It’s not a question of how
It’s just a matter, (Do it!) it’s just a matter of (Do it!), it’s just a matter of when
The best part of any Met game has become what Daniel Vogelbach does with it, now that the outcome has seemingly become less of a point. That’s what 4 of 5 from the Braves followed by 3 easy wins over the Reds has done. Together it’s all part of a 15-4 run since SHaMs opening day, and 15-2 since losing the first two games since the All-Star Break. That streak started the very same day Vogelbach joined the SHaMs, July 24. You could look it up.
They have swept three series (Marlins, Yankees and now Reds) since then. They are now 34 games over .500. They have a better record and winning percentage than anyone except the Dodgers (a ridiculous 44 games over .500 or an even .700 vs. the Mets’ .652). That’s brought the 2022 Mets into the stratosphere. Since they became the SHaMs and I was worried, they’ve surpassed the Yankees and the Astros for baseball’s best overall record.
That brings me to “bach” to Vogelbach, and a thing I told my son yesterday as he and I took in the Camp-Day/Businessman’s Special on a scorching afternoon from the right field corner.
I came with the dumb hat but left with a new mug; new Taijuan Walker shirsey for him
That the Mets would beat the Reds on a getaway day was never in doubt, it was only a matter of how, and at the moment, it was seeing Vogelbach pile up the total bases, two at a time. That’s something to see. I tried several times to engage new arrival Tyler Naquin on whether the home run he hit was the longest of his career–I think he heard it but didn’t respond, because it meant he would have to turn his attention to the 800 little kids also crying for his attention. Finally the Reds were defeated before they arrived going down on 6 pitches in the first and only few more in the 9th, for a while we were seeing how long it would take anyone to exceed 4 pitches, then 5, then 6 when Albert Almora Jr. walked in the 4th. Then we lost interest in the Reds’ lost interest ourselves.
We managed neighborly baseball-and-other-stuff conversation with a multigenerational family of cousins and moms and uncles and fathers and nephews occupying two rows next to us, and the only drawback I knew going in–“between the bases” at a price we could afford– meant sitting near a camp group which we didn’t want. Also I know that not being between the bases at CitiField usually means some kind of compromise.
In Section 105, it’s temporary ignorance of there being two “main” scoreboards and coming very close to a point where the line of vision to the batter is compromised by the equipment securing the foul-ball netting. Other than that it was a few “grown men” in section 106 amusing themselves and no one else by chanting “Let’s Go Brandon” during Nimmo’s turns at-bat, but only a few pitches into it, further demonstrating their ignorance. Nimmo by the way has a new walk-up song, “I Feel Like A Woman” but some country star, I think Shania Twain.
The only other thing that went bad was the concessions. I was in search of a good beer with no alcohol–if you know about beer that’s one thing the craft beer guys have run with as innovation–and found one (shout out to my friend Michael who knew where to look first). Only the lady at the Coors Light stand brings me the wrong thing, cracks it open before I can see it and charges me for a 16-ounce craft beer which I’d paid for since its all self-service before I take it from her and realize I was charged for a 16-ounce real beer not a 12-ounce pretend beer which I asked for by name. I also tried to joke when she carded me, so I said non-alcoholic beer twice–once when I ordered it and again when she carded me unnecessarily. So she owes me $5.50 and caused a little aggravation. I didn’t stick around to see if the guy behind me got that beer for cheap.
It was a hot sunny afternoon and after about 4 innings of it we agreed to get up into the shade and get something cool to drink. Milkshakes! Only we didn’t expect to miss two innings on the wrong line at Shake Shack. That has to be faster.
I shelled out for field level seats, bought the boy a Taijuan Walker shirsey since he’d long grown out of all his previous ones — Wright, Nieuwenhuis and Syndergaard if I recall. The combination of Walker’s turn in the rotation and what he agreed was a cool number, 99, sealed the decision and helped me to suggest his inclination of a Megill 38 shirsey was kind of cool but only if he remembers to wear it again in 10 or 15 years.
I in the meantime replaced a banged-up Mr. Met mug that has been my No. 1 morning coffee companion ever since receiving it as a David Wright Era father’s day gift. The new one is pictured here.
All of this to say we had a great time, the Mets are better than ever, but there’s still room to improve the experience so as to meet the level of a team executing this well.
Do it, do it, do it.
