The chase for history is on, and New York City is awash with excitement. I’m speaking, obviously, of the Mets’ pursuit of the modern era record for times hit by pitch by one team in one season. Mets hitters have been plunked 102 times this year, three shy of the record, and have 14 games left in which to overtake last year’s Reds for the all-time lead.

The full list is fun, because two things immediately become apparent. First, most of the high historical HBP totals came in the past five to seven years. And second, whenever a team shows up that isn’t from the mid-2010s or later, it’s immediately obvious which historical outlier is responsible: a Craig Biggio here, a Chase Utley there, a Jason Kendall over in the corner.

The Mets are a more well-rounded lineup, with six players being hit by 10 or more pitches this year. No. 102 came on Sunday afternoon, when Pete Alonso took a fastball off the elbow, causing a benches-clearing incident and earning warnings for both dugouts. The estimable Ron Darling, on the mic for WPIX, sensed that Alonso wasn’t angry because he thought Johan Oviedo hit him intentionally, but because it was the seventh time in that weekend’s four-game series that a Met had been hit. In fact, he said, he couldn’t remember one time this season when a Met had worn a pitch and it looked malicious.

So I went back and watched all 102 Mets HBPs, and he’s right. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the Mets flexed their muscles by taking two out of three from the Dodgers — the majors’ top team by won-loss record, run differential, and most other measures — at Citi Field. On Wednesday morning they awoke to a new reality. Not only were they tied for first place in the National League East with the Braves, but they had to place Max Scherzer on the injured list due to an oblique injury on his left side for the second time this season; later that day, they announced that Starling Marte had suffered a non-displaced fracture of his right middle finger as well. The confluence may not rate as a crisis in Queens, but playoff races have certainly turned on less.

The Braves’ claim on a share of first place marked the first time since April 11 — and just the second time all season — that the Mets did not have sole possession of the division lead. By the day’s end, however, the Mets again had the top spot to themselves thanks to 5-1 and 10-0 poundings of the Pirates in Pittsburgh, running their record to 87-51, while the Braves beat the A’s to improve to 86-51.

As for Scherzer, with a chance to notch his 200th career win, the 38-year-old righty left Saturday’s start against the Nationals after just five innings, 67 pitches, and one run allowed. Following the final out of the inning — during which he got an assist on a routine groundout by Ildemaro Vargas — Scherzer motioned to pitching coach Jeremy Hefner to follow him into the dugout tunnel, then gave way to reliever Tommy Hunter to start the sixth. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — It’s not as though Jacob deGrom hadn’t faced strong offenses in his first five starts upon returning from four months on the shelf due to a stress reaction in his right scapula. He’d twice gone up against the Braves, who rank second in the National League in scoring and who remain hot on the Mets’ tail in the NL East, as well as the Phillies, who rank fifth in scoring. On Wednesday night, in a playoff-like atmosphere at Citi Field, deGrom passed his toughest test since returning, holding the Dodgers — who lead the majors in scoring (5.36 runs per game) and wRC+ (121) — to just one run on three hits in a 2-1 victory completed in just two hours and 19 minutes.

deGrom struck out nine while matching his season high of 25 swings and misses. He’s been so dominant in his limited 2022 action that it rated as noteworthy that he surrendered a walk and a homer in the same game; he had allowed just two of each against the 103 batters he’d faced thus far (1.9%), that while striking out 46 (44.7%). More on his insane numbers further below.

deGrom got the walk out of the way almost immediately, issuing a five-pitch pass to Trea Turner, the Dodgers’ second hitter, in the top of the first inning. He didn’t get to another three-ball count until his seventh and final inning, and didn’t allow a hit until Justin Turner singled past a diving Francisco Lindor with one out in the fifth. That one ultimately didn’t do any damage, but a hanging slider to Mookie Betts to lead off the sixth inning was another matter. Betts drilled it 415 feet to left-center for his 32nd homer of the season and his fifth in his past five starts. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Mets signed Adam Ottavino to a one-year, $4 million deal this past offseason, you could imagine how the move might work out for them – or not. To an optimist, Ottavino seemed like a low-risk gamble with prominent upside. To a pessimist, he seemed more like an aging pitcher in decline, especially after a mediocre stint in Boston. But you’d be lying if you said you predicted Ottavino would put up the second-lowest ERA (2.13) and FIP (3.07) of his career at age 36. You could describe the Mets as having caught lightning in a bottle, but that would be an affront to the effort Ottavino has put into sharpening his game, a feat not many players his age manage.

