Your Sunday morning dose of New York Mets and MLB news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
The Mets fell to the Astros 2-1 in the rubber game of the opening series of the season in Houston. Griffin Canning had an excellent first start as a Met, but the offense failed to produce and the Mets were one-hit by Spencer Arrighetti and the Astros bullpen. The Mets’ only run came in the top of the sixth when Jose Siri basically manufactured a run by himself by walking, stealing second, tagging up to third on a fly out, and boldly sprinting home to score on a groundout. Otherwise, the offense failed to capitalize on leadoff walks in the eighth and ninth and the Mets leave Houston with just one win under their belts.
Choose your recap: Amazin’ Avenue, MLB.com, NY Post, Daily News, Newsday, North Jersey
Francisco Lindor has started the season 0-for-11, which of course raises questions about whether this will become another season in which he has a slow start, like he has had most of his tenure with the Mets. But Lindor feels he is in a much better spot now than he was a year ago.
Though it is not fun to stew on an opening series loss for an extra day, given the odd Sunday off day today, the series in Houston did have some silver linings, writes Jon Heyman of The New York Post. These include the beginning of the Juan Soto era, the performances of Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning, Edwin Díaz looking like himself rather than the pitcher we saw in spring training, and Max Kranick’s triumphant return to the big leagues.
Mets outfielder José Azócar cleared waivers yesterday and will be assigned to Triple-A Syracuse. The same was not announced for Alexander Canario, whose fate is still unclear.
Speaking of Syracuse, they were rained out in Worcester yesterday.
Today, Steve Cohen will join New York State Senator John Liu to announce the next step in the Metropolitan Park development plan.
The arrival of Francisco and Katia Lindor’s third child is imminent and it’s unclear how much time (if any) he will need to miss as a result.
The injuries to the Mets’ rotation are an early stress test of the David Stearns philosophy, writes David Lennon of Newsday.
Around the National League East
The Nationals’ bullpen woes continued, as they fell to the Phillies 11-6. Jesús Luzardo shined in his debut for the Phillies, striking out 11 batters.
Despite Spencer Schwellenbach yielding just one hit, the Braves were blanked by the Padres 1-0. San Diego swept the opening series from Atlanta.
A silver lining for the Braves amidst a disastrous opening series is that Spencer Strider looked good in his first rehab start, striking out six across three innings of one-run ball in Triple-A.
The Braves signed Eddys Leonard to a minor league deal after he was released from the Tigers’ Triple-A roster yesterday.
Dane Myers hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the twelfth to propel the Marlins to a 5-4 victory over the Pirates.
Around Major League Baseball
The Yankees made history yesterday, homering on the first three pitches of their game against former teammate Nestor Cortes and the Milwaukee Brewers en route to a 20-9 thrashing in which they went deep a whopping nine times in total.
Max Scherzer made an early exit from his Blue Jays debut due to lat soreness. He had been scheduled to start against the Mets in their home opener on Friday.
The Tampa Bay Rays placed OF Josh Lowe on the 10-day injured list with a right oblique strain and recalled OF Jake Mangum from Triple-A Durham.
MLB executives spoke to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com about which teams improved the most in the offseason. The Dodgers and Red Sox tied for the most votes with the Mets coming in second in the polling.
Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue
Chris McShane took a look at Tylor Megill’s arsenal in his first start of 2025 and allowed us all to relive Soto’s first Mets home run with curated highlights and data.
This Date in Mets History
The Mets won the second game of a two-game series in Tokyo to open the season on this date in 2000.