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Mets going with their Young second baseman. Eric Young, Jr � 2B Juan Lagares � CF David Wright � 3B Marlon Byrd � RF Josh Satin � 1B Andrew Brown � LF Anthony Recker � C Omar Quintanilla � SS Jeremy Hefner � RHP

Brown 1.5 Young 1.0 Parnell 1.0 Byrd 1.0 Quintanilla 1.0 Satin 1.0 Wright 1.0 Torres 1.0 Hawkins 1.0 Harvey 0.5

Got the "A" lineup going tonight. I mean, I guess... Eric Young, Jr. � LF Daniel Murphy � 2B David Wright � 3B Marlon Byrd � RF Josh Satin � 1B John Buck � C Juan Lagares � CF Omar Quintanilla � SS Shaun Marcum � RHP

Edgy MD wrote: No more plays on the word "rubber." I'm not inclined toward superstition, but it's cursed, it's bad luck, bad juju, bad kharma, a bad omen, a harbinger of doom. It's bedevlied, snake-bit, and star-crossed. It's ill-fated, foredoomed, and blighted. It leaves the game ill-augered and poorly portented. I CAN'T SAY THIS ENOUGH. Though I'm not inclined toward superstition. Bounce "rubber". Got it. Will find something more elastic.

Josh Thole: now a major league first baseman, just not a very good one. Boston�s turnaround rolled on with a 5-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday. There were smiles in the clubhouse but hardly a sense of satisfaction. �With 50 wins, people are going to keep talking about that. It�s not enough,� Shane Victorino said. �We�ve got to keep going.� His hard grounder eluded first baseman Josh Thole for an error as Jonathan Diaz raced home with the winning run in the ninth inning. Thole entered in the bottom of the third when Adam Lind left with mid-back tightness and Thole was playing first base for just the second time in 316 major league games. �You�ve just got to know who to hit it to, I guess,� Victorino said with a smile. �I played against Josh all those years in New York and he was a catcher.� Thole, acquired from the New York Mets along with pitcher R.A. Dickey in December, had played first at Triple-A Buffalo before he was called up on June 7. �I�ve played first base. That�s what I�m here for,� he said. �I�ve got to catch the ball and make an out.� Jose Bautista tied the game in the ninth against Koji Uehara (1-0) with a solo homer, his 19th of the season and third in two games. On the previous at-bat, Victorino made a sliding catch near the right-field line on Jose Reyes� fly ball. As you may have inferrred from the above, Victorino is still an a-hole. Reyes homered in the Jays' loss.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Yeah it really sucked but way better than Friday. I am absolute poison at the ballyard going on 2 years now, I can't see a win for my life. The Mets have won seven home games since May 11. I have been to nine Mets home games since May 11. There has been zero intersection between those two subsets.

Hefty Brand Trash Bag of a Box. Young 1.0 Satin 0.5 Aardsma 0.5 Recker 0.5

Eric Young, Jr. � LF Daniel Murphy � 2B David Wright � 3B Marlon Byrd � RF Josh Satin � 1B John Buck � C Juan Lagares � CF Omar Quintanilla � SS Zack Wheeler � RHP Sit, Recker, Sit.

Nice rack of numbers on Fman.

Tampa Bay up to 42-39, putting on more pressure. Three division leaders and three second-place teams in the American League all have better records than the MFYs. For at least a day or two, the vigil devoted to keeping them out of a playoff spot can be taken off high alert. Not that vigilance isn't paramount at all times. But in "if the season ended today..." terms, theirs would actually be over the day after tomorrow, too.

Brandon would like to come to Citi Field in July, Futures-wise. "Just to get to know the fans, get to be around them and have them see me play would be a great experience," Nimmo said. "There's plenty to be learned and plenty for fans to see, so I think it would be a beneficial experience for everyone.

Gee 2.5 Murphy 1.5 Quintanilla 1.0 Byrd 1.0 Nieuwenhuis 1.0 Buck 1.0 Torres 1.0 Young 0.5 Hawkins 0.5

