I’ve been struck by the (mostly good) parallels between this year’s opening stretch and that of 2015, when the Mets unexpectedly took it to a Washington team that appeared a bit too confident in itself and rode it to a big April winning streak.
You’ll also recall it was a costly hot start then, and maybe now too, now that both events include an injury to Travis d’Arnaud. In 2015, d’Arnaud left us way too reliant on Kevin Plawecki whose own struggles helped to erase all the good of that 11-game win streak within a few months.
Plawecki’s older and maybe a little better today but he’s going to be the man for a while as the word on d’Arnaud is a bad elbow injury that may require the dreaded Tommy John surgery. That can’t be good for a guy who’ll be a free agent after next year, wasn’t a great throwing catcher to begin with, and whose prior injuries have prevented him from becoming much of the hitting star we’d imagined.
Tomas Nido, whom we saw briefly toward the end of last year, has been recalled and issued No. 3. You might recall his wearing 77 last year. You might remember No. 3 most recently on the back of Curtis Granderson.
Makes me wonder, who is the Mets’ emergency catcher? It was Phil Evans, but he’s in Las Vegas, as is Ty Kelly, 2017’s emergency catcher. Any suggestions?
And who’s the 9th string catcher?
Put me in, coach!
Twitter reports that Jose Lobaton has been called up, is starting tonight, and will wear #59.