Mets' London trip ends up being a business trip

Joel Sherman

Major League Baseball

by Joel Sherman

LONDON — Pete Alonso threw a curveball.

Minutes into Friday's press conference, Alonso began bombarding local reporters with questions about the best places to try the city's most famous dish and whether they could find a traditional Sunday roast in time for Sunday.

This was the day after the Mets traveling party and their families had enjoyed a lavish welcome dinner aboard the Cutty Sark, now a museum, and Alonso and some relief pitchers had gone to a pub for what the first baseman colloquially called “a real Guinness,” and just after Sean Manaea, who was also in the press conference, jokingly debated with a reporter whether Hershey's or Cadbury's had better chocolate and recommended the Mets left-hander snack on the Pickled Onion Monster Mash.

Shortly afterwards, on the field, I joked with Alonso that I'd asked the best question in a press conference and asked him not to bother me. He laughed and tried to answer, but then two former West Ham footballers whisked him away. Alonso would later take them to batting practice at the London Stadium (usually the home ground of West Ham United).

Well, you get the idea. This London series of events added a lot of flavor. Or, from here on out, a better word would be “flavor.”

It's an event designed to promote cricket to a wider audience. For players, it's a chance to sneak in as close as possible to the summer holidays. For example, JD Martinez, who played in the Red Sox-Yankees' first London series in 2019, led Mets players to watch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. And while the press conference seems to have the most emphasis on cricket, it's also a mix of cultures. Notably, MLB players were congratulated for the U.S.'s shock win over Pakistan in the T20 World Cup on Thursday.

But it's scheduled around regular-season games between the Phillies and Mets on Saturday and Sunday. It's a road trip, after all, and the Mets are in the middle of that trip over the next five or six weeks, trying to perform well enough to convince Steve Cohen and David Stearns to become buyers in the days leading up to the July 30 trade deadline.

“We're in a different county but we're playing a good team and the game is important,” Carlos Mendoza said.

In baseball reality, the Mets feel as far away from the Phillies as New York and London, 16.5 games back of the National League's best team. But at 27-35 and having won three straight games in the American capital before visiting the British capital, the Mets enter training just three games out of the final wild card spot, and team officials still insist that baseball operations have not yet pivoted either way ahead of the trade deadline.

Instead, the internal efforts to strengthen the team continue. Brett Batty was brought across the pond as the 27th player, and told reporters he plans to play second base while remaining in Triple-A, another criticism of Jeff McNeil. McNeil did not start against the Nationals, is expected to be benched for the fourth straight game as Philadelphia left-hander Ranger Suarez starts on Saturday, and is likely to return on Sunday against former teammate Taijuan Walker. McNeil has not yet publicly commented on the benching, as he has proven just as adept in Europe as he is at home at the time.

Mendoza said Francisco Alvarez returned to Venezuela for personal reasons and will be out until Tuesday if he doesn't get a rehab appointment Sunday, slightly delaying his timeline to return to the Mets. So the battle between Tomas Nido and Luis Torrens over who will remain Alvarez's eventual backup continues.

Can the Mets get Edwin Diaz back to his best form? Can they even get Kodai Senga back?

The Phillies don't have that problem. The league, for one, will have a hard time figuring out who should represent the Mets while limiting the number of Philadelphia All-Star-worthy players. The Mets' offense has been on a roll lately, while the Phillies are averaging 5.1 runs per game, the best in the National League, but neither team can expect the same offensive mayhem they had in 2019.

Mendoza, Martinez, Adam Ottavino and Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski were involved in the first London series, in which the Yankees beat the Red Sox for the second straight time, scoring 50 runs on 65 hits and 22 walks in two games. In a stadium that took MLB 18 days to renovate, the aisles are five feet deeper than in 2019, center field is seven feet deeper and the grass is less pinball-like than it was then. Despite all the information shared, including how best to overcome jet lag, the wide foul zone grooves and all the unfamiliarity that is part of a trip off the beaten path in MLB remain.

Both teams seem to have embraced the spirit of the game and the reality of the business that ends Sunday when the field begins to be demolished. The Foo Fighters are scheduled to play here in two weeks. I wonder if Dave Grohl would be as open to discussing and eating mushy peas as Alonso.