From Jeff McNeil breaking out of his long slump with a three-run homer to Jose Iglesias performing a celebratory postgame concert of his new song OMG, the Mets vibes are on a completely different level right now.
Host Ryan Finkelstein breaks down another Mets win and how McNeil could finally be on the cusp of turning things around.
Also, can Tyrone Taylor keep delivering for the Mets as the new starting right fielder?
Finally, with the news of Drew Smith, how will the Mets keep piecing it together in their bullpen?
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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Well, you have one second baseman who finally delivered a three-run homer to break out of a massive slump while his backup performed a concert after the game. The vibes with this Mets team are just…oh my god. 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 the Lockdown match, your first listen every day. Lockdown Mets is free and available on all platforms, including YouTube. The Mets won again, Jeff McNeil with a huge, huge, huge homerun, hopefully that gets them on track. I'll talk about the game in the first segment, then in the second segment, we're going to talk about the pitching situation going into Saturday as well as Drew Smith's news that he's going to have to undergo Tommy John Serger, so a lot of bullpen discussion in that second segment. Then in the final segment, we'll round it out talking about McNeil and Tyrone Taylor. Are these guys now everyday players moving forward, have they solidified the rest of this lineup? We'll go through it first though, I'm your host Ryan Fickelstein, if you want to find any of my work. Follow me on X at Fickelstein-Ryan, get us some of my writing at JustBaseball.com where I work as the managing editor. So who would have thought if you'd go back a month from now on May 29th, which was, was that the game that might have been the game, that might have been the day where Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands? That a month later, the New York Mets would be back over 500, and that Jose Iglesias would one be on the team, and two, we'd be performing his hit new single, "Oh My God, OMG," on the field to adoring fans at City Field before a fireworks show, and all of his teammates would be charging out over to him to greet him as he's performing this song, all celebrating, all enjoying the moment as the New York Mets continue to be the hottest team in major league baseball. There is not a single person on the planet that could have predicted all of this, but here we are. And Jose Iglesias was the story of the day because his song officially debuted, I don't know about you guys, I haven't listened to this song nonstop, I can't get out of my head, it is the song of the summer for the New York Mets, and this is the only franchise in sports where this all could have happened. I'm sorry, the New York Mets are the most interesting team in baseball if not sports, and yeah, their downs can be pretty low. But when the New York Mets are riding high, I don't even know how to describe the feeling. It's just insane what has transpired over this past month, and this felt like sort of a culmination of it as this team is now over 500, and everybody contributing to a team victory on Friday night. The biggest one is Jeff McNeil. I mean, Jeff McNeil, the guy who has struggled more than anyone has a three hit game. Well, the first one was a pop up that somehow fell on the infield, and maybe that was just the baseball gods given one back to Jeff and it got his night rolling. The entire game, ultimately, in my opinion, the last thing moment is that a bat by Jeff McNeil that broke the game open. There's a lot to happen before it that we'll talk about, but sixth inning, the New York Mets have a three to two lead, Peter Lanzo at Homer to break a two to two tie. You have a couple guys on for Jeff McNeil, Francisco Alvarez, followed up Peter Lanzo's homerun with a double, Tyrone Taylor grounds it out, and here's the good thing about when the team is going right. You get some breaks. Alex Breggman makes an error on a ground ball from Mark Vientos that allows the inning to extend and brings Jeff McNeil up to the plate. And Jeff McNeil, we know he's been going through it all year. He had a Jeff McNeil at bat, swings through strike one, looks at a ball in the dirt, one in one count, fouls off a pitch, fouls off another pitch, fouls off another pitch, looks at another ball in the dirt to get even, fouls off a really tough slider. And then he gets a change up the bottom part of the zone and he gets a barrel on it and he rips a line drive and I cannot believe that that ball soared out of the ballpark because it just looked like a ball that was going to, you know, really at first I was just hoping it stayed fair because with Jeff McNeil this year, the luck has not been on his side. But it really looked like a ball that was just going to drop down in the corner, going to be a double, going to score two runs and still a huge hit for McNeil and yet a laser beam somehow had enough air under it to get out and to see Jeff McNeil round those bases. It was the way of the world coming off his shoulder, the just elation that you saw on his face to have hit that home run. How good that must have felt for a guy that's been in down in the dumps all year long. And then to see the way his teammates embraced him, that shows you the type of clubhouse that they have right now. And look, I've been one at times, I don't know if I've talked about it more privately than publicly, but I've talked about the idea that maybe the message is each Jeff McNeil's contract and trade him, his teammates certainly seem to