9/22/2023 0 Comments Edwin diaz career strikeouts“I’ve had a couple ups and downs this year.” “I always try to stay positive,” Díaz told the New York Times a couple days after that loss, whose saving grace was that it came on the road and therefore shielded him from what had become customary home-crowd nastiness. Across 58 innings, he gave up 15 homers, a pair of them coming during a nightmarish outing in Philadelphia in late June, when the Phillies plated five ninth-inning runs in a walkoff win. He blew seven of his 33 save opportunities, and his ERA swelled from 1.96 to 5.59. The Mets traded for Díaz before the 2019 season as the headliner in a bizarro blockbuster that also brought Robinson Canó to Queens, and Díaz - who had led baseball with 57 saves in his last year with Seattle - set about stinking up the joint. 1 Among the biggest reasons? That Díaz and shortstop Francisco Lindor - who prior to this season looked like the latest in the franchise’s tradition of sunk-cost disappointments - have turned into the cornerstones they were brought on to be. The National League East, a toss-up three weeks ago, now has the 75-40 Mets 5.5 games clear of Atlanta FiveThirtyEight gives them a 95 percent chance of making the division series. That right there is the story of the Mets’ year, which has seen them get out to a torrid start, fend off long-term injuries and some midsummer doldrums and, like a rock climber trusting a foothold enough to hoist themselves up, come to believe that the good things happening will continue to do so. (just ask □) /qzUpJriO8S- SNY August 5, 2022 It looks like Edwin Díaz will be going for a 6-out save tonight Of all the examples of excellent vibes lately emanating from Queens, my favorite was the sequence of faces Taijuan Walker made - translatable in print as proceeding from Yeah? to Hell yeah! - when informed, on the first night of the recent Atlanta series, that closer Edwin Díaz would come back out for the ninth inning after firing two strikeouts (via two sliders at the kneecaps) in a 1-2-3 eighth. Jacob deGrom returns to Citi Field after 13 months away, proves that “getting misty to Skynyrd” is not yet an entirely barren tract of human emotion, and fires 5⅔ perfect innings. Luis Guillorme uses the late moments of a tense game to break out the gutsiest piece of infield trigonometry you’ll see this season. Pete Alonso racks up his own RBIs and darn near catapults himself over the dugout railing to celebrate his teammates’. But after six consecutive series wins - started by a two-game sweep of the then-rolling Yankees in late July and continued, over the last two weekends, by four-of-five and two-of-three triumphs over the division-rival Braves and Phillies - it’s hard to argue that any team is having a better time. The New York Mets may not be playing the best baseball of any big-league club at the moment the Los Angeles Dodgers, at least, would have something to say about that. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY DAN DAO / GETTY IMAGES
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