The Mets lost their first series in the month of June on Sunday, losing to the Houston Astros in extra innings.
Now as the calendar flips to July, the Mets are set to play a stretch of baseball that could decide their season against a bunch of teams that are under .500.
Will the Mets take advantage of their road ahead?
Host Ryan Finkelstein recaps the series loss and breaks down the problems facing the Mets as they enter the two most pivotal weeks of their season.
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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. The Mets lost their first series in a month on Sunday. Can they bounce back from that and take advantage of their easy road ahead? I'll talk about it on today's show. You are Lockdown Mets, your daily New York Mets Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello to all you amazing Mets fans, you're listening to Lockdown. That's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you for making Lockdown Mets your first listen every day. Lockdown Mets is free and available on all platforms, including YouTube. On the show today, a Mets series loss to discuss will go through that game in the first segment. Then in the second segment, we're going to talk about the road ahead. While the New York Mets have everything they need to take advantage the way their lineup is hitting, but the one hold up, can this bullpen keep things together for this period of time with that? I mean, D.S. And even beyond that, or will they be the hindrance that holds the Mets back from contending this year? We'll go through all of that. Then in the final segment, your series preview, Mets vs. Nationals coming up here. And before we get to any of it though, I'm your host Ryan Fickelstein. If you want to find any of my work follow me on X at Finklestein Ryan, you'll also find some of my writing at JustBaseball.com where I work as the managing editor. Today's episode of Lockdown Mets has brought you by Tax Network USA. Did you know that it's never too late to resolve your tax issues with the IRS? Don't wait, reduce your tax debt and get help from a team of licensed tax professionals by calling 1-800-549-1000 or visit tnusa.com/lockdown. The New York Mets lost their first series since Jorge Lopez launched his glove into the stands over a month ago. It was a fantastic run to saw the Mets go 16 and 8 in the month of June and battle back to 500, although after losing this series to the Astros, they now dip one game below 500. But what I want to tell you is there's no shame in those series the Mets lost this weekend. Yes, it's frustrating because they had Saturday's game in hand and they nearly came back on Sunday. But the Astros are a good baseball team that has gone through a similar season as the Mets but has a far greater track record and just like the Mets have turned it on lately. So this was not a team that you look at and say man, a really bad team just stole a series from the Mets. No, it's a pretty good team. And I'm also here to put you all in therapy cash because I've been getting subtext since this loss. I've seen messages on social media, I've talked to my own dad about the Mets, and there's already that doubt that's creeping into Mets fans minds right now and rightfully so. This team has been very bipolar this year. Some respects go on these amazing runs as we've seen twice now and we saw the 0-5 start and the really bad 35 games that was in the middle of their two hot stretches this year. But I believe this team is going to be fine. And if they had lost this game forward and I think I'd be a little bit more concerned. But I still saw enough in this game that made me optimistic about the road that is ahead and we'll talk about that we're in the next segment because it should be pretty easy. It should be a stretch that the Mets take advantage of if they really are a good team, put themselves squarely in the wild card mix, if not atop the wild card mix or at least atop the scrum below the Braves. And enter the all-star break with a real opportunity to view themselves as buyers with a couple weeks left to round out their roster and potentially go on and run this season. So everything is out in front of the Mets. But this was a series that they could have won. And so I understand the expression. I understand the frustration because Saturday's game was in hand and you thought Luis Severino on the mound versus bullpen game for the Astros, the Mets would have found a way to win that final game. Unfortunately, things just did not break their way. They were no hit until the sixth inning. Meanwhile Severino, in some respects, had a great start because they needed a length out of him and he got through seven innings on 79 pitches. With that said, he gave up a home run to John Singleton and then he got blooped to death by the Astros in this game. He said after the game, it was as dominant as he has felt all year and the pitch counter reflects that. And yet some of those hits, the fly ball or the pop up that Lindor nearly caught that dropped in, you know, the one and two count where yiner Diaz hit one the other way and just got jammed and the strong enough to muscle at the right field to score a run. Just those little plays that didn't go the Mets way that allowed the Astros to get out to a four nothing lead. Now sixth inning, though, this team battled back again, they've been no hit up until that point. Brandon Nemo leads off the inning with a base hit. Jamie Martinez strikes out, Pina Lonzo hits a double to put two runners in scoring position. DJ Stewart strikes out. Then with two outs, Mark Fientos rips one down the left field line to score two. That cuts the Mets deficit in half and then in the seventh inning, Brandon Nemo ties the game with a two run