appreciate him when he got into the guy. Yes, he had a three run homer. But the hug that you saw between Jeff McNeil and Jose Iglesias in that dugout, that's a team. These are guys that are competing for playing time essentially, but it's all about team and it really bodes well for the future because here's the thing about Jeff McNeil as bad as he's been. There is not a single player in this organization, and I honestly believe this, that has a higher ceiling this year to be a starting second baseman for the New York Mets. Not Jose Iglesias, not Luis Angelicunya. Yes, you could say Ocunya's got this ceiling, but is he going to realize that as a rookie in a potential wildcard race? Let's ask it a lot of him, is Brett Beatty going to transition to the position and all of a sudden figure it all out right away? Probably not. Jeff McNeil has the ability to play a really good defensive second base, and we've been seeing that now throughout this entire month. That's the one thing you can't take away from him. He's been doing it defensively. Now he comes through offensively. He also got a hit later in the game. Patton and Jeff McNeil hit, I had to look back and see where that pitch was, but I felt like it was a foot and a half outside of the zone. But now he finds a barrel, loops when it's the output, gets a base hit, Francisco Lindor doubles him home for the seventh round of the game. It feels like McNeil might have found something, and that's huge for this Mets team because it answers what probably is the biggest question on the diamond for them right now, outside of right field. And Tyrone Taylor answers that as well. We'll talk about him more in the next segment, but he had a solo home run tonight. So the New York Mets are just a machine right now that keeps rolling. Now there's still questions. I think this bullpen's in a really bad state going to Saturday, Saturday's game, and I'll talk about that in the final segment today because Jose Quintana did not give them length and you can have pitchers that are only giving you four or five innings, start after start. It feels like Luis Severino is the only guy in this rotation that can give you length right now and that's not sustainable. It's not. I will say it's even less sustainable in a six man rotation. So maybe that's part of the hesitation to go to one. You need to make sure that your starters are giving you length if you're going to pitch a man down in the bullpen right now. That's what they're doing, but it's a win. I think the fact that you needed Daniel Nunez, Adam Montevino, Reed Garrett, and Jake Deakman, not in that order, Deakman pitch before Garrett, but the fact that you needed all these guys to get through that game, again, a little worrisome, but ultimately, at least Quintana didn't give up five runs. He fought and only gave up a couple. First didn't look ugly, which is the third game row that's happened. The Mets have won all three of those games, but they had a left-handed start that lowered the bases in the first and pulled a Houdini act to get out of it. And Quintana, yes, he did allow run this time, but it was before he lowered the bases, gave up a solo home run to Jose Altuve and the first pitch he threw. And then he walks, he got a strike gap, then he walks short on Alvarez, gives up a base hit with two runners on, gets a big strike gap, but then walks Jeremy, paying it a little of the bases. Really tough at bat, eight pitch at bat, ends up getting a fly out to narrowly escape. 36 pitch first inning. Second inning was a little bit better for him. The Mets tied the game up in the bottom of the first Francisco Alvarez with a sacrifice fly. The Mets put pressure on Rona Blanco, too. You had Lindor and Nemo, each draw walks. JD Martinez, infield single, where Blanco just couldn't make a play on one, bases loaded. Lanza struck out. Alvarez, sack fly. Mets tied it up. Didn't do more than that, though, so it was a 1-1 game. Quintana, solid second inning. Then in the third inning, ends up giving up a run where Jordon Alvarez doubled. Jeremy Pangi gets a base hit to drive him, and eventually, so it was 2-1 Astros. Quintana, 1-2-3-4, then you had Tyrone Taylor tied the game up. Fifth inning. Quintana goes out there at a high pitch count, gives up a lead off hit, and that's when you had to dip into the bullpen, and credit to that bullpen, because that amount of, you know, maybe is pulling himself out of it, really, you know, had a solid inning pitching with traffic. He did hit a batter. He did throw a wild pitch, but he did not give up a run. Danielle Nunez once again, giving you multiple innings of relief. Huge double play ball in the sixth inning, just a beautiful turn by Lindor and McNeil, and then that sixth, as we mentioned, is where the Mets broke out of it with the home run from Alonzo, the home run from McNeil, and that gave you some breathing room, but I think it says a lot that even in that moment, the New York Mets decided to still, despite the lead, you know, continue to go to the arms that they're going to need, the arms that they trust, to have to get the, you know, another inning from Nunez, to have to go to Deakman and Garrett, even though you had a five run lead by the time you got to the ninth, Carl's Mendoza didn't trust Thai adcock to go out there and get that one, but maybe you're just managing the series the best way you know how, because you ultimately think maybe you're going to win on Saturday, at least you'll win on Sunday. I want to talk about the pitching side of it, so we're going to do that in the next segment here, because also, there's some news with Drew Smith, 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 prize picks. