G-Fafif

Cabrera going on DL -- geez! Left thumb still bothering him. T.J. Rivera is back (back) in the New York clubhouse.

Lagares CF Flores 3B Cespedes LF Bruce RF Walker 2B Duda 1B d'Arnaud C Reyes SS Wheeler P No Conforto still; no Cabrera; Cespy and Wilmer in.

The lineup whose bats won't KISS Zack's pitches... Rizzo 1B Happ 2B Bryant 3B Heyward RF Russell SS Schwarber LF Contreras C Lester P Almora CF

Many years since we've been here...nah, only feels like it. Goin' for five in a row with Ace Wheeler. He'll be opposed by some schlub of a Cub. Jon Lester, if you wanna be technical about it.

Joe Maddon's rubbing his hands together now that he's in possession of this supersecret injury information. Then again, I assume opposing managers work on the premise that all Mets are injured.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Does Granderson have a history of success against Lackey? That's the only reason I'd be able to think of. But regardless of any past history, Granderson isn't the player he used to be, and Conforto is still the player that he is. Granderson vs. Lackey: .244/.326/.463 in 47 PA, one homer, two ribbies.

The champions of the weekend series in Atlanta come home to face the champions of the world. The Mets' title is more recent, thus more imposing. DeGrom to stick it to Lackey. Or deGrom's teammates will do that, while deGrom sticks it to Lackey's teammates. Something like that.

Cards swoop up the lefty. Rule 5er who rarely seemed worth the trouble. Hit well for a pitcher. Wore stirrups. Fox-y gf. Three scoreless IP in the 18 inning affair at St. Louis, the kind of game that gets a Sean Gilmartin action. Bye.

Sean Gilmartin DFA'd, it was just mentioned by Gary.

Bad people who must be stopped... Inciarte CF Phillips 2B Markakis RF Kemp LF Adams 1B Flowers C Camargo 3B Swanson SS Garcia P

The day portion of Saturday's doubleheader, June 10, 2017, seems to have made a touch of team history. For the first time, best as I can tell, the Mets started Latin players at catcher (Rene Rivera, Puerto Rico), first base (Wilmer Flores, Venezuela), second base (T.J. Rivera, Puerto Rico by way of the Bronx), shortstop (Asdrubal Cabrera, Venezuela) and third base (Jose Reyes, Dominican Republic). Plus LF (Cespedes, Cuba) and CF (Lagares, DR), but I was looking at the infield and the backstop. There've been a handful of all-Latin starting infields before, dating back to Roberto Petagine holding down first late in 1996, but matching them up with a starting catcher has been the challenge. For example, you couldn't quite string Petagine, Alfonzo, Ordonez, Baerga/Espinoza together with Alberto Castillo. David Wright consistently thwarted whatever Ramon Castro brought to behind the plate. And Travis d'Arnaud's Filipino heritage didn't really qualify. The Los Mets of Minaya never produced quite this alignment. Clearly Sandy Alderson hates America.

Michael Conforto – LF Juan Lagares – CF Wilmer Flores – 1B Jay Bruce – RF Neil Walker – 2B Asdrúbal Cabrera – SS René Rivera – C José Reyes – 3B Seth Lugo - RHP

T.J. and Tyler take a hike.

MFS62 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: Wilmer Flores ... potential All-Star? He gets my vote. I started a #WriteInWilmer hashtag earlier. It's taken two people by storm. You guys make it four. Five, counting myself. A couple more weeks of Wilmer Flourish, and I don't see how they keep him off.

Seth Lugo makes his first start of 2017. The Mets make Jaime Garcia sorry he came to the ballpark. 1:35 PM on WPIX. Don't peer into the dugout for T.J. Rivera, Tyler Pill or Matt Reynolds. All have been optioned in the name of healthy bodies.

From the heart of darkness... Santana CF Philips 2B Markakis RF Kempt LF Adams 1B Suzuki C Swanson SS Camargo 3B Wisler RHP

Conforto LF Reyes SS Bruce RF Walker 2B Duda 1B Flores 3B Granderson CF d'Arnaud C Matz P

Day-Night could be all right, or at least we know it won't be a total loss. Steven Matz returns from utter obscurity to face Matt Wisler, who has an ERA of 7.00. Bring the Saturday sweep.

d'Kong76 wrote: One man's opinion, if Yo's not 100% I'd be fine waiting another week or two at this point. You make it sound as if the Mets are making an ill-considered decision with a valuable asset while implying that this is the sort of thing they do on a recurring basis.

The bad guys are... Inciarte CF Phillips 2B Markakis RF Flowers C Adams 1B Santana LF Ruiz 3B Swanson SS Newcomb LHP

Afternoon Yo-light after all. Says he doesn't know if he can run at 100%. Guess we'll find out. Good luck, sir!

Juan Lagares – CF Michael Conforto – RF Yoenis Céspedes – LF Wilmer Flores – 1B Asdrúbal Cabrera – SS T.J. Rivera – 2B Jose Reyes – 3B René Rivera – C Robert Gsellman - RHP

First of two in a separate-admission tilt at the spiritual heir to Turner Field. Use sun screen if you're going. Gsellman for us, a lefty making his major league debut for them, just hours away from carving his name into Met infamy...am I using that right? Yeah, probably. Sean Newcomb is the Braves' pitcher. Like Don Newcombe, he's never won a World Series game, either. Yo will be back on the roster, if not in the afternoon lineup. Stay tuned.

