Jacob deGROMINATES Phillies!! mfc Highlight card!

What a performance! And the one hit was by effin Elfin, the Philly pitcher.
''I knew who got the hit off me (in the 3rd inning),'' deGrom said with a smile. ''After that, you want the shutout. I went out there every inning like it was the first inning. It was a lot of fun.'' Jacob (6-4) retired 27 of 29 batters. The slim right-hander struck out 7, walked 1 and went the distance for the first time in 68 career starts.

>DeGrom is 15-3 with a 1.63 ERA while pitching in day games and 14-15 with a 3.19 ERA at night.

>DeGrom became the first Mets pitcher to toss a one-hitter since R.A. Dickey against the Orioles on June 18, 2012.

R.A. was also the last Mets pitcher to pitch a one hitter, the one hit being by the opposing pitcher. On August 10th, 2010 Cole Hamels got that hit.

>DeGrom is 4-0 vs. the Phillies and the Mets have won all seven of his starts against them.

>The Mets have 16 homers in six games in Philadelphia.

>They're 31-13 in Citizens Bank Park since 2012.

______________________________________________________

The Mets called up OF Michael Conforto and sent OF Brandon Nimmo to Triple-A Las Vegas. Brandon showed promise and his enthusiasm was nice to see. That one homerun he hit showed impressive power. He also showed some good plate discipline.

Nimmo hit .235 with one homer and four RBIs in 16 games. "I know I have a lot to work on and I can do that in Triple-A,'' Nimmo said. ''I know I can play here. This gave me confidence I can do it.''

Nimmo, I'm sure you are going to have many mfc cards in your future. Cya when you come back up.

Conforto, mired in a bad slump, was demoted on June 25. He found his groove in the minors, batting .344 with nine extra-base hits and 15 RBIs.  How he will be used this time up will be something to watch with our over manned outfield.

Lagares has been hot at the plate and we know what he brings us in center. Cespedes has the best arm on the team but he doesn't want to display it in right. Granderson will not be a bench player on this team, nor should we trade him. So where does Conforto fit in the field? Where does he fit in the lineup? Remember when he was first inserted in the 3rd slot? Does he slip right back in there? Does he contribute as a back up off the bench?

It will be interesting to see how Manager Terry Collins handles this situation.

_______________________________

Tonight Steven Matz goes for the Mets as they try and continue their dominance of the Chicago Cubs.

LETS GO MATZ!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

deGrom card photo by Matt Slocum

Text info from Rob Maaddi

2016 mfc Captain Clutch walkoff GIFcard! And bad stuff about Matt Harvey :(

I haven't had time to write up the Milwaukee series yet. I was able to get one GIFcard completed. David Wright with the walk off on Saturday! I wish I had thought of Captain Clutch when I was making the card. I like this new design for the GIFcards. I can get more image in this way. You can see I was going in this direction with the Conforto. I should redo the Conforto because that little cut out looks crappy.

Look at that swing! 

So The Captain with the walk off. And the 3 run kaBOOM vs. the Nats! Good stuff! But there's also been bad stuff. Matt Harvey....

 I made a card for "before the game". Ha, what a nut. ;)

In a game we all wanted him to get back on track in he fell off the rails. He looked okay to start but gave up 2 boomers in the fourth and hit that fifth inning wall. This is tough to see. Must be worse to go through it.

We have an eve and a day and a nickname.
He's gotta make a comeback!

After the game Matt left without facing the press. Very bad. Or sad. He always at least owns up after a bad outing.

Jeez, I never expected to feel bad for nightlife lovin' model datin' nude posin' Matt Harvey. How the mighty have fallen. I feel for him. I'm in the Matt Harvey Supporter Group.

From 2013

I think he makes it thru this eventually. His numbers are VERY similar to Strasburg's the year after TJ surgery ( Ronnie and the SNY booth showed that last night). He's going to have to go to Vegas and work this out. It's my feeling that Matt's got to get back to 2013 shape and weight. The business about using extra weight to pitch, save that for when you're older. That will probably happen naturally.

Remember when The Dark Knight could pick and choose where to rehab? Those days are over and this will test his character. We thought we knew what he was made of but we didn't. We will find out now. 

Don't forget we have Wheeler back sometime in July if he's still on schedule.

