The Giants reporters are saying that, as expected, want nothing to do with their bullpen tonight. If Bumgarner needs to be replaced at any point, it's likely to be Cueto coming in. Even if they have the lead and he's just serving as the closer.

Runs will be hard to come by for the Mets.

I think day baseball should be a part of the playoffs. Baseball is meant to be played in the sun.

Enzo Pence popped out, sawft.

no. ratings.

Shocked that the Mets are starting all of Bruce, Grandy and Loney against Mad Bum. Might as well just call it 0-9 right now.

I've watched 5 to 6 Thor starts this year. I've not seen him this locked in. He's slaying all of Azgard right now.

As good a Thor has been, Ill take MAd Bum's 21 pitches thru 3 innings.

They have no choice. Flores would be at 1B and Ruggiano in CF but both are out for the year.

Anyway this is what I was afraid of. Just hacking early in the count. It's tough for me to see Bumgarner not going 9 with ease.

Marlins Man must be a hell of a lawyer to be able to afford all these plane and premium game tix.

Flores was slugging .710 with 11 dingers against lefties this year :( god he would have been huge to have available for this game.

Thanks for the info, Vito. Was wondering what the deal was.

Aaaaand there's the Giants' fastest runner on against Thor. Fuck.

At least he can throw to first. Ask Jon Lester about that.

Giants hitters look terrible for the most part. That swing by Belt on the 0-1 pitch looked bad.

Thought he was safe.

Yeah that's gonna get overturned.

Thor needs to clamp down here. I feel like 1 run will be all Bum needs tonight.

OH WOW. Giants got fucked but I'll take it!

Ill never understand Baseball replay.....

Span was safe there.. come on.

It does seem like replay in baseball is extremely dumb.

I have 5 mets including Thor going in my DFS and i could make some cash.. i'm at $5 atm.

Lets not do that bullshit. Span was safe. Come on.

:lol: MLB Network trying to goad Adrian Beltre to trash talk the Jays because of the feud those two teams have recently.

Looks like Thor got a few makeup calls after the ump's strike zone had earlier been tighter than a nun's cunt.

Granderson is about to knock one out of the park.

He'll be lucky to make contact

He was only like 30 feet short. Nice at bat though.

Seemed Span came off the bag after the initial tag. Also slowmo seemed to look like he was got in the face by the glove too.

Granderson giving it all up wowwww

My man Granderson!

My balls just retracted into my body

Nice catch. Thought it was over his head.

First thing I see as I open my stream at work is Belt lace a shot to CF and immediately think "Great, I didn't miss a thing and get to see the first runs of the game".... Nope, Hell of a catch....

Just got home. Holy shit another duel.

Welp, Thor did his job. Too bad this only chance this Mets offense has at scoring a run is connecting with a longball. They haven't been able to string together rallies all year. It's not about to start now.

Mike Piazza sighting with a glass of wine. That guy is not gay.

Here is the point where i think Managers have no fucking clue what they are doing.

Why is Thor out of the game going into the 8th?

If Maddon does that shit, i'll call him for it. I want answers.

Thor is dominating !

was

Vito...

Who is the better option than Thor right now?? Answer that one honestly and i stfu.

Removing Thor before the 8th Inning just shows me Terry Collins is managing this game to make sure no matter what happens, he gets another year of job security.

SHAME

https://media.tenor.co/images/92c977...202b86bf50/raw

SHAME TERRY COLLINS!

Terry Collins may have went to the Buck Showalter class of Throwing Playoff Baseball games.

https://media.tenor.co/images/92c977...202b86bf50/raw

Wish they'd throw this fucking lady out of the booth. Not sure why she's there.

This umpire is fucking blind. Russell has thrown 3 of last 4 pitches for strikes.

#RobotUmps

Former Tony Gwynn protege Addison Reed gassed Pence.

Probs Reed

Look i have a whole theory about starting pitching in the postseason that someday I might go in on, but not now.

