I found it a little presumptuous at first for Phil Maton to walk in, take 88 off the back of coach Mike Sarbaugh, then go out there and be the first guy ever to wear 88 in a game in Mets history. Then I found out Maton has a demonstrated fondness for 88 since having it issued to him as a Padre, and that he was friendly with Sarbaugh from their time together in the Indians’ organization. Sarbaugh by the way is now suited up in 86.
There’s only 14 never-issued-to-a-player numbers left and that’s before we give anything to Alex Young, the lefty bullpenner waivered away from the Giants and assigned to Syracuse (for now). 69, 78, 79. 80, 82, 83, 84, 90, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97 and 98.
Who knows with the bullpen but I’m glad we’re making some choices beyond the Tyler Jay, Ty Adcock, Danny Young and Matt Festa rotation. Also, great to see Jose Butto doing his thing only now in relief. He’s got some bulldog in him. The other guy to look out for (perhaps) is Shintaro Fujinami, who struck a buncha guys out wearing 19 in Spring Training. He might come back with Kodai Senga, who knows.
It’s all pretty positive for the Mets lately but we also know what they’re capable of. There are 67 games remaining. If the SHaMs (Second HAlf Mets) play .600 ball (that’s less than their .650-ish June-July pace) they’ll go 40-27 and finish with 89 wins. That would mean we’d be going to the playoffs. But 55% would probably do it as well.
For now it might be fun just to catch the Braves and see where it goes.
On the mound there’s Ty Adcock, who was given No. 52. Tyler Jay (74) is back and we were unfortunate enough to make acquaintances with Matt Festa, who stunk it up wearing No. 73 tonight. Gone are Edwin Diaz, popped for a stupid sticky-stuff violation that is hurting the entire team. Sean-Reid Foley has been out since June 22 with shoulder trouble, and Drew Smith out since June 24 with elbow issues.
I wanted a long time for Smith to be the closer I thought he could be, and reward for the trade of one of my favorite all-time Mets, Lucas Duda. He was all over the places though. He wore 62 then 40 then 33 (he’s pretty much still a 62 to me). He had long hair for awhile, remember that? For a time it was easy to confuse him in print for Dominic Smith. If boxscores still existed, it’d be DrSmith and DmSmith.
Now he’s gone, and so is Tomas Nido, a forgotten man in the catcher scrum until resurfacing briefly this year. Here’s a fun piece of trivia you might have forgotten in the seven years that Nido’s been a Met: He started off his career wearing No. 77, in September of 2017.