Meet the Dbaggs

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Phoenix meetings of Mets and Dbaggs start tonight. It occurred to me I knew very little about them.



Tonight's starter is Jon Duplantier who sounds like a Canadian but is actually a Texan born in Delaware. Was a third round draft pick a few years ago out of Rice U and is considered a prospect. This will be his first ever MLB start, he's done okay in 5 relief appearances. I know of this guy only because I came across him desperately seeking $1 near-major starting pitcher prospects in the CPF fantasy league (tonight he opposes Zack Wheeler who's also on my team). Du-PLON-tee-ay is 24 years old, wears goggles and reportedly got into Yale where he would have been their QB but chose baseball instead.



Saturday Night (10pm) is another Cy Young Special as deGrom opposes Zack Greinke, who's having a good year so far.



On Sunday (4 pm start) it's Matz vs. Merrill Kelly.

Kelly is another rookie RHP from Houston but he's 30 years old. Spent several seasons in the Rays system then was released and signed in Korea, where he played for the last 3 years and was left to work out his problems in a foreign land. "Sometimes over there, you have to be your own pitching coach….You have to navigate the waters on your own sometimes. That forced me to start to look for things I didn't before because you have to fix it." Kelly's had a mix of good and bad outings so far.



Manager Torey Lovullo was Todd Zeile's teammate at UCLA in the 80s. He was Manager of the Year in his 2017 rookie year.



Wilmer Flores is on the DL with will miss the series with a foot injury.



What else do you need to know?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Won't deGrom's start be the third straight where the Cy Young award winner will be facing another Cy Young award winner (Scherzer, Kershaw and now, Greinke)? I wonder if that's some sort of record?

[smg58]

There's got to be somebody who can look that up. I would think it happened at least a couple of times when four-man rotations were common. I could picture Seaver facing Gibson, Jenkins, and Carlton in successive starts.

[smg58]

Closer Greg Holland (1 year, $3M plus possibly another $3M in incentives) has been a great pickup (1.53 ERA so far).

[smg58]

A sub-.500 record in spite of a +42 run differential.

[Fman99]

Wilmer and a bunch of other guys.

[Frayed Knot]

=smg58 post_id=11714 time=1559346978 user_id=62]
A sub-.500 record in spite of a +42 run differential.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=smg58 post_id=11712 time=1559346232 user_id=62]
There's got to be somebody who can look that up. I would think it happened at least a couple of times when four-man rotations were common. I could picture Seaver facing Gibson, Jenkins, and Carlton in successive starts.