Maybe its the way the beard looks but Giants' Pence looks like Daniel Bryan.

She's there because Schilling went politcal jackass.

And she's not that bad.

Find her annoying for some reason. Feel like she doesn't add anything to the broadcast.

Clutch time for the Mets here.

C'mon Ass dribble.

OK i'll eat shit here in this thread. Mets Bullpen is a lot better than i knew.

Mets giving up another base or two might end up being very lucky for them if the Giants really are forced to take Bumgarner out.

And there's the season. Thanks for nothing Familia.

damn

Connor Gillespie with the biggest hit of his career.

Familia has 51 saves but he's completely shat the bed in the really big games (see: Game 1 of last year's World Series)

Hope the Giants win the whole thing now so we got beat by the best and everyone else can be miserable with the Even Year Giants crap continuing.

Is this the wrong time to say how much I enjoy listening to Schulmann and Herschiser call games? No? Great!

All things considered, I'm not that upset. I really didn't think this team was going to win this game against the best playoff pitcher of all time.

Bumgarner is a motherfucking post-season machine. 0 ER in elimination games in his entire career.... that is nuts.

Same here.... I am full aware a batter is trying to foul off pitches when he's got 2 strikes on him and a runner in scoring position. I don't need to be told that every second pitch, ma'am....

Kind of a lame duck ball game even though the starting pitching was fantastic.

lame duck finish*

Didn't take ESPN long to start cracking jokes about closer decisions. Very first line going into Sportscenter after the game was the closer dilemma joke.

The team that wins the world series isn't always the best team. Hopefully the Cubs steam till the Giants and that'll be that.

going to throw up.

I don't even think I'd put this in my top 5 worst Mets playoff losses, tbh.

Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS is probably always going to be my #1. Doing the job to Yadier Molina and the 83 win Cardinals hurt so badly. I was 100% all in on that '06 Mets team.

Games 1, 4, and 5 of last year's World Series have to be there - ESPECIALLY Game 1.

And of course you have Kenny Rogers walking in the winning run to end the 1999 NLCS.

This loss sucked of course, but it was still a team lucky to even be in the playoffs losing to a guy who is unhittable in October. There's just not much you can do about that.

Now in Metland, all eyes turn to the front office. The big question is whether or not they will re-sign Cespedes.

Said it a few months ago and I'll say it now - you won't hear me talking Mets baseball on here again if they let him go. He had a bad September but he's still the heart of this team. I can't support this team any longer if they cheap out on keeping him.

Also, all 5 starting pitchers are going to be coming off of surgery heading into Spring Training (including Thor who has been pitching through bone spurs). Guys like Gsellman and Lugo are going to be important, and they might even bring back Big Bart for extra insurance.

They should being Bart back. As for Cespedes, if he opts out, I'm not sure they have a chance to sign him considering how terrible the market will be for talent this off season.

They also have 3 corner outfielders already. Conforto is the future and needs to play everyday. Maybe they can move Granderson or even Bruce. But if they keep Cespedes they need to move both. You can't have them going into the year with 4 corner outfielders.

Also time to address third base. Can't count on David Wright anymore. I love the guy. One of my favorite players to watch. But he might be done as a long term option.

Didn't even see these last night but yeah...Reed's been money. The gameplan for the Mets last night was always to hope Thor can get you through 7 and then go to Reed and Fam. I think most Met fans would have signed up for a shutout going into the 9th because it would have meant Bumgarner was nearly done and we could get to the bullpen.

But of course Fam fucked that all up anyway.

I don't want to be too hard on Fam but at times it's been really hard to trust him. Going to him last night was the right call. But he's got 51 saves on the year yet so few of them were clean 1-2-3 innings. He's always at minimum allowing the tying run to get on base. It's like watching vintage K-Rod.

Ces/Grandy/Conforto would be my choice. Fuck Jay Bruce. He started to heat up in the last week of the season but that didn't change the fact that he was useless up until then. He also killed the Mets yesterday by striking out after a leadoff TJ Rivera double instead of at least moving the runner over.