I've shared on FAFIF a few deleted scenes I had to trim for space from Piazza. Thought I'd share them here as well. A first-person prologue describing the writer/fan who was bringing you the story on the pages ahead: Having experienced Mike Piazza as a Mets fan is what made me want to write at length about Mike Piazza as a Met within the context of the life and times of the sport that surrounded him. The writer wrote it. The fan lived it. The writer decided to write it the way the fan recalled it, relying on a host of contemporary accounts to confirm or correct memory, and augmenting those with relevant thoughts that had been recorded since. But overall, this is the convergence of Piazza, the Mets and baseball, 1992 through 2016, the way it happened, recreated for your reading and reliving pleasure. http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2017/05/22/happy-piazzaversary/ --- A consideration of Mets draft history, spurred by the paucity of 62nd-round picks who make All-Star teams as rookies: May. Donnels. Proctor. In a more predictable enterprise, these were the players who should have been surrounding the likes of Jefferies when the Mets faced off against Piazza and the Dodgers in 1993, presumably pre-empting the need to lure free agents to Flushing. Yet none of the above was a New York Met during what projected as the primes of their major league careers. Conversely, Piazza wasn’t supposed to be hitting home runs at Shea or any other National League ballpark, never mind tipping a cap among All-Stars at Camden Yards. Did we mention how unpredictable baseball can be? http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2017/06/05/blowin-in-the-draft/ --- How fathomable it was that the first Met to "go in as a Met" might not have gone in as a Met: It would be simple enough to say that after a while, Mets fans didn’t miss Tom Seaver, not when their ballclub was leaping from 68 wins to 90 to 98 to 108 and the brassiest of brass rings, yet that is to not fully appreciate fan loyalty. Sure, there is the uniform, and there is the cap, and there is a fealty to success. The fan can be guided by the same transactional impulses as front office architects and free agent players. But some things you don’t take away and expect to go unmissed. You don’t take away a first love. You don’t take away a first star. You don’t go to the trouble of bringing back the FRANCHISE POWER PITCHER WHO TRANSFORMED METS FROM LOVABLE LOSERS INTO FORMIDABLE FOE only to let him go a year later. You also don’t not notice that Tom Seaver, who left New York the second time with 273 career wins on his ledger, wore garish horizontal stripes and a shirt that screamed SOX on the hallowed occasion of his 300th victory. It took place in New York, in front of Mets fans, but the Mets fans were one-day visitors to Yankee Stadium, same as Tom. The milestone was a fine moment, but it was also indicative of a right arm that was still churning out productive pitches. During the season of No. 41’s No. 300, the Mets were battling St. Louis for first place. Seaver was in the process of winning sixteen games for the White Sox. The Mets finished three games behind the Cardinals. The math suggests those wins of Tom’s would have looked much more attractive adorned by Mets gear. The 1985 Mets were formidable foes on most fronts, yet relied on soft-tossing Ed Lynch and still-learning Rick Aguilera for starting pitching depth down the stretch. They weren’t terrible, but Tom was still Terrific. When Seaver, having reached the age that he’d been wearing on the back of his jersey since he was 22, requested another trade, in 1986, it was to be closer to his home in Connecticut. The Mets didn’t need much of a boost that season, so he was off to Boston, mentoring a meteorically rising righthander named Roger Clemens (“At home, I’ll tell him what time the game starts. On the road, I’ll tell him what time the bus leaves,” is how Tom described the extent of his guidance) and helping another team to the playoffs until his right knee, the one that absorbed dirt from the pitching mound when his motion was ideal, gave out in September. Tom was forced to sit inactive in the dugout during the ensuing World Series at Fenway Park and, yes, Shea Stadium. Seaver the Red Sock was a footnote to the circumstances of the Mets’ second world championship seventeen autumns after he was the heart and soul of the first one. Had he, instead of sacrificial lamb Al Nipper, been available to pitch for Boston in Game Four, it could be legitimately wondered whether the Mets would have won that second world championship when they did. Seaver versus the Mets in the World Series…shudder. http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2017/06/09/the-seaver-standard/ --- If you are so inclined, swing on by the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse in Manhattan this Thursday night, June 15, at 7 PM, for a little Piazza/Seaver talk. Details here: http://www.icontact-archive.com/oQwqeijYVpLtHCZPPVTbYV7VB_nVdv5f?w=3

Come celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Steve Henderson trade and the 15th anniversary of Shawn Estes's home run off Roger Clemens (everything's worth celebrating if you spin it carefully) at beautiful Bergino Baseball Clubhouse, 67 E. 11th St., in Manhattan, June 15, 7 PM. I'll be there talking "Piazza" and a little Seaver while we're at it with genial owner and host Jay Goldberg, answering questions from whatever audience there is and signing books for those who are into it. If you're in the neighborhood, drop on by. Here's the official promotional language: A franchise and fan base in perpetual search of validation finally had its ticket punched as 2016 dawned. Mike Piazza, who held records in one hand and a city’s rapt attention in the other, gained election to the Hall of Fame. Within weeks of this long-awaited announcement, the ballclub with whom he chose to cast his eternal lot, the New York Mets, made a date to retire his number. In Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star, Greg Prince explores the parallel paths Piazza and the Mets set out on in the early 1990s and how their individual journeys merged into a mutual quest for transcendence. From marriage of convenience to lifetime bond to a state of baseball grace reached only once before in team history, Piazza examines how the stranger from Los Angeles became New York’s favorite son and why Mets fans continued to rally to Piazza’s cause years after he took his final swing for them. Join Greg Prince for our intimate Clubhouse conversation on Thursday, June 15. On the 40th Anniversary of Tom Seaver being traded away, we will also discuss a date forever remembered by Mets fans as “The Midnight Massacre.” RSVP required to attend... http://www.icontact-archive.com/oQwqeijYVpLtHCZPPVTbYV7VB_nVdv5f?w=3