic, ESPN
AbbeyMastracco of the New York Daily News spoke to Brandon Nimmo about what he learned from David Wright and also did a retrospective on Wright’s legendary Mets career.
Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, who has covered Wright for a large portion of his career, gave his account of the ceremony and his reflections on the day.
David Wright was the captain Mets fans deserved and his relationship with the city and the fanbase was evident during yesterday’s celebration.
The Mets made a roster move prior to yesterday’s game, optioning Brandon Waddell to Triple-A and selecting the contract of Kevin Herget.
Francisco Alvarez is impressing Mets leadership in Triple-A as he eyes a return to the majors soon.
The Mets signed their fourth-round draft pick Peter Kussow for $897,500, above the $555,800 slot value for the pick.
Around the National League East
Kyle Schwarber’s grand slam helped lift the Phillies to a 9-5 victory over the Angels.
The Braves lost to the Yankees 12-9 in a game that featured some contentious moments between the teams’ benches.
The Nationals won a closely contested game over the Padres by a score of 4-2.
Cal Quantrill delivered his first quality start of the season in the Marlins’ 3-1 victory over the Royals. Otto Lopez’s go-ahead RBI double in the eighth was the decisive hit for Miami.
Around Major League Baseball
Brent Maguire of MLB.com took a look at the top performing pitches in the first half.
John Oliver was on hand at UPMC Park yesterday to celebrate the Double-A Erie rebrand of the SeaWolves as the Moon Mammoths—the brain child of Oliver and his team.
The Mariners walked off the Astros in 11 innings in a bizarre fashion you’ve probably never seen before.
Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue
Vasilis Drimalitis laid out the pros and cons of each possible approach to handling Clay Holmes’ workload in the second half.
Brian Salvatore gave us a rundown of David Wright’s moving number retirement ceremony yesterday at Citi Field.
Steve Sypa gave us profiles for the Mets’ 18th, 19th, and 20th round draft picks.
This Date in Mets History
On this date in 1975, Dave Kingman became the first Met since Frank Thomas to hit more than 30 home runs in a season as part of a six-RBI effort against the Astros.