But Ces has to stick around in any circumstance. Has to. It is not optional. Give him what he wants or this team will fall apart.

As for 3B, Wright's gonna understandably try to keep going rather than retire and forfeit his huge contract. I'm less worried about it for 2017 though because they're still gonna have Reyes for league minimum, Reyes might start at 2B next year but he's shown he can handle 3B if/when Wright gets his next injury.

I gotta say I also really love TJ Rivera. Hell of a story. Remains to be seen if he can be an everyday 2B or not but at minimum he looks like he'd be a quality bench piece. He's done nothing but hit at every level.

I feel like there are very few super trustworthy closers. I think Roberto Osuna is a great pitcher and a wonderful closer, but he's not beyond blowing saves in big situations.... it's simply the nature of the position. Even Duane Ward in the best season of his career and as the Jay's primary closer after Tom Henke left, blew 6 saves and his era was only 2.13. He gave up about a million runs against Chicago White Sox in the last game of the ALCS in 1993 but was able to get them out before they could tie it.

All you can ask from your closer is that he goes out there and competes and can recover from those tough blown saves. If only everyone could be Rivera, Hoffman or in the case of this year, Zach Britton. Even look at Craig Kimbrall though, he's nowhere near as reliable as he used to be, but still I wouldn't want anyone else closing a game for me.

Hate to break it to you Vito, but Grandy, Bruce, Reyes, Asdrubal ( bum knee ) are junk. Grandy is 35 dont steal bases ( nor do any Mets for that matter) anymore, hitting .235 with 30 HR's.. but. 235. Bruce is the polar opposite of clutch. If you need a big hit and Bruce is due up next inning, ship it the other way. You're done. Reyes dont steal bases anymore. Defense is declining. Barely hitting for average but ya, he's affordable. Conforto seems more and more like he's an average player. I go back and forth on whether Cespedes is a superstar or a borderline All-star. When he was first getting talked about before he was signed, I watched all these Youtube videos of him working out. He looked like one heck of an athlete and i was hoping the Cubbies got to sign him. Fast forward now and he doesnt steal bases. Ya he has a rocket arm, but he plays the easiest of outfield positions. He only hits .280, and gives you 30 HR's, but only what.. 88 RBI's this season? That dont seem to add up. Ya i think the Mets should keep him because well.. because. Thats all i can give ya.

The biggest thing the Mets need to do and i know all Met's fans will roll there eyes at this... They gotta trade Thor, DeGrom or Harvey. It's the only way to get an influx of true talent and avoid slipping to a mediocre team for the next 5 seasons. Ironically, Harvey was the guy you would have gotten the most for a year and half ago and now he's the guy of those 3 you would get the least for. Thor is a fucking stud man. In my opinion, he's the untouchable here. Which leaves DeGrom. I think the Mets could get a serious offering for DeGrom.

And no. Matz is not an option. And dont you have Wheeler still in the system ?

Trade DeGrom. Get some serious up and coming bats.

I actually was pretty clear in this thread that I'd have been fine if they decided to move on from Harvey a year ago. The guy was a huge diva last year, came to spring this year sporting a double chin, and we all know that he's leaving after 2018. Like...it's not avoidable. The other pitchers may have interest in staying with the Mets when their deals are up but Harvey has only seemed to give a fuck about himself, so his partnership with Boras makes all the sense in the world for him.

I'm sure the Mets will explore trades but it's hard to see anything huge going down with the pitchers because every single one of them was hurt this year, even Thor. It could hurt all of their trade values (except Thor who they are obviously keeping). Sandy's hope is probably for next year's Opening Day rotation to feature Thor, deGrom, Harvey, Matz, and Wheeler with Colon in the pen for spot starts/to fill in for injury and Gsellman/Lugo in AAA as the next line of defense. They need to retain their pitching depth because every one of these guys is an injury question mark now.

