Mound Visits: LOL METS Edition

Welcome to Mound Visits, your weekly recap of the best things you might have missed in baseball every week. This week brings us the Mets Mets’ing all over the place, Drew Pomeranz’s gross fingernail, and a product called Nutshellz.

As of April 18 the Mets were 13-4, in first place in the NL East, and were heading into a series with the Braves. On May 9, three weeks later, they were 18-17 and had dropped to fourth place in the division. They DFA’d Matt Harvey, then they traded him to the worst possible landing spot for him to have a chance of recovering his career.

Then, this happened.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLMETS.

(Am I aware that other teams have been caught doing this in the recent history of baseball? Yes. Is it MUCH funnier because it’s the Mets? Obviously.)

Didi Gregorius got accidentally kicked in the head by Francisco Lindor while making a play last Friday, which also happened to be May 4 — AKA the day that every very online person makes “May the Fourth Be With You” references all day long.

Didi managed to make the only good reference to the internet’s worst “holiday” and it took him getting kicked in the noggin to do it. It was Star Wars night at Yankee Stadium and when the Yankees’ medical staff asked him what day it was to assess his status, he replied “May the Fourth be with you.” Next year the rule should be that you have to have a potential head injury to say that.

Ichiro. Perfect.

Who The F*** Is Tom Brady?

Ichiro. The Best.

Red Sox pitcher Drew Pomeranz faced the Yankees Tuesday night, and he did it with nine normal fingernails.

Early in the game, Pomeranz took a break on the mound and started picking at his nail as if he had a hangnail or a scrape or something. Which is what most of the people watching thought he was dealing with. “Oh look at this. What, does he need a manicure or something?” Everyone was so innocent. Making jokes about how it couldn’t possibly be that bad and saying a teammate needs to go get nail clippers for him to use on the mound.

Until 30 seconds later when NESN in Boston showed a closeup of THIS.

No, absolutely not. Put that away. Put it AWAY. That’s an FCC fine-worthy nail. That closeup should be blurred out because of mature content. In short: Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Being in a mascot costume is tough enough. I know this from experience. You can’t really see, you can’t speak, and the level of difficulty is higher than you think when it comes to seemingly simple things like “walking” and “standing” and “making small children happy without accidentally tipping over in the middle of the concourse.”

So crouching to catch a ceremonial first pitch is no easy task to start with. Now take all of what I just said and watch this video of American Ninja Warrior host Akbar Gbajabiamila throwing out a first pitch at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phanatic had no clue how to react to that ... pitch? Can we call it a pitch? Straight up stunned. It looked great in that baby blue throwback though.

Okay let’s get the upsetting and not at all funny thing out of the way here so we can make jokes. Yadier Molina got a 102-mph ball fouled off of his yaknows. Hard enough that he had to have emergency surgery and will be out for weeks. That’s painful to think about and here’s hoping he has a speedy recovery.

HOWEVER.

To avoid something like that happening again, the Cardinals bought bulletproof cups called “Nutshellz” form a local fan.

Bulletproof cups.

Bullet. Proof. Cups.

Called Nutshellz.

The Orioles and Indians already use them, so it’s not like the Cardinals are trailblazers in this area. But from now on all their catchers will be armed with bullet proof crotches. And now you’ll think of the word Nutshellz every time you watch a St. Louis catcher behind the plate.

Vlad Guerrero, Jr. is handling being the heir to his dad’s baseball career prettttty well, all things considered. He’s doing things like calling his shot before hitting an opposite field home run off a tee, or hitting two home runs in one game — one of them off a hotel.

Therefore, I am dubbing him Vlad The Inhaler. Because everything he does takes my breath away, and thus need an inhaler. That might need some workshopping but it’s what I’m going with right now.

Have a favorite moment from this week? Tweet them at me and I’ll include them in next week’s Mound Visits.