homer. His 100th home run of his career in all of a sudden new ball game, Adrian Houser comes in. He gives the Mets two scoreless innings of relief and I felt like if there was not the rain delay, the Mets would have rode that momentum and walked it off in the bottom of the ninth inning because everything was coming up. Mets in those final two innings from Terrence gunning down a runner to get rid of the one base run of the Astros got in the top of the ninth. It just felt like all the momentum was riding in the Mets favor and then they had to pause the game for what was it, two hours, three hours, a brutally long rain delay. They come out of it. The Mets don't score in the bottom of the ninth. The Astros score in the top of the 10th off Adam Adavino and yet the Mets nearly came right back because Brandon Nemo went a great day, three hits. He doubles in the ghost runner. He's standing on second base as a pseudo second ghost runner and you have a chance to just get that runner in and win. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and that's where the Mets lost the game. But you don't look at this team and all of a sudden begrudge their lineup. This scored 18 runs in this series. That's more than enough to win a three game set. It just didn't shake their way. JD Martinez had a bad game. He strikes out in that spot with Nemo standing on second base. They don't even pitch to Pete. So now you have Harrison Bader coming up, Bader grounds out, Mark Vantos grounds out and it goes into the 11th. Festa comes on the new, you know, four a pitcher that's up and down from the minor leagues for the Mets and Mad Festa, he's at five runs and that's the ball game. But with all that said, we were talking about this team a month ago and at every point since then when it was, are we believing this? The Mets just swept the Nationals and I was in DC for that series. They're about to head right back there and I'm doing these shows like it's hard to have faith but this team looks pretty good. They go into the London series and lose the first game like, oh man, what's this team going to be here, right? If they're losing the second game and again, you might lose some hope, lose some faith in what the Mets can do. They rally back and they win that game in dramatic fashion. All right, bought back in a little bit more, go up against the Marlins, lose the first game. Oh man, the Mets really that good. Then, they reel off seven straight, grimace Mets, all that good stuff, incredible vibes. They lose the game to Texas to end that streak, okay, it's fine, it's typical. They go up against the Cubs, win one, lose one, win this series. So hey, keep winning series, everything's all right. Then you bludgeon the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros in the first game of this series and it felt the Mets weren't going to lose again. Then they blow one on Saturday and they can't come back all the way on Sunday. But those two losses, that does not erase everything that happened the month before it. And I think if you compare the 12 and three stretch at the beginning of the year to this one, it's a far different run of success. I think what we're seeing now is more sustainable. That first run was some of the guys at the end of the lineup that we're connecting and some really great and clearly unsustainable pitching, particularly out of your bullpen. This recent run, all offense and an offense that looks sustainable. So now as the Mets enter what will determine their season, a stretch against a lot of bad teams are the concerns about their pitching enough to outweigh what this lineup is capable of. That's what we're going to talk about next. First, though, a word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by prize picks. Prize picks is the easiest, most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps, prize picks is just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections. You watch the winnings roll in. So you can look at David Peterson strikeouts coming up in the game tonight. 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Today's episode's also brought to you by Tax Network USA. Here at the lockdown match, we pride ourselves on getting you the latest news for your team, whether it's the offices and the draft spring training or the playoffs. It's year round. You know what else is year round? Collection season. Just because tax season's over doesn't mean the IRS will stop coming after you for on file taxes. The IRS can garnish your wages, levy your bank accounts, and can even seize your property. Don't let the IRS target you, let the licensed professionals and tax experts at Tax Network USA go to bat for you. Though we're 14 years of experience in an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau, Tax Network USA has saved their clients over $1 billion in tax debt. Whether your taxes have complicated matters that require tax planning or finally hit that paraleid this season and need help correctly filing, call 1-800-549-1000 or visit tnusa.com/locked on. You can also just see the link in the episode description below. If you want to stay up to date with all the latest in the world of sports, make sure you check out Lacton Sports today, streaming 24/7 on YouTube. So let's talk about this road ahead for the New York Mets, because I have been mentioning this on this show for a long time. The Mets are about to play 14 games over the next two weeks until they get to the All-Star Break. There's no days off. You have to watch into nationals for four, you then have the Pittsburgh Pirates for four, you return home, you face the nationals again for three, and then you get a series against the Colorado Rockies for three more. And actually out of the break, you have four games in Miami against