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports, unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player staff projections, and you watch the winnings roll in. Get in on the daily action with your friends and become part of Prize picks community today. You can now win up to a hundred times your money on prize picks with as little as four correct picks, so you can turn $10 into $1,000. If you're looking for promotions, prize picks has got you covered every week. 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Here in every day, let's sort of the show. Make sure you become a locked on Mets insider. This is our taxing service we get updates from me any time some news breaks on the Mets. So today when we learned that Drew Smith was going to need Tom and John in the first place I went was the subtext to let the insiders know you also can ask me questions there anytime we can go back and forth through text and you get the line of graphic sent to your phone each day. If you want to be a locked on Mets insider, find the link in the episode description going to subtext.com/locked on Mets. So the New York Mets bullpen continues to take hits. Drew Smith is now out with Tommy John's surgery and it was heartbreaking to see him choked up talking to the media about it. It's the guy that's been in the Mets organization for a long time. Lucas Duda was the player of the Mets trader to get Drew Smith and that was back. What was that? That was the 2018 season if I'm not mistaken. You know, it's been a long time for Drew Smith here and this is a bad break for the team because he's a veteran reliever, a reliever out of that bullpen that you hoped you would get back this year. But honestly, it's even more devastating just for Smith and his career because he's heading into free agency. You never want to be heading into free agency on the back of a surgery. And so I don't know what this means for him. It probably means you get the Mets help as far as aiding you in this rehab process for the rest of this season. And then you sort of out on his own, you know, unless the Mets are super generous and they sound like a two-year contract and bring them back into the fold, yeah, it's a really big blow to him. So it sucks for Drew Smith, wishing him all the best. I think at times the churn of Tommy John surgery makes this numb to it. You know what I mean? Brooks really needs whatever it was, the Bray surgery or the Tommy John Nate Lavender earlier this year, the promising lefty that we all fell in love with in spring training. He needed Tommy John surgery. It just happens. It happens so often that again, you're numb to it. You think, oh man, Drew Smith has an elbow spray and it might be Tommy John, it is. And when you first see the news, just like, oh man, a guy shuts, it's bad for him. But then you actually watch him talk about it. And he knows that there's a special team in that clubhouse right now. He knows that he might not throw another pitch for the Mets. It makes it humanizes it a lot more. And he knows that he's got a long road. I think he sets a second one. So it just sucks. It just does. So Drew Smith was already, you know, off the roster. He was already on the IEL. Now he's going to be moved to the 60. That's going to clear up a spot where the Mets will probably at the backfill and add somebody else eventually that can give them some innings. We'll see who that is. They do have a couple guys pitching on rehab right now, Bryce Montez Deoka, who is the flame throwing prospect who had Tommy John surgery. He's in double. I had a good inning tonight. I needed just seven pitches. This was according to Mike Mayer on Twitter. Follow Mike. He does great stuff with Mets Mariahs. In a couple of tweets, he was talking about the bullpen because you had Deoka, who gave you that scoreless perfect inning in double A on seven pitches and in Port St. Lucie Shintaro Fujinami, six pitches, Mayer said, and a perfect inning in touch 99. All of his pitches were strikes, which is huge for Fujinami because he was all over the place when he was, I guess, maybe hurting at the beginning of the season or whatever it was. Now we'll see because Fujinami, the guy can throw over 100 miles per hour. Same thing if Montez Deoka is back to what he was, pre-surgery. These are guys that could, in August, you might look up and they might be pitching big innings from the Mets. So good development there, but in the interim, you're short a man because of Diaz. Luckily, he's now served three of the 10 games. So one more week here and you get that when Diaz back. In the meantime, though, you look at this upcoming game, Adrian Hauser's not going to be able to go. I doubt it. I doubt that that was Wednesday that he gave you the bulk relief. So two days off, probably not enough time to get him fresh and able to go. You have Danielle Nunez who threw 31 pitches tonight, so he's probably checked off. So a seven-man bullpen because a five-man bullpen, I think Ty Adcock and Danny Young are going to have to pitch in this game because they're the fresh arms. So imagine you see those two guys and then you're going to have Jake Deakman who threw eight pitches in this game, probably available, I would hope. And maybe one of, if not both, of Garrett and Adavino, but those guys are going to start to get used a lot as well here, 15 pitches for Garrett and 18 for Adavino. I think Garrett might be a little more ready to go, but you'd see because if you pitch either of those guys, you definitely burn them for Sunday. So the Mets are in a tough spot. This is where I thought they were going to maneuver their rotation around earlier this week. Option, Tyler McGill, get an extra arm in their bullpen, allowed