NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy Monday! It was a weird week as it was shortened due to the holiday but it was less weird than Short Matt starring in his own 2023 remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I will let him tell you about it, Anway, there was still sports news to report on, so, let’s focus on today’s topics: Weekly Mets Update, Weekly Mets Update, MLB Draft, Gold Cup.
Weekly Mets Update
The New York Mets has their most successful week of the season. They lost on Saturday and Sunday but before that they had won 6 in a row. It is a positive sign and though they need to have a few more of these or maybe double the amount. This was very positive for the Mets.
Tommy Pham and Brandon Nimmo have established themselves as the 1 and 2 hitters in the order right now. Francisco is Lindor is not back to being a terror, but his average is going up as he is improving. Pete Alonso isn’t back to his best but he seems to be getting hit by pitches a lot and can still swing for the fences. It is the rest of the of the team that has to get more clutch hits and stop leaving runners on base. Guys like Starling Marte and Jeff McNeil need to play better because they are being out played by baby Mets, Fransisco Alvarez and Brent Baty.
The Pitching is still a concern. In the 2 losses this weekend, it was the starters who gave up runs and the offense couldn’t make up the difference. Saturday it was a 3-1 loss so the bats failed to back up a good pitching performance. Sunday, Ace Max Scherzer gave up too many runs (5) for the Mets to comeback from.
The All-Star break hopefully comes at time that will let the Mets reset. There is no way they can have a second half good enough to win the division. However, they can have one good enough to claim the 6th seed and get into the playoffs. As the Phillies showed last season, as long as you get in, anything can happen.
MLB Draft
The MLB Draft happened this weekend and I don’t know if there is a tougher draft to grade. Players drafted can take anywhere from 3-5 years before they show up in the pros. The time frame depends on if they pick a kid fresh out of high school or one that has had some college experience. But like every draft, the extra 1 percent in-between the ears is tough to predict. Matt Harvey was a 1st round pick from a good college and he washed out with the Mets after early fanfare. Jacob deGrom was a 7th round pick from a small college and he won two Cy Youngs. So time will tell what happens with this draft class.
Gold Cup
Soda semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup have been set. We will see Jamaica take on Mexico on Wednesday and the USA take on Panama. If you’re wondering where Canada is the USA beat them Sunday night penalty kicks. Both sides were sending in their second teams and because of that Canada’s pool play performance was pretty poor so that they barely got out of the pool. A strong performance could have avoided facing the USA until the semifinal or final. Mexico is looking good with their temporary coach and playing a bit better. Panama has been really good sense about 2017 and have been looking to you so Costa Rica as the number 4 team in Concacaf. Jamaica is also been making some big moves with pulling in a few of their British Jamaican players and give them to switch nationality and now they’ve become competitive. This US team doesn’t fill me of confidence that they can win the trophy so I figured it will be the winner out of Mexico versus Jamaica is going to win this thing.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below. Check out Ben Whitney, who will give us his thoughts on the first half of the MLB Season.
