{"id":2868,"date":"2018-03-28T19:05:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T01:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2018-03-29T07:53:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T13:53:52","slug":"lets-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2868","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s Go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A long and strange offseason is finally ending and the Mets, ready or not, are on the schedule for the first of at least 162 times in 2018.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/28.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-111\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/28.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"56\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a>Though we had a pretty good idea of the 22 guys who&#8217;d be making the cut all along, let&#8217;s all tip our caps to Phillip Evans, who claimed the last position-player spot available despite having been removed from the 40-man roster over the winter. Phil is also taking a dignified number along with that spot, moving from the stupid 72 to the distinguished company of Met 28s, home of Daniel Murphy, John &#8220;The Hammer&#8221; Milner, Bobby Jones, Sherman &#8220;Roadblock&#8221; Jones and Carlton Willey. Way to go, Phil.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">There&#39;s significance to No. 28 for Phillip Evans, whose father wore the number during his playing days. Evans has had a No. 28 jersey tattooed onto his arm since he was around 18 years old. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Mets?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Mets<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Fj02lttpi1\">pic.twitter.com\/Fj02lttpi1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AnthonyDiComo\/status\/979352885925502976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 29, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/45.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-131\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/45.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"58\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a>Not so lucky was Zack Wheeler, who lost out on a rotation slot and will start the season in AAA despite the challenge Steven Matz gave to lose it for him. Matz worries me, you guys. He&#8217;s one of the reasons I&#8217;m a bit nervous over the prospects of this club, the others being the general lack of excitement in the lineup: Other than Amed Rosario, and maybe, Brandon Nimmo, there&#8217;s just not a whole lot to dream on here. Reliable, professional, competent up and down, absolutely, and that&#8217;s not a bad thing to be generally. But its not as though Todd Frazier&#8217;s about to stop doing all that striking-out, or Cespedes will have a better few months than he did during his magical 2015 arrival, or Adrian Gonzalez will really ever be Adrian Gonzalez ever again, so I&#8217;m naturally tempering expectations. They could be pretty competent offensively, and they might be less. They probably can&#8217;t be more.<\/p>\n<p>The pitching might be good, my doubts about Matz notwithstanding, so I guess that&#8217;s where you place the hope: Competent offense, good pitching. You gotta believe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/38.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-122\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/38.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"56\" height=\"48\" \/><\/a>With that, let&#8217;s welcome Anthony Swarzak (38), Todd Frazier (21), Adrian Gonzalez (23), along with Mickey Callaway (36), Dave Eiland (58), Gary Disarcina (10), Ruben Amaro Jr. (20) to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ultimatemets.com\/uninumbers.php\">all-time numerical roster<\/a>, along with Philip Evans and bullpen catcher Dave Racianello to new numbers (Racianello takes 57; he was in 54 last year): The new data will populate following Thursday&#8217;s opener. Let&#8217;s Go Mets!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A long and strange offseason is finally ending and the Mets, ready or not, are on the schedule for the first of at least 162 times in 2018. Though we had a pretty good idea of the 22 guys who&#8217;d be making the cut all along, let&#8217;s all tip our caps to Phillip Evans, who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2868\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Let&#8217;s Go&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[789,784,782,781,780,783,668,614],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opening-day","tag-adrian-gonzalez","tag-dave-eiland","tag-gary-disarcina","tag-mickey-callaway","tag-phillip-evans","tag-ruben-amaro-jr","tag-steven-matz","tag-zack-wheeler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2875,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}