David Peterson to start on Sunday or even option, David Peterson out there to start on Tuesday and to have an extra arm. They chose not to do that. I think they want to stick with this five-man rotation that they currently have, but you might need David Peterson out of the bullpen depending on what happens with Tyler or McGill. Now, if Tyler or McGill goes really short, maybe Peterson can pitch out of the bullpen on three days rest. I don't think that that would be outside of the realm of possibility if you just need an arm. Sometimes you're going to have to go to that. I would think he might get ready for this game just in case typically some guys do throw on this day, their third day. So we'll see. We'll see what's going to happen there, but the Mets need a link that at Tyler or McGill. It's not something he's done this year, and this is an opportunity to do it. This is an opportunity to show up and prove yourself and hopefully for his sake, hang on to a roster spot for some time. If he goes out and he gets knocked out of this game early, I don't know how you can justify keeping him on the roster. I really don't because then your bullpen is going to be attached. You're going to need to grab an arm and Jose Budo pitched on Friday night in Syracuse when seven innings allowed just two runs on five hits and two walks and triple A. So, you know, Budo would be ready to go for McGill's next turn if he doesn't pitch well. So it's kind of do or die here for McGill and for the Mets. Again, they need him. They need him big time in this one. The question is going to be who is going to start in the lineup with a lefty on the mound have Jeff McNeil and Tyrone Taylor become near every day of players for this team want to talk about those two guys because all of a sudden they are contributing and they're the guys that are the biggest question marks in this line of moving forward big game tonight. So I want to go through it in just a minute, first though, another word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Tax Network, a USA here with locked on Mets. 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Next up, with all the latest in the world sports, make sure you check out Lacton Sports today streaming 24/7 on YouTube. What's up?, I'm Jeff McNeil with the right field for this game. I believe he wants to get a glacial vs bat in the lineup against the left. I think he should start at second. But Tyrone Taylor even though he's right handed, talked about these splits before, he's been terrible against left handed pitching this year. You could go to Ben Gammel, the newcomer from Syracuse, but Jeff made me a huge game. I think you want to get him back into the lineup, and give him that vote of confidence, so maybe you start Jeff McNeil right for this one, and who knows, maybe moving forward, if Jeff McNeil starts hitting, that could be the solution that this med team goes to. Maybe that's how you get around even the bullpen issues. Maybe you just decide, you know what, let's option somebody down, and let's grab an extra arm during this time. That wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, but overall, you look at what works for this team, what can you bank on? And we've been talking about this lineup, the fact that you have a top five now of Landor Nemo, JD Martinez, Petalonzo, and Francisco Alvarez as high as he is. That is so huge for everybody else, it takes the pressure off of Jeff McNeil off of Tyrone Taylor. And Tyrone Taylor has been delivering in three games starting for Starling Marte in that six spot in the lineup, in these three games, five RBIs, two home runs, has a hit in each game. He's been great for this med team, and he is your best offensive outfielder in right. There's really the best two on this team defensively in right field, and that's even when Marte is healthy, it's Tyrone Taylor, and then it's probably Jeff McNeil. Those are the best guys. Marte does give you an advantage with his arm that does give you something out there, even when the metrics don't like him because, I mean, probably he's just been nursing the knee, but man, he has just been bad coming in on balls. You see the difference when Taylor is out there and right. It does give you a big lift, and I think the Mets are smart right now to lean into that. You know, DJ Stewart, Ben Gamel, they're not going to give you much defensively in right. They might be a slight upgrade from Taylor at times, but we don't know when Tyrone Taylor gets a consistent playing time, he might just be the best option for this team all the way around. So who's the guy that got the most big league time over the last couple of years? Is it Ben Gamel? Is it DJ Stewart? Or no, it is Tyrone Taylor. Tyrone Taylor has consistently been on big league rosters, and he's produced. He doesn't have the best overall numbers you look at, you know, the batting average first career. He's a 239 hitter, looking at the on base percentage first career, 293, look at the WRC+ that measures hitters on a league average of 100, he's got WRC+ and 99 for his career. Not the best. Yet you look at the last three seasons, he has been worth at least one win each year for the Brewers coming into this year. So there is value there, and he's hit 10 or more home runs in all three of those seasons, got four now. So Taylor does have Pop in his bat, he gives you a really good defender and right, and I think most games he should be out there, honestly against right handed pitching he should be out there and maybe McNeil's the guy against left handed pitching. If he can keep hitting, it's a one game, I don't want to read too much into it, but Jeff McNeil out to the game was talking to the media