the Marlins. So your next 18 games come against teams that are under 500. But particularly, let's look at the next two weeks. Two weeks before the All-Star Break, where the Mets run off, it will have time across four days to really sit back, look at their roster, look at the minor leagues, and figure out how they can really plot out the second half of this season to contend and make the playoffs. Anyone who wants to talk about this being a bridge year has not been paying attention to everything David Stearns has said and who the owner of the New York Mets is. If they have an excuse or any inclination that they can win at all this year, they're going to go for it. Now going for it might just mean sitting on your hands and not doing anything with a deadline, but this team is not predisposed to sell. But they also could give the front office every reason to sell. And I think in a weird way, it's still a win-win situation, but personally, I enjoy the last month of Mets baseball, heck of a lot more than the earlier parts of this season. And I don't want to endure an August and a September that doesn't matter. So I want to see the Mets win games, because I'm a Mets fan. Now looking at this road ahead, they should be able to handle business. The last time the Mets were in DC, what did they do? They won all three games, and particularly in convincing fashion, especially the last two of those games. All right, so now you got another chance against this Nationals team. The Pittsburgh Pirates are definitely playing better baseball, but if you're looking at the wildcard race, the Nationals and the Pirates are the two teams that I look at that have been hanging in there that should theoretically fall back and be more sellers at the deadline than buyers, because they still feel like they are a year away from really being able to contend. So we're going to see James Wood in this series, and he is the top prospect in all of baseball, according to us at just baseball.com, the MLB pipeline has him third. Very special player. He was the big, big piece they got in the Juan Soto trade. And so that's going to be fun and also not fun to watch him get his first at bat. He is a special player. So maybe that does propel the Nationals in this series. But again, this is still, if you look at the rosters head to head, this series, the Mets should win. And you can say the same thing about each of the next whatever is five series that they play until they face the Yankees again, later on this month at Yankees Stadium, and that's after they play in Miami. So where are the question marks? Where are the holes? What's going to hold them back from doing what they should do over the next two weeks, the Mets need to win each of these four series. And if they did that, because two of them are four game sets, they would close out this stretch with a 10 and four record, and they would end up at 15 and 45 at the all-star break. Five games over 500. Now, if you remember, when we were talking about this at every stage, whenever I would mention this light period in their schedule, I was just hoping the Mets would be five games under by the time they got to this point, but they did what they had to. They went on a real winning streak that propelled them out from the doldrums and got themselves right back into essentially the driver's seat. I mean, yes, there are teams ahead of them, the Braves, the Padres, and the Cardinals. But none of them have a schedule that's this light in July. So the Mets go on another winning streak here at some point. If they can really lost seven in a row during this stretch at any point, if they can just win 10 of 14, or even we'll say nine of the 14 games. They go nine and five, they're 49 and 46, four games over. That's still in a comfortable position, right? It's just a matter of beating these teams that theoretically you should, and I have no doubts about this lineup. Every field second base are the two positions where you can maybe say, all right, one of the Mets going to roll it for these two weeks. But I look at this upcoming series, Jose Iglesias did pretty well hitting against left-handed pitching when the Nationals last faced the Mets. So you're going to see a lot of him at second. Right field, I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in the next segment because I do have one big, big gripe from this past game, and I'll get to that when we really get into our series preview here of Mets First Nationals over this stretch, they had to figure out the starting rotation. They need to get more length from these guys. Severino did it in this past game, but Cantana continues to go light in his start. He's not getting pulled from the rotation right now. Shaw Manaya has continuously gone light in his starts. David Peterson as well has not gone deep in his starts. Now Christian Scott and Jose Budo have been two of the better Mets stars this year at going deep into games, and both of them could be heading back into the rotation as soon as this week. So that could solve some of this. Kodas Seng might be starting a rehab assignment. That's not going to help the Mets during this stretch, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind as they still have to figure out the rotation and make some decisions. The question is all about the bullpen. Edwin Diaz has five more games so he comes back from his suspension. Brooks Rayleigh, Drew Smith, out for the year with Tommy John surgery. Sean Reeve Foley has hit the IL with a hit the IL now a week ago now, whatever it was, but he's on the IL for the second time this year with a bulky shoulder. You can make an argument that between Rayleigh Smith, Sean Reeve Foley, that those guys have been your best relievers this year just on ERA at least. Nunez now has