Mets Morning News: Dingers in the District

Meet the Mets

The Mets bested the Nationals 9-5 to secure a series victory in Washington DC. Chris Bassitt was excellent, tossing seven scoreless innings with four strikeouts and one walk. Pete Alonso snapped a scoreless tie with a two-run homer in the third and Daniel Vogelbach provided the big blow with his first Mets home run in the form of a grand slam in the fifth. Trevor May made his return to the mound, pitching a scoreless eighth inning with a strikeout. The Nationals made things a little interesting in the bottom of the ninth by greeting newest Met reliever Mychal Givens rudely and putting up a five spot against him, necessitating Seth Lugo coming into the game to record the final out. But, this one was never really in doubt.

Choose your recap: Amazin’ Avenue, MLB.com, NY Post, Daily News, Newsday, North Jersey, Faith and Fear in Flushing, ESPN

Jacob deGrom feels good after his season debut and played catch yesterday without issue. He will make his second start of the season on Sunday against the Braves and he will be on a ~75-pitch limit.

The pitching matchups for the entire crucial series against the Braves this week are as follows: Carlos Carrasco vs. Kyle Wright tonight, Taijuan Walker vs. Ian Anderson tomorrow, David Peterson/Max Scherzer vs. Max Fried/Jake Odorizzi for Saturday’s doubleheader (the order has not been determined for either team), and Jacob deGrom vs. Spencer Strider on Sunday.

James McCann is set to return to the lineup today and will play every other day, according to Buck Showalter.

“The Mets ended up surrendering next to nothing at the deadline. Except of course the opportunity to enhance their chances at a World Series. Which is everything,” wrote Jon Heyman of the Post.

Tim Britton of The Athletic takes stock of what the Mets’ bullpen looks like now post-trading deadline.

Around the National League East

The Phillies beat the Braves 3-1 thanks to a go-ahead two-run homer by Nick Castellanos in the eighth inning.

The Marlins blanked the Reds 3-0 and Sandy Alcantara pitched a complete game shutout, lowering his ERA to an incredible 1.88. He now has three complete games this season.

The Nationals have requested the unconditional release of Alcides Escobar to make room for Luke Voit on the roster.

Around Major League Baseball

Many writers around baseball wrote moving tributes to Vin Scully, including Ray Ratto of Defector, Steven Goldman of Baseball Prospectus, Buster Olney of ESPN, Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs, and George Vecsey of the New York Times.

The Brewers designated recently-acquired Dinelson Lamet and catcher Pedro Severino for assignment.

The Yankees are hoping their ace Gerrit Cole can fix his issues before the postseason.

Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs takes a look at which teams improved the most at the trading deadline and Jarrett Seidler of Baseball Prospectus hands out trading deadline superlatives.

The revamped Padres made a statement in their first game after the trading deadline, thumping the Rockies 9-1.

In his first game as a Mariner, Luis Castillo helped Seattle to a victory over the Yankees, drawing comparisons to Mariners legend Félix Hernández from his new manager.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Chris McShane and Brian Salvatore discussed the Mets trading deadline in a new episode of Amazin’ Avenue Audio (The Show).

Vas Drimalitis wrote about the amazing feeling of having Jacob deGrom back on the mound again.

And our friends at BreakingT have a new t-shirt to celebrate the occasion.

Ken Lavin brought us the Daily Prospect Report.

This Date in Mets History

Joel Youngblood set an MLB record by hitting a single for two different teams in two different cities on this date in 1982.