like a guy that had figured something out. Feels like he found us when he has been hitting the ball harder, even though hasn't always resulted in hits, but you're starting to see Jeff McNeil grinding at bats the way he typically does, where he can take a guy to a nine pitch at bat and then loop that that hit in there, find a hole in the infield. In some rare current occurrences, he can hit a home run. If you saw what he did last year, which was a bad season, not horrible, but not Jeff McNeil at the Ulster level he's played at the past, look at the month by month, in April last year, he had an a 59 OPS, he was good. May that dropped to 621, June 550, July 619, August, his OPS jumped all the way up to 771, he hit 308, and then in September he hit an 856 OPS. Now obviously, we all watched the Mets last year, those were months that did not matter, they were out of the race, and you can say, only reason why I started to hit. But I've seen Jeff McNeil hit on good teams before, 2022 Jeff McNeil had a career year, he was a six-win player almost, really good. So if this guy is due to revert closer to the mean, you could get a very hot hitter throughout the rest of this season. And I think what the Mets have done up to this point is they have continued to try to pour confidence into McNeil, and he credited some people after the game, he credited Carlos Beltran, I struggled there, you guys heard it, he credited Carlos Beltran, he credited JD Martinez and the Mets hitting coaches and man, JD Martinez is like a player coach, he's like a guy in the 80s or the 90s in the NBA that is your backup center and also your coach. But the difference is, I guess, for JD Martinez, it's almost like he's the starter, and he's a coach. What he has done for this team, I don't even know if there's ever going to be a way we can quantify it, because it's not just what the numbers tell you with what he's doing back and third. That's great, but the fact is, they didn't have him early in the season, they went on a little bit of a run, but then he has to come in, he's meeting everybody, he's got to acclimate himself, he's got to get himself right. And Carlos Mendoza said today, it took a little bit, I can't remember, I think he was on some podcast and I saw the quote, read social media, but he said, it took him a couple weeks to really get acclimated and start to be vocal in hitter's meetings, but now he is. And you're seeing what the wealth of knowledge he brings to the table can do for your ball club. Because all of a sudden, how much has he been a key instrumental figure in Mark Fientos enjoying the breakout that he has? He has also, I think, credited Martinez at times for being a voice in his ear. How much has he helped a guy like Brendan Imo or a penalizer? We will never really know what's happening behind closed doors, but there's value that he's bringing. And Jeff McNeil specifically pointed him out. You know, Jeff McNeil has been a good player in the big leagues. I said it earlier in the show, the best possible second base where the Mets have in the year 2024 is Jeff McNeil, because he's the guy with the track record. He's the guy that has the all star appearances. He's the guy that can hit over 300 for stretches. And if the New York Mets over, let's just say the final three months to lie all against September, get a 300 Jeff McNeil playing great defense and second base. And you still have the top five in your lineup. You still have Mark Vientos batting seventh, giving you that joke at the end of the lineup. You have Harrison Bader playing great defense, coming through with clutch hits. Whether it's strong and Martier, Tyrone Taylor, whoever it is and right, the Mets have a lineup that can really do it for you, top the bottom one through nine. Jeff McNeil, hopefully this is the start of something. If it's not, the end of the Mets got options here, but they clearly have not wanted to give up on him when you could have. I mean, you could have given up on him five, ten times over, you know, they gave him that respite where there was all the left-handed pitchers. All right. Get your head right. Jose Iglesias. Play great. They continued to feed Iglesias playing time and they haven't. That shows that they still want to see Jeff McNeil be the starting second baseman of this team. And maybe on the night that OMG was performed live in front of fans at City Field in this crazy multiverse that we're all living in right now, maybe it was on June 29th, excuse me, June 28th. Yeah, I'm recording this past midnight. But maybe it was that game that allowed Jeff McNeil to click back in and be the player that we've seen him be in the past. Only time will tell. Pretty sure all of you for tuning into the show today was going to talk about some hitting prospects, but there was just a lot to cover with the Big League club. So we'll aim to do that as part of tomorrow's show as well as breaking down Saturn, his game between the Mets and the Astros, Mets going for another series victory. We'll see if they can pull it off. And as always, I appreciate all of you who subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, you're listening on the audio side, follow, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts. You want to follow me on next? You can do so. I think we'll stand right and follow the show on lockdown Mets. Thank you for making lockdown. I met your first listener. First watch every day. Now for your second watch, head over to YouTube and check out lockdown sports today, which is streaming 24/7, giving you all the latest in the world of sports. Lockdown sports today. It's also streaming 24/7 on Amazon Fire TV. 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