Ya know, with Duda, sometimes a temporary back ailment is just that. Wrights situation has us spooked. I think we see Lucas back before July and fine.

Wilmer Flores just started rehab, and he had a couple of hits in his game last night. He should be back Friday. Flores could step up and be big. It's a great opportunity here and has risen to the occasion more than once in orange and blue. I have faith in Flores. 

De Aza is taking ground balls at first. I hear that Conforto might. Right away I rooted for Conforto to first but I was in panic mode. I still like the thought of Conforto as our first baseman (and not just temporarily) for a number of reasons but to pull that on him mid-season may be a bit much.

My hopes are that Flores steps up and forces me to make another one of those Mets Magic Cards. And Duda will be back in three weeks tops and this back problem was an isolated incident.

No comment. Except to say I did go on record saying that Muffy was going to come back and bite us on the ass.

New guy Ty Kelly looked out of his element at the plate tonight, overmatched, shaking his head like he was in a nightmare. 3Ks and a ground out to end his first MLB game. He was. He was also facing Steven Strasburg at his 2016 best. He was ripping it up in the minors and I hope he sees better days, and soon. He will get a card.

What's the deal with the other Matt? Was he called up just to bunt and ride the pine?

Eric Campbell whipped a homer. Maybe he gets a little streak going. Even the most average ballplayers sometime's do this. Come on Campy! We could use a hot streak. So could you.

If they get Loney for nothing, fine, I've always liked the player.

Spell correct wants that^ to say "If they get Money for nothing..". 

And our chicks for free?

Matz today for the rubber game.

Lets Go Matz!

  

 And don't be giving up on Matt Harvey!

Did you hear what Ronnie said about Harvey cupping the ball? Did you see the replay? Look at how loosely Matt's holding the baseball in all these images above. There is a difference.

mfc>>THIS WEEKEND IN METS BASEBALL!

The Mets lost the rubber game against the Phils in extra innings last Wednesday. Above you see some true baseball fans at the game in Philadelphia, kids who don't let their baseball allegiances come in between their friendships. I wish I knew who these kids were because I'd like them to see the card and know that I appreciated their humorous placards ( ha! Only Casey & I call 'em placards). 

This one below goes out to Liam Sullivan and his son Peter, another great fan of the game. Look at how Pete has his head in there. Who does that remind you of?

Michael Conforto maybe? 

Michael Conforto and Pete Sullivan are seeing the ball very well lately. The action below is from Sunday's game where Conforto drove in two with a sac fly and a wicked double to the base of the wall in right. That was Michael's 6th double and 10 RBI of '16.

I know what Keith would say. 

He'd say "I like how that young man keeps his head in there, he's going to be a fine hitter. Also, I hate these Mets uniforms from 1989."

I made the 1990mfc Keith because I ran into this photo and I have to display the worst Mets road jersey ever created. Let's get that out of the way. It's still better than Hernandez in an Indians uniform, though. BTW, that's Sullivan's rookie card so I recommend you put that in digital plastic. 

Cespedes and Duda did go back to back in that loss in Philly and let's hope we see a lot of that this summer. Duda looks to be in a hot-streak (and he's going the other way a lot), Granderson's coming around nicely, and Cespedes is Cespedes. 

Speaking of Cespedes, in a game on April 13th against the Marlins he made this fantastic effort for a foul ball at Citi. It was late in a 2-0 game, New York in the lead. I'll never question Yoenis's hustle again (I have in the past) but I still have to question his thought process. If this was a perfect game in the World Series, okay, but to take a risk like that in April is a bit helter skelter. Thankfully, all the spectators were okay. Cespedes banged up his leg a bit but could still stay in the game, and played Friday night. 

What a try.

Yoenis has not played since Friday night because he reaggravated his bruised leg on this slide pictured below. I hope this isn't a lingering thing. Because as good as his effort was, if we lose him in the lineup it wasn't worth it.

Curtis Granderson had a great game in the opener against the Atlanta Braves Friday night. He led off the game with a single, hit a grand salami in the 2nd inning and ripped another homer in the 4th . It's great to see Granderson coming around. Like last season, he's had a slow start, so I felt it was only a matter of time with him. 

I've been getting on Travis d'Arnaud's case a little lately so it's only fair to give him credit when he deserves it. Travis made this great grab in game 1 of the Atlanta series. 

