Tag: Buck Showalter

Buck Showalter went off on the umpires after a botched HBP call led to another Mets meltdown

NOTHING is going right for the Mets.

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen held a press conference on Wednesday as he hoped to address the frustrations about the team’s dreadful season thus far. But when it came time to actually play the game on Wednesday, it was more of the same.

Seriously, nothing seems to be going right for the Mets, and a 5-2 loss to the Brewers was another example of that.

With Joey Wiemer up in the eighth inning with two on and two outs, a high-and-inside sinker from Adam Ottavino caught Wiemer right on the hand. It looked in real time that Wiemer swung through the contact to his hand, and replays confirmed that. It was swing — like, a full swing.

First base umpire Ron Kulpa, however, incorrectly ruled that Wiemer held up his swing, so he was awarded first base instead of a painful strike. Mets manager Buck Showalter was already frustrated about the call. But when Christian Yelich hit a two-run single three pitches later, Showalter lost it.

He came out to argue the call with Kulpa and was subsequently ejected. It was his second ejection in four days as the season continued to go off the rails for the Mets.

After the game, Showalter said that he was surprised how both the home plate umpire Carlos Torres and Kulpa at first base missed the call.

MLB fans echoed that sentiment: It was a terrible missed call. But it was the exact kind of thing that would happen to the struggling Mets.

The Mets deserved to lose after Buck Showalter’s cowardly move

This was such a lame thing to do.

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The New York Mets had their season come to an abrupt end Sunday night when they lost Game 3 of their wild-card series with the Padres, 6-0. It was an empty night for a team that had an empty final month of the season and it all came to a crushing end at home in front of their disappointed fans.

There was one embarrassing moment in Game 3 which was tough to watch and it made me feel glad that the Mets ended up losing because the move their manager, Buck Showalter, did in the sixth inning was so sad and desperate that it became quite easy to root for their demise.

I’m talking, of course, about when he stepped out of the dugout and asked the umpires to check the shiny ears of Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove. Seriously, an older man wearing a baseball uniform went out on the field and asked some other grown men if they could go check the ears of a pitcher who was dominating the game because the manager felt like there might be something on those ears that could be helping Musgrove.

Just writing that out makes my skin crawl. What a lame thing to do. What a cowardly thing to do. What an embarrassing thing to do.

Just because your team couldn’t string together some hits you’re going to go out there and ask the guys in blue to see if the pitcher is cheating? And to see if the pitcher is cheating by having stuff on his ears? I mean, everyone in the world can see his ears. You think if a very good pitcher is going to cheat he’s just gonna put the stuff out there where everyone can see it?

Musgrove said after the game that it fired him up even more to keep shutting down the Mets, which he did by giving up just one hit in seven masterful innings of work. He was fired up after being accused in front of the baseball world of cheating, which is 100 percent understandable. He also had some fun with a great Kenny Powers-inspired celebration.

But it was just really dumb that he was ever put in that situation in the first place. If you’re going to ask for his ears to be checked for a foreign substance in that big of a situation and on that big of a stage then you better darn well be right or you or you are going to be an embarrassment to the game, which Showalter ended up being.

And now his season is over, which is nice.

Quick hits: NFL Week 5 Awards… Brady gets horrible call from refs… Steelers-Bills fights… And more. 

– My look back at the good, the bad, and the hilarious from Sunday’s NFL action kicks off with an unfortunate groin shot at the end of the Giants win over the Packers.

– Tom Brady couldn’t defend the terrible roughing the passer call that he got at the end of the Bucs win over the Falcons.

– The Steelers and Bills had some heated scuffles late in their game Sunday after a few questionable hits on rookie QB Kenny Pickett.

– NFL fans still had a lot of questions about Aaron Rodgers’ hair.

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Buck Showalter was so worried about Joe Musgrove’s glossy ears that he had the umps check

The Mets really thought he was cheating.

The New York Mets were playing for their season on Sunday night with the Padres trying to pull a Game 3 NL Wild Card upset at Citi Field. And amid all that nervous tension, Mets fans could not stop staring at Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove’s ears.

Baseball teams and fans are inherently paranoid. They know that everyone goes to creative lengths to gain a competitive edge. It’s the “if we can get away with this, then just imagine what they’re doing” point of view. It’s partly why umpires check the hands of pitchers between innings. Teams don’t want foreign substances being used to give the pitcher an edge.

So, with all that in mind, Buck Showalter was incredibly paranoid with Musgrove as the Padres pitcher was dealing in Game 3.

In the first inning, Showalter was spotted checking the baseballs that Musgrove used. That only led to more speculation about why Showalter was suspicious. Then, we saw the close-up camera shots of Musgrove. Mets fans were convinced that Musgrove had something on his ears. They were glossy, his spin rate was up in the game and he appeared to go to his ears between pitches.

