Ownership Has Its Privileges

This one was a big April win.

You know that there are going to be some lulls in a long season, and sometimes those lulls come early. All you really want to do is make sure those lulls don’t kill you as much. Sunday’s game was the difference between a 4-5 stretch over nine, which is liveable, or 3-6, which just looks a whole lot worse.

J.D. Davis is a caricature at this point. Everything he’s known for, he magnified. His defense is murderous, he makes errors in big spots. But he rakes, and he owns Patrick Corbin. Against the Nationals, he did both. Davis slammed a first inning two run HR off Corbin to get the Mets off on the right foot, and had himself three hits and scored the third run of the day on James McCann’s single in the 4th to make it 3-0. That inning should have ended better, but more on that in today’s Hate List™.

Taijuan Walker bounced back nicely after walking six in Wrigley Field. He had some control issues early and was bailed out by picking off Josh Hamilton in the first and by some good defense in the third, but he found his groove and pitched seven shutout innings, only giving up three hits and three walks to get the victory. Walker also ran into some trouble in the sixth, but was bailed out by the defensive play of the season so far:

.@albertalmora has you covered in center. #LGM pic.twitter.com/GymZc4Nud9

— New York Mets (@Mets) April 25, 2021

Can we get Albert Almora some playing time now?

The fourth Mets run was a Pete Alonso missle to the black in center field, and Miguel Castro and Edwin Diaz finished off the Nationals in the 8th and 9th for a 4-0 victory and a series win. It was a nice way to wash away the taste of that nasty sweep in Chicago. Walker’s outing makes you think of the possibilities for when Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard come back and give the Mets a ton of options to attain world domination … that is until the Red Sox series when one loss will mean the season will be over again.

By the way, I have thoughts on what the Mets might do with Syndergaard, and maybe I’ll expound on them here at some point. But for now, I’m going to hype my Twitter thread for some preliminary thoughts which I hope you don’t find too crazy.

Today’s Hate List

1. Doug Eddings’ strike zone.
2. I mean, 4-0 really should have been 8-0 as Brandon Nimmo struck out on a 3-2 pitch that was in the same spot as the 1-1 pitch from this at-bat, which was called a ball.
3. Eddings did it to Ryan Zimmerman in the 8th as the 2-2 pitch and 3-2 pitch were in the exact same spot.
4. It’s almost as if they’re flipping a coin at this point.
5. Also: 4-0, which should have been 8-0, probably should have been 10-0 but when the hell did Kyle Schwarber learn how to play defense?