That the problem with Drew Smith wasn’t, as I’d suspected, part of the bad luck all around the night Max Scherzer called for the trainer and walked off the mound, when it appeared all Smith could do to resist an inappropriate thing on on a baseball field with 30,000 watching with one of the three Sports Illustrated swimsuit models throwing out a ceremonial first pitch right there between home plate the pitcher’s mound (she seemed to be considering it is all I’d say as a body language interpreter in the Promenade that night). Instead it was some kind of injury, only the kind of injury that makes you give up way too many home runs.
So that’s also why we have Mychal Givens in the bullpen, along with May, and deGrom is in the rotation but I missed most of the game. Givens is a guy whom I know Buck trusted, so you have to think he asked for it too and though so and I’m beginning to definitely trust in Buck. Like Megill, Givens’ first name seems spelled wrong too.
Naquin is hitting the crap out of the ball in 25. Givens is No. 60. Darin Ruf (who seems to spell his first AND last names improperly) was assigned 28 and platooning with 
If you saw the SHaMs last night, you’d have also seen a new beginning of sorts for Travis Blankenhorn, who was called up from AAA for the first time this year, and given a dignified number at last–27. He was 73 last year, but I had to 
If you’re old, you’ll recall Carlton Fisk was the famous Red Sox catcher who was so damaged by a procedural contractural screwup by Boston that made him a Free Agent after 1980. The Red Sox tendered a contract too late for the deadline despite having agreed to terms, so when Fisk signed, he signed with the White Sox and not the Red Sox, and to stick it to them, he flipped his digits from 27 in Boston to 72 in Chicago, which was really unusual in 1981, not just the number, but any player disrupting tradition because he had the power to do so and be meaningful.
One way to show how unusual it was, when another player, with arguably more more juice and meaning to his squad, due to a similar procedural screwup that also landed him on the White Sox, four years after Carlton Fisk donned first that powerfully brutalist SOX uniform, put on his for the first time, but it didn’t have No. 14 on the back. Tom Seaver had other reasons of course, but the point is, here was a guy, with a 
There’s a lot of Mets fans walking around today thinking No. 7 is sacred and destined to be retired for Jose Reyes, not because of Reyes necessarily, but because, in 2019, Marcus Stroman decided it was. That was only 
But for the Mets at least, something else is also happening, and that’s the goalposts have moved. Retired numbers are cheaper, because there’s more of them. But actually, statues in front of the ballpark are the new retired number, the retired number is now the Mets Hall of Fame, and the Mets Hall of Fame is now what you pass on the your way to the concession shop, or a waiting room for the outfield wall, depending on which side of the retire-the-number debate you happen to be on, if everything else is to remain truly in perspective.
This was 
That this happened two weeks ago, and a 23-year-old blog allegedly dedicated to chronicling what happens with Mets uniform numbers is the last to report this, also represents a player-led disruptive change that makes me confront uncomfortable things I’ve also long known, and am learning more about elsewhere in my life. So 
And it’s not just star players driving the change. It’s the effect of what happens with all the scrubeenies whom the clubs still rule. I want to argue that the Mets are just lazy when they 
Back to baseball for a moment, and I should mention that Travis Blankenhorn’s tenure, as the 30th player in club history to have worn No. 27 for the Mets and the first since Juerys Familia, was over almost before it started. Because shortly before last night’s game, the Mets shipped relief pitcher Colin Holderman to the Pittsburgh Pirates, for Daniel Vogelbach. I just want a second to say I liked Holderman, and his departure is as sure as a sign as any more deals are to come for the SHaMs.
An insightful commenter and a goofy companion for us as we watch Mets games 30+ years after he played in one.
This site, kind of like the Mets, has struggled a little recently. Without getting too deeply into detail, there was an issue of a disagreement between my antivirus software and my domain host, that prevented me, or rather, just made it too complicated, to promptly update the site, and between that, and a new job I have that’s incredibly busy, and the fact that my keyboard needed to be replaced, etc etc … I fell way behind and makes it look as though this site (meaning, me) was not paying attention to the Mets, even though I was (the database, for example was being updated). It was like being gagged. Over the 23 years I’ve operated this site, it has survived a few similar periods, and … there’s more work to be done.