Of course, Musgrove could just be a heavy sweater, and stadium lights don’t do sweaty ears any favors. But in the sixth inning with the Mets down 4-0, Showalter couldn’t take it anymore. He asked the umpiring crew to do a foreign-substance check that actually led to the umps physically touching Musgrove’s ears.

The check ultimately concluded that Musgrove was just a sweaty dude with sweaty ears. At the very least, it gave us one of the stranger and more dramatic moments we’ll see in a playoff game. Still, Mets fans were certain that something was suspicious with the Padres pitcher.

The Mets broke the modern MLB hit by pitch record and Buck Showalter amusingly asked for the ball

Buck Showalter wants to preserve this historic Mets moment!

The New York Mets are a pretty good baseball team! They also have the luxury of now being the new record keepers of the modern MLB’s hit by pitch record.

On Wednesday, the Mets broke the modern MLB record after Luis Guillorme recorded New York’s 106th hit by pitch of the season after getting struck on the left foot. The record has stood since 1900, a testament to just how much the Mets have been smacked around by baseballs this season.

Hilariously, after Guillorme took his place at first base, Mets manager Buck Showalter asked for the offending, record-breaking ball as a keepsake to record the memory of this moment.

As for what Showalter wants to do with the ball? Well, I’ll let him explain!

Earlier on in the season, Showalter spoke up as to why he believes MLB pitchers have had a hard time keeping the ball from hitting batters, stemming back to the sticky substance ban from last year. Only time will tell if the Mets will be able to add another piece of hardware to their collection by season’s end.

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Everyone loves the classy, ‘boozy but subdued’ celebration by the Mets after their postseason berth

Pete Alonso said the Mets were very subtle.

The New York Mets clinched a playoff berth Monday night, earning a spot in the postseason for the first time since 2016.

New York defeated the Milwaukee Brewers behind a marvelous pitching performance by Max Scherzer, who earned the 200th victory of his MLB career. He had a perfect game through six innings, but his bid ended there because it was his first game back from injury.

It is no small accomplishment for the Mets to make the postseason, and nobody would have blamed them for celebration. Mets owner Steve Cohen, however, described the events as “modest” and that there will be far bigger celebrations when the moment calls for it.

Mets infielder Francisco Lindor said it was a “classy” celebration, per The Athletic’s Will Sammon. Watch how Mets designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach exemplifies that while casually sipping a beer:

Even though this is only their tenth postseason berth in franchise history, the guys acted like they had been there before. It was all very low-key and super chilled out.

That’s because, according to Mets manager Buck Showalter, these Mets are a “mature group” that stays in the moment. It’s not the first time that Showalter has used that phrase to describe his team.

That maturity led the Associated Press to describe their celebration as “boozy but subdued” after the victory. Mets first baseman Pete Alonso shared the same sentiment, using the words “very subdued” and “very subtle” before flashing a cheeky grin.

John Harper described why the Mets may emphasize this point (via SNY):

“If you watched from the beginning of this 2022 season, you couldn’t have been surprised that the Mets celebrated their postseason clinching in Milwaukee on Monday night in subdued fashion — sipping champagne from elegant glassware rather than spraying it wildly from oversized bottles.

They have been the epitome of professionalism all year, after all, and an over-the-top party would have been out of character for them when so much is still at stake over these last few weeks of the season.”

Harper wasn’t the only person to notice the choice to use glassware.

New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro also noted that the champagne was “distributed civilly” in glasses. He added that the Mets will have other opportunities “to splash and spray and shower each other” if they keep winning.

Several other reporters described the scene as “subdued” as well:

The Mets are so lucky this year fans wanted to believe Eduardo Escobar and Pete Alonso were holding onto lottery tickets

No, the Mets weren’t swapping around lottery tickets on the mound during a game.

Everything’s coming up New York Mets, isn’t it?

After years of being the butt of many baseball fans jokes, the Mets are actually a good and fun team to root for this year! Of course, there’s still time for things to completely collapse in typical Mets fashion, but so far so good.

The hope for the Mets is at an all-time high right now, which is why many baseball fans were quick to believe their eyes during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday. With the Mets leading 6-0 at the top of the ninth with bases loaded and two outs, manager Buck Showalter made a mound visit to swap pitchers in a key spot. Cameras then caught Eduardo Escobar and Pete Alonso handing Showalter a handful of cards that looked, at first glance, like lottery tickets.

While they do look similar to the scratch off lottery tickets you’d get from your grandparents at Christmas, those pieces of paper are actually defensive alignment cards! These cards are used to help players position themselves against specific batters rather than memorizing that information or getting it from a coach in the dugout with hand gestures.

Instead of lottery cards, it’s clear Escobar and Alonso are swapping out their alignment cards with a new pitcher coming in for the Mets. But hey, considering the Mets have been incredibly fortuitous this season, maybe they should be thinking about buying into the lottery at some point!