This is a great photo by Kevin Cox. Below are some alternate views of the same moment. First you see the excellent photograph by Mr.Cox and then some screen grabs showing the same moment recorded by SNY cameras.

And if you look you can see Kevin actually taking the photograph. Pretty kool.

Great grab d'Arnaud. Great shot Kevin. Great camera work SNY.

_________________________________

Steven Matz (2-1) won his second game in a row after his weak debut. Remember when the Fish fried him for 1.2 frames at Citi a few weeks ago? Me neither. Matz is looking good.  

He went 6.1 innings, scattering 2 runs and 9 hits. He issued 8 strikeouts and walked none.

David Wright has been shooting a lot of balls to right and right center. I expect we'll see a lot of that because he's always had power the other way. This is fine, and maybe easier on his back. Having said that, it was nice to see him pull a double in the 2nd game of the Atlanta series.

Jacob deGrom (2-0) returned and pitched a fine game Sunday. He went 5.2 and picked up the win allowing 1 run on 8 hits. He had 3 strikeouts and walked none. Henderson (3 holds), Robles (2 holds), Blevins (3 holds), and Familia (5 saves) closed it out for New York.

____________________________________

This weeks regular issue mfc card will be Asdrubal Cabrera. What a great job he's doing at shortstop. Hitting for average and in the clutch, and like on Sunday he'll jack one from time to time. He's got baseball smarts and experience as he has displayed during the first month of the 2016 season.
With Cabrera and Walker, Sandy Alderson has fortified our middle infield.

_______________________________

Time for a coach card!

Dan Warthen deserves an mfc card. Because I think he's a freakin' awesome pitching coach and his card reflects this.

My condolences to Mr. Warthen on the loss of his mother last week.

_____________________________________

Oh yea, we swept the Braves!
WooHoo!

>>>>New York has 23 home runs in the last 9 games.

>>>>Sunday marked the seventh time New York scored in the first inning on its nine-game road trip. The Mets are 10-3 when scoring first, 8-2 on the road.


>>>>OF Yoenis Cespedes was unavailable for the second straight day while nursing a sore leg that Collins said "could" linger into Monday night.

Coming up:
>>>>New York begins a nine-game homestand Monday night with RHP Noah Syndergaard (2-0, 0.90) slated to start against Cincinnati RHP Raisel Iglesias (1-1, 3.09).

mfc will present favorite custom cards.

________________________________________________

Photographs by

Kevin C. Cox, Bill Streicher, Erik S. Lesser, Lori M. Nichols, Tim Hawk, John Amis, SNY.

>>>>2015 NLDS game4- DODGERS @METS

METS LOSE 3-1, SERIES GOES TO A DO OR DIE GAME 5!

Steven Matz was more than serviceable through five frames. A bunch of little hits and then Turner, well he's hitting everything. I told you he'd be a thorn in our side.

Kershaw was amazing in a very blasé way. He just hit all his spots while Matz was missing his. It was quite a performance and should hopefully put an end to his postseason performance jinx once and for all.

This was the turner point for me. I mean turning point. It was a good at bat by Kershaw, and Matz tried to drop that curve in there one too many times.

Now you might think this is the Turner point and I suppose, literally speaking, it is, but I don't consider it the turning point. But damn you Turner, what did we ever do to you...?    Oh yea. Well still, cut it out already. Okay, we should have kept you. I CONCEDE!

Stop showing everyone how pissed off you are Steve. We get it, you care. But leave those kind of faces for us fans. 

When Murphy turned on a Kershaw fastball and replayed his game one homer here in Citi Field I did a little victory dance.

I've been doing this same dance since I've been 12 years old.

Now I was paying attention to the game, well, as much as you can when you are watching it with others & yakkin, but what shocked me the most about Muffy's long ball was it was the Mets first hit of the game! Yikes!

^Grimm should be feeling de-jaVu

Matz pitched a good game. He was a little nitpicky with his pitches but overall he did a commendable job for a rook on the hot seat. He kept us in the game. It didn't matter. Kershaw kept us out of it.

Wright made a nice over the railing grab of a foul ball in the 8th. We need to hear some noise from The Captain out in L.A..

Awww, shaddup. It was a slow card day in Mets Fantazyland.

GET 'EM IN L.A.!

A game five for all the marbles. I don't know if I'm prepared for this kind of intensity. Well, nothing's easy folks.