Me, I’ve veered between worry and elation over the last month or so. Neither of the home-and-home sets with Houston was in any sense encouraging, except, if you could step back and say to yourself, as I’ve often said to myself this year, that we are still witness to one of the very best Mets seasons ever (though not necessarily the best Mets *team ever) and one thing about the 2022 Mets, the 1986 Mets and the 1969 Mets clubs was, they struggled against Houston in the regular season.
Since the last time we “talked” (looks it up… mid-May, Jesus!) we’ve seen the return of Tommy Hunter, now wearing 34; the debut of Ender Inciarte in 22; a ghost appearance by Gosuke Katoh in 25; guys like Jake Reed return, still wearing 72; and yesterday I guy I swear I never heard of, nor even knew was in the organization, but has played on several MLB teams, R.J. Alvarez, shows up wearing 71 in the bullpen. Did I forget anything? I mean, other than how to maintain a website?
So last year, the Mets were never once were any better than 11 games over .500, a point they reached just once, following a sweep of the Cubs in June. Their failure to exit that range-bound 6 or 7 over .500 while the rest of the division was worse during the season’s first months was the story of the year, until that club revealed all kind of other problems (injuries, underperformance, lapsed priorities and so on) when they ultimately revealed their level was not actually 6 or 7 games over but 6 or 7 games under.
So it’s with a small amount of trauma that I’ll note this team has so far twice had the opportunity to exceed last year’s high-water mark and twice failed to get there, and doing so with games that weren’t so fun to watch. We shouldn’t be losing to Paul Sewald, as nice a guy as he was (he once acknowledged me yelling “Sewald!” through the bullpen fence at the Cyclones park). If this is really to be as good a year as it looks like it can be, we can’t hover while the rest of the division struggles. Now’s not the time to hover–get to 20 over, a point at which hovering will likely get you to the playoffs.
Catching up again on the comings and goings, we saw Stephen Nogosek and his ridiculous 85 jersey come ago go, and recently welcomed back Jake Reed, who’s still wearing 72. James McCann’s broken hamate–a bad injury for a catcher who already can’t hit, I’d reckon–is out for several weeks and Patrick Mazeika is back. 
That’s notable only because Mazieka, unlike Nogosek or Reed, got reassigned a normal number and what was 76 last year is now 4.
Catching up with the uni-verse (I was away on vacation in Arizona, and caught one of those good-break games live, last Friday night’s extra inning win that most Met teams in most years lose but this year’s squad can’t help but win), we’ve seen the reappearance and disappearance of Matt Reynolds, who wore No. 15 again and will be remembered for having been called up for the first time as Ruben Tejada’s injury replacement in 2015 the playoffs (wearing 56 but not playing), finally debuting wearing No. 15 in 2016, then circling back to the organization as a minor-league vet this year, also in 15 before being claimed by the Reds as we tried to shove him back down again.
Adonis Medina (who?) is a former Phillies prospect, purchased from the Pirates a few weeks ago, and appeared for the first time as a Met wearing No. 68; 
Yoan Lopez, a former Diamondback, did No. 44 proud in his first appearance when he took aim (perhaps a little too high) at Cardinals crybaby Nolan Arenado. We also got a brief glimpse of outfielder Nick Plummer wearing No. 18.
The Mets officially added non-roster arrivals Travis Jankowski and Chasen Shreve to the 40-man and active roster, which will have 28 guys for the first few weeks. The shaggy Jankowski will wear 16 and Shreve, who was 
We also will be welcoming Adam Ottavino (0), Starling Marte (6), Eduardo Escobar (10), Mark Cahna (19), Max Scherzer (21), Joely Rodriguez (30) and Chris Bassitt (40) for the first time–they will be recorded onto the All-Time Roster in order of appearance. Jeff McNeil is now wearing No. 1; David Peterson has gone back to 23; and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner is now in 55.
It’s rare when my personal and professional lives collide but I’ve been doing quite a bit of reporting on the world of sports marketing for my job lately, including taking up an invitation to visit with the Mets at Citi Field March 31 to sample the new food and new features on the way to the park this year. Jacob Pickles’ fried-chicken-sandwich-on-a-biscuit-with-honey was quite good but a challenging dish to eat in the park. Pig Beach BBQ , Murray’s Mac & Cheese, Lobster Shack nachos– all good stuff. The first three options will be available in the Promenade Club; Lobster Shack behind section 104 on the field level.