Quick Hitters
The Mets head into Friday night at 7-6 after getting smacked 7-1 by Arizona on Thursday, wasting a hell of a start from Nolan McLean, who punched out eight over 6 1/3 innings before the seventh inning turned into a bar fight nobody stopped. Luis Robert Jr. supplied the only Mets run with a first-inning solo shot, and the offense went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.
Now the schedule flips to the Athletics at Citi Field on Friday, April 10, with Clay Holmes getting the ball against J.T. Ginn. Holmes has opened the season 2-0 with a 1.42 ERA and 0.95 WHIP, while the Mets enter the night as moderate favorites.
The bigger picture is pretty simple. The Mets are still in decent shape at one game back in the NL East, but the last two losses put a little stink on what had been a nice opening stretch. This team needs cleaner at-bats from the top of the lineup, and it needs to keep banking wins before the division turns into a knife fight in late April.
The Big Takeaway
Thursday night was one of those games that tells you two things at once. First, Nolan McLean looked very real. Eight strikeouts, three hits allowed, and a breaking ball so filthy that MLB.com clocked his curveball at 3,451 rpm, the highest spin rate on any breaking ball in the majors this season. Second, the Mets lineup still has stretches where it goes quiet, stiff, and weirdly passive when the game asks for one hard swing.
That is the tension inside this club right now. The pitching has given this team enough to win. The offense has flashed real thunder. Then it disappears for chunks of a game and leaves too much on the table. Luis Robert Jr. is off to a strong start, Mark Vientos has been productive, Francisco Alvarez has shown power, but Francisco Lindor and Marcus Semien are still hunting for their best version.
This is where Friday matters. Not because Game 14 is some grand referendum, but because good teams answer ugly losses before they become habits. The A’s are not a club you should let breathe if you think you’re built to matter in October.
Mets In The News Today
Juan Soto is out with a calf strain and is expected to miss two to three weeks, which is the kind of sentence nobody in Queens wanted to read in April. Jorge Polanco’s sore left Achilles is also worth watching, because the Mets have already admitted the situation is fluid. There was at least one encouraging update on the injury front, with A.J. Minter making his first rehab appearance in 50 weeks and throwing a scoreless inning for St. Lucie.
There is also a bigger roster question bubbling under the surface. How long can the Mets keep asking the pitching staff to hold the line while parts of the lineup sort themselves out? Lindor is hitting .157, Semien is at .213, and Bo Bichette is still light on impact. That does not have to stay ugly forever, but it is ugly right now.
Tonight’s Matchup
Friday’s game is J.T. Ginn against Clay Holmes, and on paper this is one the Mets should own. Holmes has the better surface line by a mile, and his Statcast profile backs up the early run prevention with a .235 wOBA allowed and .292 expected wOBA against. Ginn’s early ERA sits at 5.14, though his expected numbers are kinder, including a 3.74 xERA and a .279 expected wOBA allowed, which says there may be more pitcher here than the standard box score shows.
The Athletics do have some punch. Shea Langeliers already has five home runs, Max Muncy has been hot over the last 10 games, and Brent Rooker was dealing with right flank and back discomfort after exiting Thursday’s game against the Yankees. That last piece matters, because if Rooker is limited, the middle of the A’s order loses some bite.
NL East Quick Hitters
The Mets wake up Friday in third place at 7-6, one game behind both Atlanta and Miami. Philadelphia is hanging around at 6-6, and Washington is already trying not to let the season drift out to sea before Tax Day.
Atlanta took two of three from the Angels and looks like Atlanta again, which is annoying but not exactly shocking. Miami has kept stacking wins and sits tied for the division lead. Philadelphia got shut out by San Francisco on Thursday and comes home trying to restart an offense that went flat on the road.
For the Mets, the math is simple. Keep the rotation afloat, get healthier, and stop giving away games where the starter does his damn job.
A Trip Around Major League Baseball
Shohei Ohtani is still doing absurd Shohei Ohtani things, stretching his on-base streak to 43 games in Thursday’s action. The Pirates also made a loud, future-facing move by locking up rookie Konnor Griffin on a nine-year extension. In other words, baseball is fully back on its usual nonsense.
The broader money story is still hilarious in its own way. The Mets opened the season with MLB’s highest payroll again, at roughly $352.2 million, so the pressure to look like a heavyweight is not exactly optional.
Around The Minors
The system gave you a little bit of everything Thursday. Syracuse pulled out a 5-4 win over Buffalo. Binghamton got blasted 12-2 by Somerset. Brooklyn lost a weird, low-hit 11-inning game 2-1 to Jersey Shore. St. Lucie split a twin bill, winning the completion of a suspended game 6-3 before dropping the seven-inning nightcap 6-5.
Syracuse Mets | Triple-A
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffalo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 0 |
| Syracuse | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | X | 5 | 9 | 0 |
- Cristian Pache: solo HR, double, 2 runs
- Ryan Clifford: RBI double
- Luis De Los Santos: RBI double
- Jackson Cluff: go-ahead sac fly
- Christian Scott: 5 scoreless innings, 7 strikeouts
Binghamton Rumble Ponies | Double-A
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Somerset | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 13 | 0 |
| Binghamton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 1 |
- Wyatt Young: 2-for-3, 2B, RBI
- Nick Lorusso: sac fly RBI
- Jack Wenninger: 4.1 IP before the bullpen got lit up
Brooklyn Cyclones | High-A
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| Jersey Shore | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | X | 2 | 3 | 0 |
- Trace Willhoite: RBI double
- Ronald Hernandez: run scored
- Staff note: Brooklyn managed 6 hits but could not land the extra blow late
St. Lucie Mets | Single-A
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dunedin | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 |
| St. Lucie | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 6 | 9 | 0 |
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dunedin | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 9 | 1 |
| St. Lucie | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 3 |
- Sam Biller: 2-for-3, 3 RBI in Game 1
- AJ Ewing: 2-for-4, RBI, 2 runs in Game 1
- Elian Peña: 2-for-4 in Game 1, hit streak extended in Game 2
- AJ Minter: scoreless rehab inning with one strikeout
What’s Next
The Mets need a clean reset Friday night. Holmes on the mound, a beatable opponent in town, and a chance to stop the skid before anybody starts doing the dramatic New York thing where every loss becomes a screenplay. Take the series opener, get the offense moving again, and let the weekend breathe a little.
For Mets fans, that is the whole point tonight. Not panic. Not poetry. Just a win, a sharper lineup, and a reminder that this club is still very much in the middle of building what April is supposed to become.