entered the fray and Garrett has had some really good moments and then some bad ones and then there's Edwin Diaz who has had a bad year, but you know the stuff that he possesses. But the point is this bullpen is in a bad place. Matt Festa and Tyler J joined the bullpen on Sunday. Festa got knocked around. He's probably on his way back to Syracuse. You still have Tyler J who had a good one appearance I believe with the Mets this year off the top of my head one or two hasn't had the best numbers in Syracuse since being sent back down, but he was the guy the Mets chose. Josh Walker, I thought was going to be the name they called on. He very well could get called up with Festa potentially being sent down. And then you have tie-eyed cock who just got added into the mix and had one good appearance so far. We'll see it's a small sample size. Chantaro Fujinami and Bryce Montez Deaca are both in the minor leagues right now trying to get their way back from injuries. So those guys had the potential to throw really hard and be difference makers, but you can't really count on it. During this next two week stretch, the roadmap is pretty simple. Bash your way to wins. That's it. This Mets team used to score a lot of runs. And I do wonder if at some point they take advantage of their depth when it comes to their starting pitching and put some of these guys in the bullpen. Jose Budo has been a better pitcher or is a better pitcher than almost every guy they keep shuttling up and now. Could you get to a point where you have two guys in your bullpen with its Jose Budo and Adrian Houser that can fill that same role that Houser has been filling lately? Guys that can give you three innings of relief and save the rest of the pen. And also potentially start to pitch some of those innings in leverage. Adrian Houser today in a tie game gave you two zeroes. Could that be Budo? Could that be David Peterson? Could that be Tyler McGill? Could that be Brandon Sprote, one of your top pitching prospects who's in double A, but would have better stuff than pretty much any one of the Mets bullpen outside of Edwin Diaz. Seriously, would the Mets consider just saying, you know what, this guy's great. He's pitching deep in the games. He looks like a real starter for us down the line. But we have a chance to win this year. We're calling up Brandon Sprote. We're putting him in the bullpen, did in college. Now I don't think they do that in July, but would they consider that an August? These are the different conversations that I'm sure are happening that front office trying to figure things out. And right now they're going to keep piecing it together and I'm sure they look at this light schedule as an opportunity to win games with their bats to hopefully get more out of a rotation that isn't great, but maybe can pitch a little bit better against some weaker lineups and just buy time until you get Diaz back and hopefully things can fall into place. If there's one thing that could bite the Mets this season right now, as president constructed, it's their bullpen. And by extension, their rotation that puts their bullpen in bad spot by not going deep in the games, but particularly holding those late leads. It's been a problem all year. It was a problem at the end of this series. If they can figure that out, if they can get to some combination of four relievers that they really trust, I believe this team can go on a run. So that's what they had to figure out and luckily this is a good opportunity to maybe work around your problems and still find some victories and some serious wins until you get to the all-star break until the Mets really have to find whatever roster they're going to be down the stretch. Are they a seller? Are they a buyer? And if they're a buyer, how do they buy? How do they get this team in position to make a real run? It's going to be a fun month. July is here and the Mets are in it, which is not something we would have expected a month ago. So with that said, Mets fans should still be happy this morning despite how frustrating this weekend was. Now I want to pre-utilize ahead, particularly in this series against the Nationals, so we'll talk about that in just a minute, first though, a word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. I love sports. I love them so much. I never want to stop, but as the playoffs have now winded down in the NBA and the NHL, there's just fewer games to go around and the sports aren't sports and like I want them to, but with FanDuel, I can stay locked into sports whenever I want. All I have to do is open up the app and dream up bets anytime I'm in the mood. This summer, FanDuel is hooking up all cussers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day all summer long, so head over to fanduel.com/lockedon and start making the most out of your summer, FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball. You know we love talking stats here at Locked On Rockies, here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cashback you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cashback match. That means with Discover, you could turn $150 cashback to $300. That's right, you could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles, see terms at discover.com/creditcard. If you're an everyday listener to the show, make sure you become a Locked On Met Insider. This is our text and service for you to get updates from me anytime soon news breaks on the Met. Any questions anytime you get the lineup graphics sent to your phone each day, you can also take part in our Locked On Met's signed photo giveaways. You want to be locked on Met's Insider? Find the link in the episode description, go to subtext.com/lockedonmetz. Alright, so let's talk about this series against the Washington