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Mets manager Buck Showalter predicts Jets will beat Patriots in 2022

Mets manager Buck Showalter is confident that the Jets will end their 12-game losing streak against the Patriots in 2022.

The Jets haven’t had much success against the Patriots recently — and that’s putting it lightly. New York hasn’t defeated New England in its last 12 tries, with its last triumph over the Patriots coming in an overtime win in 2015.

Robert Saleh’s team will take on the daunting task of beating the Patriots again in 2022. New England dominated the Jets for a pair of resounding wins in 2021, including a 54-13 shellacking to cap the season series. A large contingent of fans have become pessimistic about Gang Green’s chances any time the Patriots are on the schedule, but not first-year New York Mets manager Buck Showalter.

He thinks this year is the year the Jets get over the hump.

When asked Wednesday about projecting the consistency of his team as the 2022 MLB season drags on, Showalter wandered from the subject and declared that the Jets would defeat the Patriots this upcoming season.

“We all want to know about something before it happens,” Showalter said, per SNY. “We want to know if the Jets are gonna beat the Patriots. Don’t say no. They’re gonna beat ’em this year.”

New England made the postseason in 2021 and will have a chance to return in 2022, but the Jets have retooled to the point where they should, at the very least, be competitive against their division rivals. Fans have reason to be as optimistic as Showalter is after the offseason Joe Douglas has had.

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Buck Showalter estaba devastado al enterarse que Shakira no iba a hacer el lanzamiento inicial para los Mets

Casi un mes y medio de esta temporada de la MLB y los Mets, por una ocasión, tienen algo de que quejarse. Con un récord de 22-12, New York no sólo está en la cima de la NL este, pero también tiene el mejor récord de la Liga Nacional. ¡Incluso los …

Casi un mes y medio de esta temporada de la MLB y los Mets, por una ocasión, tienen algo de que quejarse. Con un récord de 22-12, New York no sólo está en la cima de la NL este, pero también tiene el mejor récord de la Liga Nacional.

¡Incluso los ERRORES están inclinados a su favor!

El sábado, con su equipo muy cómodo antes del juego contra los Mariners (+1.5 en Tipico Sportsbook), el entrenador Buck Showalter tenía otro tipo de queja. Uno totalmente divorciada del baseball:

¿Por qué no está la Invitada de Honor — la estrella sensación internacional del pop Shakira — haciendo el lanzamiento inicial en el Citi Field?

Traducción.- Buck Showalter. Fan de Shakira.

Oh, baby, cuando hablas así, hacen enojar a un entrenador.

Alguien tiene que responder por esta farsa y ayudar a Buck.

Actualización a las 8:09 p.m.: Un retraso por lluvia entre los Mets y los Marlins hizo realidad el sueño de Buck.  Qué momento tan feliz para todos.

Traducción.- Gran día. Buck por fin pudo conocer a Shakira.

No digan que Shakira no le cumple a sus fans.

Buck Showalter was devastated to learn that Shakira wouldn’t be throwing out the first pitch for the Mets

Whenever, wherever was a lie!

Almost a month and a half into this MLB season, the Mets, for once, have little to complain about. At 22-12, New York not only sits at the top of the NL East, but they also have the best record in the National League.

Even the TOOTBLAN’s are skewed in their favor!

On Saturday, with his team cruising before a matchup against the Mariners (+1.5 at Tipico Sportsbook), manager Buck Showalter had a different complaint. One wholly divorced from anything related to baseball:

Why isn’t Honored Guest — international pop sensation Shakira — throwing out the first pitch at Citi Field?

Oh, baby, when you talk like that, you make a manager go mad.

Someone has to answer for this travesty and help poor Buck out.

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Buck Showalter might have a point on MLB pitchers needing help with grip after Francisco Lindor was hit by a pitch

Baseball is going to have to do something about pitching grip.

Tensions were clearly just flaring everywhere on Friday night. First, you had a fight in NASCAR. Then you’ve got benches clearing in baseball? What a night, man.

Things got a little out of hand during the Nationals and Mets game on Friday night. Nationals’ pitcher Steve Cishek accidentally beaned Francisco Lindor with a pitch that looked pretty dangerous.

The pitch hit him in the face and ended up chipping his tooth. If it weren’t for the c-flap on his helmet things could’ve ended up a lot worse. Through it all, though, Lindor maintained his composure. That was even after both benches completely cleared and ejections were handed out.

Lindor left the game, but he didn’t have any major injuries and passed concussion protocols. Cishek was ejected from the game after said he escalated things by leaving the mound.

All in all, everyone is OK and there are no actual hard feelings here, believe it or not. Mets manager Buck Showalter doesn’t even blame Cishek.

This is just part of a bigger trend around baseball that seems to be an issue.