NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy Monday! And Happy Birthday to my wife. I have to do the birthday shopping, so I may not comment a lot today. Here’s today’s menu: Mets At The Break, MLB Draft, Euro and Copa Final.
Mets at the Break
Jacob Sternberg covered most of the points regarding the Mets in his Sunday piece. I really want to touch on how insane this first of the season has been. Going into June, the Mets were left for dead. I thought, here we go, another wasted season. However, since San Grimace appeared the Mets have been a different beast. Francisco Lindor, who Ward loves to hate on for getting hits when the team is out of contention late in the season has really been on fire. I am really impressed with Jose Iglesias and Lorrens Luis Torrens, who were brought in to be bench guys, but have made real contributions.
The real concern is the pitching. The Mets will have to go into the trading deadline deciding on getting a reliever or two and whether to just hope Kodai Senga comes good… or make a move for a proper starter. But they only have one All-Star, so the rest of the team can relax and hopefully start the second half like they started June and lock up a Wild Card spot.
MLB Draft
Travis Bazzana, a second baseman from Oregon State will go down as the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the number 1 pick of the Cleveland Guardians in the 2024 Draft.” The baseball draft is the least predictable of all the drafts. The amount of low-round picks that become something, while top picks don’t, is ridiculous. Much like hockey, the fact that Mr. Bazzana won’t make a debut until the spring of 2026, maybe the fall means he can be forgotten about until he becomes a professional and hopefully a good one… And just so Mets and Yankees fans, know, their clubs chose Carson Benge, OF, Oklahoma St., and Ben Hess, RHP, Alabama, respectively, in the first round. I have no idea who these guys are and I don’t care until they make it to the show.
Euro and Copa Final
The two countries, I dislike won their respective continental title. Argentina won the Copa America over a very good Colombia, and Spain defeated England to win the Euro Championship. I am pro Ronaldo and I have never been an Argentina fan, probably because I always viewed the Hand of God play as cheating and it colored me against Argentina. I was rooting for England because they have such long suffering fans and they are probably the best talent-wise they have been in a long time.
Thanks for reading and come tomorrow to hear from the Ben Whitney, who will tell you how lucky the Yankees are to get to be where they are at the break.
