NEW YORK, NY — Sudden injuries, flare ups and down performances are bound to occur to each and every Major League Baseball clubhouse throughout the course of a 162-game regular season, it’s a given.
Starting pitching was a major concern for the Mets going into the 2025 season. Nominal ace Kodai Senga missed practically the entire 2024 season with an assortment of injuries. Sean Manaea, who was the Mets best pitcher last year, is currently on the shelf with an oblique injury, and it is starting to look like he will not see the Citi Field pitching mound until June. David Peterson had a breakthrough year in 2024 and pitched quite well in his first outing of the year against the Marlins in Miami.
You could not blame 6’7″ right-handed pitcher Tylor Megill if he has felt like the legendary comic and Kew Gardens native Rodney Dangerfield at times.
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When it came to analyzing the Mets starting pitching staff, Megill has been an afterthought at best. Even converted relief pitcher Clay Holmes generated more discussion. Talk about no respect.
Megill has always shown he can pitch. Unlike too many hurlers these days, Megill is not interested in getting high numbers on speed guns. He is more interested in deceiving hitters by throwing pitches at various speeds which have plenty of movement. The problem for Megill in the past has been commanding that movement. His wildness last year earned him a demotion to the Syracuse Mets farm club last year.
Image Credit: George Napolitano/Latino Sports
That unplanned trip to central New York State may have been the best thing for him. As Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen pointed out following Megill’s brilliant outing in Friday’s home opener against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Mets have won every one of Megill’s last eight starts.
What I have always admired about Tylor Megill is whenever he comes off the mound after finishing an inning, he is always chewing on gum without seeming to have a care in the world, no matter how he fared.
Last year the Mets played all Saturday home games in April at 1PM. That made sense both given the expected weather.
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It was also a chance for families to enjoy a day at the ballpark and return home at a reasonable time. I fondly remember going to Saturday matinees at Shea Stadium with my dad.
That is why it is a mystery as to why last Saturday’s game against the Blue Jays started at 7PM in very chilly weather. Gary Cohen, to his credit, wondered aloud as to why the game was not scheduled for the afternoon.
Cohen’s booth colleague, the inimitable Keith Hernandez, was caught on a hot mic last week in Miami bemoaning the Mets’ “piss-poor hitting.” While that understandably got media buzz, I was more impressed with his observation about the failure of hitters to move runners into scoring position with productive outs. He tore into the Marlins’ Jonah Bride for not trying to hit the ball to the right side of the infield to get the lead run to third base.
SNY to air an amount of Mets’ minor league affiliates games
SNY, the Mets cable home, is televising home games of the Mets’ minor league affiliates on days when the Mets are not playing.
Image Credit: SNY
Last Thursday, they broadcast the poor man’s subway series as the Yankees’ top farm club, the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Rail Riders beat the Syracuse Mets, 5-1. This is an effective way for dedicated fans to learn more about the players in the Mets’ system.
Vice Media debuts Clemens vs. Piazza
Vice Media’s new sports series on rivalries which bordered on the nasty as opposed to pure competition, debuted its “Clemens vs Piazza” episode last week. As expected, there were plenty of clips of Roger Clemens tossing beanballs at Piazza’s noggin, as well as him tossing that broken bat at him in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series. Bobby Valentine, the Mets manager at the time, provides commentary, as does former New York Times, and now Washington Post sports columnist, Mike Wise.
Image Credit: MLB
Not surprisingly, neither Roger Clemens nor Mike Piazza took part. At last January’s Amazin’ Day at Citi Field, Piazza was asked by reporters yet again about Clemens, and he refused to discuss the matter.
Kentucky Derby coming soon + Netflix documentary on Race for the Crown
With the Kentucky Derby less than a month away, Netflix will offer a behind-the-scenes documentary series on the world of thoroughbred racing, Race for the Crown. The producers plan on interviewing jockeys, trainers, and of course, owners. Expect thoroughbred magnate, and Middle Village native, Mike Repole to get significant airtime.
Image Credit: Netflix
The series will debut on Netflix on April 22.
Prime Video set to air three-part documentary on Diana Taurasi
Prime Video, which is a broadcast partner of the WNBA, will be producing a three-part documentary on one of the greatest hoops players in history, Diana Taurasi, who played for twenty years for the Phoenix Mercury, and won NCAA championships playing for the University of Connecticut Huskies.
Image Credit: WNBA
A release date has not yet been set.
The ‘Mess’ of the Brooklyn Nets
The Brooklyn Nets do not get much coverage for a New York team. That is understandable since they are not good, and they do nothing to market themselves outside of Brooklyn. In addition, they seem more preoccupied with getting TikTok viewers than they do getting coverage in traditional earned media. Brooklyn Global Sports & Entertainment (the Nets parent company) executives Charlie Widdoes and Andrew Karson basically admitted that in a recent interview with the digital sports business publication, JohnWallStreet.
I had to laugh when I read Jed Katz’s article on the Nets in Friday’s Sports Illustrated. Katz claims the Nets have a great core of young talent to go along with all their upcoming first-round draft choices. I am not sure how Katz defines “great.” The Nets are a collection of faceless group of G-League players who most observers would be charitable to label as mediocre.
Image Credit: NBA
The Nets do seem to have a talented head coach in Jordi Fernández. It is a tribute to his skills that the Nets were able to win 25 games instead of breaking the 1972-73 record for fewest wins in an NBA season, which is often a realistic concern for too many Nets teams.
New York Times runs obituary on Joe DePugh
The New York Times ran a lengthy obituary on Joe DePugh in Friday’s edition. His name will not be familiar to most, but he was immortalized by a teammate on his high school baseball team. DePugh was a star pitcher for Freehold Boro High School where a guy named Bruce Springsteen rode the bench because he could not hit or field. In the early 1980s, Springsteen and DePugh crossed paths in a central New Jersey bar and reminisced about their days on the diamond facing teams from Monmouth County. That conversation became the basis for the Boss’s 1985 hit, “Glory Days.”
CBS launches new Saturday morning show, “The Visioneers”
CBS has launched a new Saturday morning show, “The Visioneers,” which salutes those individuals who are trying to improve the environment in a way that does not come off as political. In its debut episode, host and veteran travel journalist Zay Harding visited Miami Beach to see how a company is making bio-friendly seawalls which both protect against flooding and preserve ocean life.
Image Credit: CBS
In the next segment Harding went to The United Kingdom to see how ocean waves can be a source of clean renewable energy. “The Visioneers” ties in nicely with the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, which was first commemorated on April 22, 1970.
You can read more of Lloyd Carroll’s columns posted weekly on The Queens Chronicle.