Nationals. Once again, the Mets are going to see a bunch of left-handed starters, so Jose Iglesias, it is your time to shine. Once again, I imagine he gets the next three stars at second base, Jeff McNeil could maybe steal a starter or two in right field, which leads me to my biggest gripe from Sunday. No, it's not the blue pits that fell against Luis Severino, no, it is not the fact that they had a runner on second base in the bottom of the tent thinning with nobody out and they couldn't get Brandon in my home, although that was really frustrating. No, it pissed me off was in the fourth inning, when Ben Gamel got pinch hit for, of all things. But it just drives me nuts when there's empirical data that tells you something and it's staring you in the face and the New York Mets just choose to ignore it. It drives me up the wall. I can't tell you how much it pisses me off. When I know something about the time of my head because I've looked at this stat, time and time again, and yet we just go back to this stupid, preconceived notion that, oh, righty is definitely going to hit better against the lefty. We have to play the splits. Well, actually, I didn't play the splits. We have to just play, oh, left arm, righty, better. That's what we're going to do. No matter what, we're not going to look at anything else, Carlos Mendoza, and I shouldn't even just blame him because this is a problem that has plagued the Mets my entire time covering the team with lockdown Mets. It's going on six seasons now where things like this consistently pop up and I don't understand it. It just, the math doesn't map, I don't get it. Tyrone Taylor, pinch hits for Ben Gamel in a spot in the fourth inning where Peter Lonzo and Marc Fandos had both drawn walks to get on. There's two outs in the inning and here comes Gamel with a lefty on the mound. And so we got to bring Tyrone Taylor out of the dugout. He's got to pinch it, get him in the game right now. This is the opportunity, even though it's a bullpen game and Gamel, we got his first start in the Mets uniform, Drew walking his first at bat. We didn't really get a chance to see him got to get Taylor in there. Why Ben Gamel had an 860 OPS against left handed pitching in triple A. Maybe the career numbers are far worse than that, but what he was doing in triple A, that's a lot better than a 474 OPS that Tyrone Taylor has against left handed pitching this year. This splits are brutal. 742 OPS against right handed pitching, 474 OPS against left handed pitching. OPS is on base plus slugging. Getting on base at a 300 clip, that alone isn't even great. Slugging, and that's not his on base percentage, mind you, I don't have those exact numbers. I'm sure it's split down the middle. It might be a 220 on base and a 220 slug, for all I know. The point is to have a sub 500 OPS, that is abysmal, abysmal, and even further, of his 13 extra base hits this year, 11 have come with a writing on the mound. All of his home runs have come with a writing on the mound. 20 of his 21 RBI's have come with a writing on the mound. The reason why I'm so frustrated about this is I can see a world where Tyrone Taylor gets force fed each of these three starts against left handed pitching because he bats right handed. Now I'm not saying that Jeff McNeil or even Ben Gamel is significantly better against lefties than Tyrone Taylor. Tyrone Taylor is a better glove than both of those guys. But I would take my chances on either McNeil or Gamel over Tyrone Taylor against the left That's even with McNeil's struggles this year because he doesn't have a splits problem. McNeil has a hitting problem this year and I'm hoping that he can carry over some of the success from Friday night and find a hot streak. Didn't look good on Sunday, over five. But I'm still willing to ride Jeff McNeil's track record and put him in right field for this series and start both him and Iglesias for all three of these games, for all I care instead of going to a guy that consistently sucks against lefties. And I apologize for being so hard on this one, but man is it frustrating when they go to Taylor in that spot, first pitch slider pop up. An opportunity to get back in the game at that point and yes, the Mets eventually did. But you know what happened when they did, sixth inning, it scored two runs. Back to a stand on second base, another RBI spot for Tyrone Taylor, got the sinker, could not have been more center cut, literally right down the middle. Looks at it. So and that was against the rightie, but count against the leftie, you're ambushing first pitch after mind you, the guy before you walked, if I'm not mistaken, but yeah, you're going first pitch slider, but you get a first pitch fastball and you don't swing at that one. And then sweeper, next pitch, also right down the middle and he flew out. I think Tyrone Taylor, starting against righties makes a lot of sense because he's hit them well this year. And he's a good defender in right, but they got a final platoon partner for him and that was part of the problem when they went to make their decision with their roster is there wasn't an ideal platoon partner. And that's why I thought they went to Ben Gamel because he was the one guy that was actually fairing pretty decent against lefties, he was crushing righties, mind you. And who knows, maybe Ben Gamel is just a better player than Tyrone Taylor right now. I don't know. I would have liked to see him get five at bats on Sunday to at least see what it looks like. And instead, we're so obsessed with the splits that are not even I keep saying that we're not going to obsess with the splits, we're so obsessed with getting a writing in there versus lefty because we think that that's going to result in something even though all the data tells us