Let’s start with what hasn’t changed. Ottavino’s signature pitch, a flying saucer of a slider that abducts the souls of hitters, is still moving like it used to. There haven’t been any improvements made to it, because stuff-wise, it’s a near-perfect pitch, with Ottavino having pushed the envelope years ago. His two fastballs – a four-seamer and sinker – also haven’t regressed in terms of movement, and though the velocities on both are down, Ottavino’s success has never really been tied with how hard he throws. What matters is that he’s maintained enough velocity: At 94.9 mph, Ottavino’s four-seam fastball is a smidge above league average. In sum, his late-career turnaround hasn’t been because of an uptick in raw stuff. The major ingredients for an outstanding Ottavino outing remain the same.

How about pitch mix? I’m afraid you won’t find a satisfying answer here, either. Compared to last season, Ottavino is throwing his sinker more, and his slider and four-seamer less, but none of those alterations have been dramatic. They certainly could be contributing to Ottavino’s resurgence, but they don’t seem like the sole reason. This season, Ottavino has reintroduced his changeup, presumably to give him a backup plan against left-handed hitters. But given a usage rate of 7%, it’s not as if he’s been relying on the slow ball. And regardless, lefties are faring well against Ottavino, just like they always have. It would make for an appealing narrative, but in truth, the changeup hasn’t been much of a difference-maker. Read the rest of this entry »

As the Mets have battled to maintain their spot atop the National League East, Francisco Lindor has led the way. After inaugurating his time in New York with a career-worst season with the bat last year, the 28-year-old shortstop has kicked off the start of his 10-year, $341 million contract with a campaign worthy of a spot in MVP discussions.

Lindor had the chance to play the hero on Tuesday night in the Bronx. For as well as Frankie Montas and Clarke Schmidt pitched in the Subway Series finale, the game could have easily swung the other direction at the end. Trailing 4-2 and down to their final out, the Mets loaded the bases against Schmidt, who had already completed three strong innings of relief. Up came Lindor, who over his previous eight games had collected 13 hits (a 263-hit pace!) but on this night had merely walked twice (on a total of 15 pitches) in four plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — More than three weeks after the Yankees made him their top trade deadline acquisition — and a night after the pitcher he replaced, Jordan Montgomery, spun a one-hit shutout to further an impressive opening run with the Cardinals — Frankie Montas was able to show the Bronx a representative version of his capabilities. Facing the Mets in front of a Yankee Stadium season high of 49,217 boisterous fans, the 29-year-old righty survived a rocky first inning, got strong support on both sides of the ball (save for one glitch), and moved Pete Alonso to bat-breaking frustration in what turned out to be a 4-2 Yankees win, giving the team its first series victory in August and salvaging a split of the season’s four-game Subway Series.

Montas allowed two runs in 5.2 innings, scattering six hits and a walk while striking out six — his highest total since his seven-strikeout effort at Yankee Stadium on June 28 while pitching for the A’s. His 15 called strikes was his highest total since that outing, and his 27% CSW (which included 10 swinging strikes) matched his season rate, heralding a return to form following a rough stretch of nearly eight weeks, during which shoulder inflammation, the trade, a trip to the bereavement list and poor performance limited him to a 5.90 ERA and 5.08 FIP in seven starts totaling just 29 innings.

“Packed house in the Bronx, [his] first Subway Series, he went out there and did his thing,” marveled Aaron Judge afterwards. “Working all his pitches, kind of similar to [Domingo] Germán… Backdoor cutter and backdoor slider to some of those lefties early on to kind of steal a strike, and then he got to that sinker-splitter combo. It’s pretty tough to tell the difference between both of those.”

