Two pitchers..who would you rather have:

Pitcher A: 50.1 innings, 1.43 ERA, 0.914 WHIP.
Pitcher B: 49.2 innings, 0.91 ERA, 0.664 WHIP.

Rest easy, Mutts’ fans. Speaking as a neutral Phillies fan, NY is a much better team than Atlanta. Better pitching and better pitching. With Harper back, the Phils can go about the business of catching and passing the Cowards and shutting them out of the playoffs.

I want to say the one with roughly half the other's FIP, but then again I still grimace whenever Boom-Boom comes into the game.

Baseball reference gives the Mets a 63% chance at winning the division and Atlanta a 37% chance. Based on their simulations of the rest of the season.

No other team has a realistic chance. Philadelphia has rounded up a 97% chance of making the playoffs.

The NL East has almost a sure chance of having 3 playoff teams.

This weekend the Braves have a tough series against another division leader while the Mets are playing a team who entered the season not even trying to make the playoffs.

They do not play each other again until late Sept/Early Oct

This weekend could be a make or break for both teams.

Old-Timers' Day today is awesome, of course. I particularly enjoyed the introduction of "adorable reliever Doug Sisk".

Okay, so maybe Howie Rose said "a durable reliever, Doug Sisk." But Dougie was kind of charming, right? Right?

*crickets*

On a more serious note, it's beautiful to see #24 finally retired in honor of Willie Mays.

And it's even more beautiful that it happens during a season where Robinson Cano was released by 3 different teams in a span of fewer than 90 days. [/petty]

Now let's take care of the other "unofficially" retired number, #8. For Yogi and Gary, both.

(Jesse Orosco must just be cursing the "3-batter" rule. He could still be a LOOGY, if they were allowed.)

ETA: the highlight must be 79-year-old Steve Dillon not only able to take the mound, not only throwing strikes, but hustling over to back up 3B when Mookie doubled over the disgusting scab in LF's head. (Scabs don't deserve names, of course.) Dillon, who pitched in all of 3 games in 1963-1964, showed more hustle than the scab (who was on the team this century) did either going back or coming in on the pop fly that Daniel Murphy dropped in front of him after that.

https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.i...HwHaJR&pid=Api

(You'll notice that Dillon wears #39. Edwin Diaz is lucky he's been pitching well. After all, Dillon is a lefty.)

Any hint who the scab is? There was no way to see the game in my hole over here.

One of my first baseball memories was watching Willie Mays play. It would have been about 1962. I lived in central California from 62-70..and the Giants were by far my favorite team, even after the A's moved to Oakland, and started playing REALLY well.

That was a very uninspiring game... looks like the Mets bench is somehow still the Mets bench. Nido is the best-hitting C, Escobar is the pinch-runner, is there a backup SS? It's gonna be a looong month....

Not if they tank it quickly against the Trolley Dodgers. :o

Unpopular take: the best part of the weekend was the kidcaster -.-

Wow, what does it say for previous Mets administrations that this past Saturday saw the first Mets Old Timers' Day since 1994?
The club used the occasion to announce that "the Mets are retiring the No. 24 worn by Hall of Famer Willie Mays when he played for the team from 1972-73 (and last worn by Robinson Cano earlier this year)."
Yet, the first time in 28 years that they held the event, "a total of 64 former Mets players and managers attended the event" and the stadium was "nearly full."
What kind of numbnuts team ownership and management did you guys have over there? :confused:

Remember that guy?

The Wilpons were so deep in it, they had to fork over nine figures.

So you are saying they couldn't even afford to stage an Old Timers' Day? I suppose the team pays for the attendees' travel expenses and such. Or is it that they were so stupid, lazy, and out of it that they just didn't feel like honoring the team's past?

I'm not saying they couldn't afford it, I'm saying they were collossal sleezebags, and I am still not sure how Uncle Steve managed to buy the team away from them in the first place.

Heck, I'm even surprised they brought Mr. Met back after the mascot had fallen into disuse in the 70s and 80s. There's after all a former child actor costing minimum wage in that costume. :laugh:

Pedro Martinez for one would never, ever, ever have gone to a Wilponian old timers day. I'm quite sure so many guys would not interact with them that they couldn't fill it out.

I'd rather they win a World Series, but things like this are good for the fanbase and tend to build an organization over time. Too bad the Metsies have had grown up management for about 10 of their 60 years :(

That's a very good point. It may indeed explain things.

Played left field. From Hawai'i. (And thus defiling El Sid's #50.). At least it wasn't the other scab from the 2000 team, the pitcher whose poor attitude earned him a name I probably can't use here.

(Also notable for being the guy who whined about how he had to take care of his family, even though he'd already been in MLB for seven years before the 1994 strike. And even though he'd been banking salaries made possible by players who risked serious management retaliation back when the minimum wage was only $10,000, instead of $109,000, as it was in 1994.

I had a whole digression about Lou Piniella and Torre and Rusty Staub and all the players who were "made examples of" for being part of the brief 1969 spring training boycott, but no reason to go that far afield, I guess. Anyways, I really hate that pitcher, and as popular as the left-fielder was in his brief career, I was very glad when it was over. JMO.)

To be more fair than the Wilpons deserve, not every team loves Old Timers' Day; it's mostly a Yankee thing. (The original was when the Yanks brought folks back for Babe Ruth's farewell [Babe had cancer, and knew it] in 1948.)

Bill Veeck, for example, thought OTD was depressing and embarrassing, and it was better to remember players as they were than wheel them out in middle or old age. And with the 1994 strike having damaged the game, there was a desire by ownership to sell the game as it was (hence "great ideas" such as wild-cards, interleague play [steroids…]), rather than bang on about "tradition" when most of the fans didn't care and were moving to the NFL and NBA, where you didn't have to know chapter and verse about people who died before World War 1 to feel like a fan.

(I disagree with this decision, just as I disagree with practically everything Bud Selig did, but I get the point.)

Also, since it was the same people invited every year (and fewer and fewer interested in attending) the Wilpons saved history for Anniversary celebrations (including the 50th anniversary of 1969 not long ago), Mets Hall of Fame ceremonies and number retirements, and the closing ceremonies for Shea Stadium in 2008. Just because we hadn't done "here's Steve Dillon, who was in one game in 1963 and two in 1964" in a while, that doesn't mean there had been no effort to maintain the team's connection to the past.

I mean. I'd mark out for Terrell Hansen, but I get that not everybody has the same p.o.v.

(Could you imagine Howie's introduction for Hansen? LMFAO!)

I haven't been a Mets fan, although I have tried occasionally. But I have lived in New York and I am a baseball fan so perhaps I know what I am talking about when I say: Not for a long while have I noticed the Mets and their fans having this much fun.

The Mets Pull One Back in a Fun Win Over the Dodgers
Jacob deGrom dominated, Brandon Nimmo made a catch to remember and Timmy Trumpet played a live version of Edwin Díaz’s entrance song during a thrilling win.

Attachment 901042
That's a great quote from Buck. :)

Pedro never played for the Dodgers, so Fred Wilpon wouldn't have invited him to Old Timer's Day, anyway.