As for your assessments on the current Mets hitters...I do want to get rid of Bruce, he's been useless outside of the last week of the regular season. Grandy has never hit for a high average but I doubt they'll get anything for him - he does have some pop and is a great clubhouse guy, I'm fine with him being on the team next year so long as they're willing to bite the bullet and plug in a guy like Brandon Nimmo if Grandy struggles. Ces needs to come back, forget the 88 RBIs - you can't get RBIs if there's nobody to drive in, and there wasn't for much of the first half when he was their only source of offense.

AssMan is not junk, he's had knee issues this year but he was their MVP down the stretch of the season. They wouldn't have made the Wild Card without him. Besides, he has one year left on his deal and was only ever supposed to be a stop gap. You want young up and coming bats? Well the Mets have one of those in Amed Rosario, who should be the SS in 2018. Cabrera is fine to keep for next year to bridge the gap.

Dom Smith, their other stud hitting prospect. should be taking over at 1B in 2018 as well, Lucas Duda is a better player than James Loney but I'm not a big fan of either of them.

And Reyes would make little sense to drop because he's gonna be playing for free next year. The Rockies are paying his salary with the Mets only paying league minimum. Reyes may not be the same player he was in his first Mets run but he still was good for them down the stretch and can adequately fill in at 3 infield spots, important considering Wright's injury history. You have to have a Wright backup plan ready at all times so Reyes can do that in 2017.

But yeah, Rosario and Smith in 2018 (maybe even sometime next year depending on how Cabrera/Duda play) will be sexy as hell. TJ Rivera and Gavin Cecchini could also be in the mix for 2B reps. Sandy spent his first several drafts taking high school bats, so it's not much of a surprise that it's taken years for them to get to the bigs. Not everybody is Bryce Harper.

It does suck that the team has no speed but that's not going to change with Alderson at the helm. He genuinely doesn't think speed on the basepaths is important because he prefers his teams to be built on the longball, it's a Moneyball thing.

TJ Rivera looks like A-Rod's long lost son, and his wife is a BABE.

http://scoooops.com/images/b0764-166...p-original.jpg

look at the bod on him though. Dude's in good shape.

He's been a great story. Pretty sure he was eligible for minor league free agency this offseason, so if the Mets didn't add him to their 40 man roster and give him a shot he might have wound up going to another team.

Local kid too. Always a sucker for those.

Ya i would eat my food off TJ Rivera's groin lines.

Yyyeeeeahh yyyyeeeahhhh yyyyyyyeeeeeeahhhh @ this third inning

And Texas keeps Hamels in and he gives up a home run right away.

Jays murder lefties.

The Cerebral Estrassin strikes again

Mans game bitch! I love Bautista lol what a douche.

:| Porcello giving up 3 HRs in the 3rd and its only 1 out so far.

Woo hoo Toronto!

Hell of a game.

Red Sox kept getting fooled a lot with the low pitches Indians were throwing tonight. Bunch of ugly strike outs by Sox hitters.

Already worried about Price for tomorrow considering the ease Cleveland had with the HR ball tonight.

Cleveland Rocks? Cleveland gonna get rocked in three straight.

really good game tonight.

Francona showing how to use your best relievers. Miller and Allen combined for 80 plus pitches. Love it.

Well at least I'm going to be right about the Red Sox getting swept. Small consolation prize.

Droford, can you please shut the fuck up about your nonsense now? Your team lost and no one in this thread wants you here.

they're too anxious.

How is the red sox losing 1 game an indicator that they're getting swept?

.... you fucking idiot.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct23ISbWEAEiZzu.jpg

god I hope this doesn't mean they're actually going to put a fucking 2016 Wild Card banner up at Citi Field......especially now when they didn't even win the game. The 1999 banner being hung up is embarrassing enough as is.

It should be Division Champions, League Champions, or World Champions. That's it. They're called championship banners for a reason.

Winning the wild card is an accomplishment and deserving of a banner.