“He showed some bulldog,” added Judge, whose fourth-inning solo homer — number 48 for the season and his second in as many nights — off Taijuan Walker kicked off the scoring. Judge also capped off a go-ahead two-run rally in the seventh by plating the Yankees’ final run via a single off Joely Rodríguez. Read the rest of this entry »

My wife spent three months working in Australia in 2019. I didn’t get to visit her thanks to a hectic work schedule, but that’s okay, because she brought back plenty of mementos from the trip. There were delicious snacks, wonderful pictures (check out the Twelve Apostles sometime if you haven’t), a t-shirt from the Australian Open, and excellent stories. None of that’s relevant for today, though. What’s relevant for today is what one of her coworkers called sharks: bitey boys.

That’s an excellent turn of phrase. It calls to mind a certain laziness combined with purity of purpose. They’re just boys hanging out, except for their one hobby: biting. Take an unsuspecting swim in their waters and you might be in for a bite. That’s just what they do.

Why bring this up on a baseball blog in 2022? I’d like to talk to you about a major league player who embodies that ethos. He’s mostly just there to hang out and live life. Sometimes, though, it’s time to bite – or in this case, swing for the fences. Meet Daniel Vogelbach, a shark lying in wait for a delicious fastball to devour. Read the rest of this entry »

From 2018 through the first half of 2021, watching Jacob deGrom carve his way through whatever hapless lineup the Mets faced was a constant. His 1.94 ERA over that stretch was wildly impressive, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. He wasn’t just enjoyable for the ERA, or even his entire statistical line, though that also boggled the mind.

To me, what was most impressive about deGrom is how he seemed to make the opposition inconsequential. It didn’t matter who he was facing, really. Every start was deGrom against himself, a pitcher perfecting his craft. When he located well (and he frequently did), he might as well have been pitching to cardboard cutouts. Fastball on the upper corner, slider falling away beneath it — the specifics changed, but deGrom’s repetition of his pitches never did.

Then disaster fell. Though he’d been remarkably durable during his run, missing only a few games with lat issues early in the 2021 season, the fun came to an end last July. He sprained his flexor tendon — the tendon that runs from forearm to finger, which sounds pretty important for pitching — and never threw another pitch that year. Some of that was the Mets falling out of the race; the team said he would have been ready for the postseason.

After he missed the first half of this season with a right scapula stress reaction, no one would blame you for wondering whether the ride was coming to an end. An entire year without a major league start is an eternity for someone who didn’t get Tommy John surgery. But I have good news for those of you who, like me, found watching deGrom’s casual dominance calming and delightful: He’s back, and with little rust to be found.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday was trade deadline day, and you know what that means: enough trades of marginal relievers to blot out the sun. Every team in the playoff race can look at its bullpen and find flaws, and so every one of them was in the market for a reliever who can come in for the fifth, sixth, or seventh inning and do a more reliable job of getting out alive than the team’s current bullpen complement. That’s just how baseball works; every year, a new crop of pop-up relievers posts great numbers, while the old crop enjoys middling success. It’s a brisk trade market, even if the returns are rarely overwhelming. Here’s another roundup of such trades. Read the rest of this entry »

While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

At the other positions in this series, I have used about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — as my cutoff, making exceptions here and there, but for the designated hitters, I’ve lowered that to 0.3, both to keep the list length manageable and to account for the general spread of value; in the first full season of the universal DH, exactly half the teams in the majors have actually gotten 0.1 WAR or less from their DHs thus far, and only 10 have gotten more than 0.6. DHs as a group have hit .239/.317/.404 for a 104 wRC+; that last figure matches what they did as a group both last year and in 2019, and it’s boosted by the best performance by NL DHs (103 wRC+) since 2009, when their 117 wRC+ accounted for a grand total of 525 PA, about 32 per NL team.

Read the rest of this entry »