MLB Bullets Is Amazin’

“Come see my amazin’ Mets.”—Casey Stengel.

• I generally don’t link to individual games because I assume that all of you know how to find a box score and read the article that goes with it. But I make an exception today since everything I’m writing about to start this morning flows out of the Nationals 23-5 thumping of the New York Mets.
• Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon had quite a day, going 6 for 6 with three home runs and ten RBI. That’s a franchise record.
• Some more details on Rendon’s big day.
• The other big story is that Mets ace Noah Syndergaard, just two days after refusing to have an MRI, lasted less than two innings and will now have an MRI on his right arm.
• David Schoenfield thinks the whole incident questions who is actually running the show in Queens: management or the players?
• Matt Snyder makes the case that the Mets are not properly handling injuries—and he wrote this before Syndergaard left the mound grabbing his arm yesterday.
• Jon Tayler argues that the Mets don’t understand the new 10-day DL and aren’t using it properly.
• Grant Brisbee looks at who is to blame for the Mets becoming “a frightening mess.”
• The Nationals big day at the plate allowed Bryce Harper to set a major-league record for most runs scored in the month of April.
• Things aren’t all terrific for the Nats, however, as outfielder Adam Eaton has a torn ACL and will miss the rest of the season. They aren’t specifically ruling out him returning to DH if the Nationals make the World Series, for example. But it seems pretty unlikely.
• As long as we’re dealing with injuries, Diamondbacks pitcher Shelby Miller will have Tommy John surgery.
• The news is slightly better for Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez as he’ll just miss 3-to-4 weeks with shoulder bursitis.
• The dirtbike accident that Madison Bumgarner suffered last week will keep him out for three months.
• Sam Miller shows how despite an ERA of 4.37, Indians’ right-hander Danny Salazar is putting it together this season and becoming the ace that he was expected to become.
• Cliff Corcoran has seven breakout hitters so far this year.
• And Will Leitch lists the seven worst hitters of April.
• With only a month’s worth of hindsight, Ryan Davis lists the best and worst moves of the past winter. Hey, at least that’s a month’s more hindsight than the last several columns that I posted on this subject.
• Buster Olney has a preview of the starting pitchers who could be on the trade market this July.
• The Dodgers still haven’t figured out how to hit left-handed pitching.
• Michael Baumann writes that the Rockies are weird. A lot of big things have gone wrong for them, yet they are still in first place after one month.
• Neil Paine writes that for all the talk about the Rockies pitching problems throughout the years, their real problem, traditionally, has been an inability to hit away from Coors Field.
• Pirates catcher John Bormann went from High-A Bradenton to his major-league debut yesterday. Sure, it was one of those “the Pirates needed a catcher and he was the only one who can get to Miami in time for the game” situations, but it was still nice. Like Ryan O’Malley and the Cubs those many years ago.
• The Derek Jeter/Jeb Bush purchase of the Marlins isn’t looking like such a sure thing anymore. Or even likely.
• Yankees reliever Bryan Mitchell pitched the ninth inning yesterday, played first base in the tenth and then went back to the mound and pitched the 11th. This would be a better story if the Yankees had won and Mitchell hadn’t gotten the loss in the 11th.
• The Astros have started shifting in the outfield, and Travis Sawchik explains how that works.
• Orioles catcher Caleb Joseph’s long RBI drought is over. It was his first RBI since Sept. 11, 2015.
• Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman calls Miller Park a “bad-lit Little League field.” How dare he put down the Cubs’ other home field like that?
• For those of you waiting for our new robot umpire overlords to take over, Rob Arthur explains how the technology has some problems with it at the moment.
• Jon Schwartz has the story of Yankees outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury and how he gives back to the small town on an Arizona Indian reservation where he lived for two years in middle school. It also keeps him connected to his Navajo side.
• Howard Megdal profiles Braves manager Brian Snitker, who he calls “the oldest rookie in MLB” at age 61.
• The Marlins honored Ichiro Suzuki with a photo collage with each of his first 3000 major league hits. That’s actually pretty neat and it was probably as emotional as he’s ever gotten on the field.
• The Brewers want to know whether they should introduce Eric Thames’ Korean cheer song. The other Brewers seem to like it.
• And finally, a Tigers fan found out the hard way that while umbrellas are great for keeping the rain from hitting you, they aren’t so good from keeping foul balls from hitting you. And then they’re no good for stopping the rain, either.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.