it's not all right, I digress on that probably way too much time to spend on it. But clearly, it got me heated today. Let's talk about the pitching match ups, David Peterson versus Mackenzie Gore, Monday night here. Gore has been great this year, uh, 360 ERA and 16 starts 99 strikeouts and 85 innings pitched. I think he might be the nationals all star, it's either him or CJ Abrams or maybe Jake Irvin or Kyle Finnegan, they got a couple of options to be their lone representative. I think Gore has as good of a case as any of them, but then again, maybe Finnegan just gets it because he has a lower era as a reliever, um, but Gore did face the Mets. The last time these two teams met and it didn't go well for him. He allowed six runs on seven hits and four walks left the game in the fifth inning with only one out recorded. Mark Fientos took him deep. So see if the Mets can have similar success against him again. David Peterson, they very good starting us the nationals when six and two thirds allowed two runs on five hits, two walks, two strikeouts. We've seen an uptick in his strikeouts over his last two starts and that was going up against much better lineups than this one, the Rangers and then the Yankees. So we'll see, we'll see if David Peterson can strike out some more batters, get deep into this game. Uh, it'd be nice if he could give them some length like he did the last time he faced the nationals. And meanwhile, you have Danielle Nunez, Reid Garrett, Jake Deacon, tie adcock and Tyler Jay, who should all be fresh. So honestly, this bullpen isn't pretty good shape. I don't love the late ending this options outside of Nunez right now, but sort of is what it is. Game two, Sean and I versus DJ Hers, we watched hers make his MLB debut last month against the Mets. They scored four runs off of him on seven hits, two walks, Harrison Bader took him deep. I remember that game. Correct. But I think it was the fifth inning where things went sideways for him and he got pulled and it had a short hook on him and all of his starts so far really, it's made five starts to the five for eight ERA, not a guy you should be overly concerned with for that second game. Game three, it'll be Mitchell Parker. We don't know who's starting for the Mets for the rest of the series. Parker is another rookie has a three, three, two ERA and 14 starts this year. Control pitcher doesn't walk many, doesn't strike out many either. We did not see him in that last series. So this will be our first look at single Mitchell Parker. It looks like and we'll see how the Mets bats bear against him. So again, three lefties back to back to back. And then you have a righty and Jake Ervin who has another all-star case, really, if you really wanted to look at it because he's got a 303 ERA this year, then very good. And another guy, the Mets had not faced this season. The question is, who's going to pitch the final two games of this series for the Mets? Right now they are not announcing it. We thought that Christian Scott might be making a start on Tuesday because Gary Cohen sort of maybe let the cat out of the bag on that during a broadcast. But the Mets have not announced that officially Christian Scott did pitch last Tuesday. So that would be sort of on your minor league start once a week type line to have him go on Tuesday. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for the Mets to change their mind and say, "Oh, actually, we're going to bump the Nia to Wednesday." But maybe they like keeping those two guys in place for now and then making their roster decisions at a later date. With David Peterson gets knocked up in this first game of this series, he very well could be optioned. And then that would free you up to add another reliever or to call up Scott. There's a lot of things the Mets can do here. So we'll really see. I'd imagine we see Christian Scott in this series, but there's also a chance to see Jose Budo. Budo last pitched on Friday so he could pitch on Wednesday. Jose Cantana pitched on Friday so both of those guys could go on Wednesday. It'll be one of Scott, Budo or Cantana unless they start Christian Scott on Tuesday and bump Minaia to Wednesday. And then for Thursday, it just depends on when Cantana pitches. I had a magic Cantana. It's going to get the start on Thursday and they're going to slide somebody in between all those lefties, whether it's Budo or Scott. Severino won't pitch in this series is obviously go near his four days rest if they're going on Sunday. He would open up the series in Pittsburgh. So we'll see the Mets can do here. It's a team that they fared very well against last time. I don't look at this Nationals roster and understand how they've won as many games as they have this year to be completely honest. But they have won a lot of games and any team can beat you in Major League Baseball. This is put up for a short of time for the Mets. You've got to win these games. If you want to be a buyer this year, if you want to have a season, it's do or die time. This is the stretchier season where you can really make it all happen. And really, if you do your work in the next two weeks, the rest of the season, if you hang around 500, you might be fine, honestly, because if you got five games over 500 before they all start break, five games over 500 being an 85, 86 win team by the end of the year, whatever that ends up looking like, that probably is enough to make the playoffs. So this is the time for the New York Mets. We'll see if they take advantage. Anyway, that's going to be all for today's edition of locked on Mets. I appreciate all of you for tuning in. If you're listening on the audio side, follow rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. 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