Harvey 5.0 Satin 2.5 Wright 1.5 Young 0.5

Vote Nimmo.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The National League East standings from May 26 through June 27: New York 15-14 Miami 14-14 Atlanta 15-16 Washington 14-15 Philadelphia 14-17 This is an incredible stat. What possessed you to even think about this so that you could then calculate it? I looked at the standings yesterday. I noticed we were nine out in the loss column. Then I saw we still had the third-worst record in all of baseball and it hit me how nobody in the East had been doing much lately. Then after last night it occurred to me that we were twelve under after that horrid suspended game business (and succeeding game) against the Braves in late May (because somebody on Twitter goaded me that night into being very clear that "17-29" bore repeating). A month-plus later, even taking into account all the misery that transpired after the Subway Series sweep, we were somehow only eleven under. And I got curious. Calculating in-season segments is easy thanks to Baseball-Reference which posts "record after this date" for every team.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: If this isn't 73 all over again I don't know what. I think that the '73 Mets get shortchanged. They seem to be regarded as a fluky team in a weak division. But the '73 Mets had the best pitching in all of baseball that season and that has to count for a lot. They might not have been an imposing offensive team but they had the pitching equivalent of Bench, Rose and Morgan. They were extremely banged up, but when more or less healthy at the end of the season, they were unstoppable. I have to agree, no matter that I'd be happy to discover we're on the edge of something more. 1973's yearbook didn't have all those All-Stars on its cover for nothing. This moment in time seems to have more in common with 1980, 1992 and 2004, years when lousy Mets teams hung around in a lousy division until somebody remembered to get hot and leave them in the dust. Or it's akin to those moments in May of 1981 (seven of ten) and June of 1983 (splitting a ten-game homestand that was crammed into a week) when a few welcome signs of life emerged far from the top of the division. Or it's something else altogether. It's fun for sure, so what the hell?

seawolf17 wrote: Lefty Specialist wrote: What's more impressive is that the MARLINS have played .500 ball. Yeah, but nine of those fourteen wins are against us. Actually, five of those fourteen. This is just the last month or so. A longer contemplation on the current statistical phenomenon here.

Before 2009 to present -- the last month notwithstanding -- really kicked in, you used to be able to take the ".500 (or over .500) since..." date back to 1968 or late 1967. Mets are 29 games over .500 since 1980, so you have to go back to the first time the Mets were more than eight games under .500 in 1979 to delineate the longest standing winning record. That was May 10 of that year, as Grimm indicated. Thus, a 14-1 loss to the Dodgers actually has its uplifting utility.

Plus 1 for Zach Lutz.

115 games started by Not Wright since 7/21/2004, the bulk of those by Murphy and Turner when his back was crushed by Carlos Lee in 2011 and by Tatis after he got Cained in the head in 2009.

The National League East standings from May 26 through June 27: New York 15-14 Miami 14-14 Atlanta 15-16 Washington 14-15 Philadelphia 14-17

Probably faded in the wake of David's emergence, along with the passing from the press box of writers who had kept it going (not sure if it was something the PR staff ever included in their game notes, but a generation of Jay's interns probably have no idea of its historical resonance). I can remember it still coming up in the happy days of Fonzie and the high-flying years of Robin every time a stray Lamb would wander to third. We're now talking fewer than three 3B per year over the lifetime of the franchise, which doesn't sound all that preposterous. It was the failure to maintain a regular third baseman for any sustained period of time that made it as bad as it sounded for so long. Once Hubie took over the position, I thought the callbacks to third base as a "perennial trouble spot" were overblown, but a legend is a legend. It's a way more fun legend when it's been rendered inactive.

Byrd 3.0 Hefner 2.0 Hawkins 1.0 Rice 1.0 Parnell 1.0 Murphy 0.5 Lutz 0.5 Lagares 0.5 Satin 0.5

Milestone Alert! Zach Lutz became the Mets' 150th third baseman ever last night, though only the 21st to debut at the not so hot corner since David Wright became No. 129 almost nine years ago. An entire generation of Mets fans has come along with little idea every third base debut would earn a note in the game story in which it occurred. And who of a certain age cohort could forget the ode to the (then) 79 Mets who played third base in 1986's 25th anniversary celebration video cassette, An Amazin' Era? Smith and Jones and a Stearns named Dude Samuel, Valentine, Reynolds, Bressoud If experience counts, the Mets have four backups for David on the roster at present (in bold). Let's hope we almost never see any of them at his position. 150. Zach Lutz 06/27/2013 149. Vinny Rottino 05/28/2012 148. Ronny Cede�o 04/10/2012 147. Josh Satin 09/28/2011 146. Nick Evans 07/17/2011 145. Daniel Murphy 05/31/2011 144. Willie Harris 05/12/2011 143. Luis Hernandez 08/31/2010 142. Mike Hessman 07/29/2010 141. Justin Turner 07/19/2010 140. Wilson Valdez 08/25/2009 139. Andy Green 08/19/2009 138. Fernando Tatis 06/17/2008 137. David Newhan 09/29/2007 136. Ruben Gotay 09/07/2007 135. Damion Easley 04/19/2007 134. Julio Franco 09/10/2006 133. Eli Marrero 07/02/2006 132. Jose Valentin 05/26/2006 131. Miguel Cairo 04/21/2005 130. Chris Woodward 04/13/2005 129. David Wright 07/21/2004

This game potentially equals last game before break last year if it's a 7-0 flop. Or not, of course, but it does feel indicative.