Amazin’s first crack at facing Yamamoto
When the Mets last connected with Yoshinobu Yamamoto in December, Steve and Alex Cohen, David Stearns, Carlos Mendoza and Jeremy Hefner attempted to recruit the Japanese star at a dinner at the Cohens’ Connecticut home.
This time, they hope their bats will be less courteous.
For the first time, the Mets will see the pitcher who turned down their $325 million this offseason when a series with the Dodgers opens Friday in Los Angeles. Yamamoto will get the start and oppose Sean Manaea in the opener, and the Mets can see who they missed out on.
The Mets offered the 25year-old righty the same record-setting, 12-year pact that the Dodgers offered, but Yamamoto chose the team with the better reputation for winning and the one with Shohei Ohtani.
Yamamoto, rare in both talent and age to hit free agency, struggled in his MLB debut but has dazzled since, over a stretch in which he has allowed three runs in 15 innings with 19 strikeouts. His curveball has been particularly devastating and has drawn whiffs on 41.4 percent of swings.
The Mets — and much of baseball — knew Yamamoto would be intriguing. Cohen and Stearns traveled to Japan to meet with Yamamoto ahead of the winter meetings, before the larger contingent of Mets brass met with Yamamoto for dinner.
After Yamamoto chose the Dodgers, Cohen told The Post’s Jon Heyman that he “left it all on the field” to try to lure the recipient of the largest pitching contract in MLB history.
The Mets got to know the person, and now they will meet the pitcher.
“We’ll be ready for him,” Mendoza said Wednesday.
➤ Calvin Ziegler, an exciting pitching prospect, is looking at essentially a second straight lost season and will need Tommy John surgery, a source confirmed.
The righty, who is the eighth-ranked Mets pitching prospect by MLB Pipeline, pitched just one inning last season after bone spur surgery and then tearing a quad during his rehab. Ziegler returned to the Low-A St. Lucie mound in September and struck out the three batters he faced.
He began this season with plenty of hype that accelerated after he debuted with High-A Brooklyn by throwing four perfect innings and striking out nine. At one point, he struck out eight batters in a row.
But he lasted just two hitless innings in his second start of the season on Sunday and exited early with an injury that will mean his season again is over.
Ziegler, a 21-year-old from Kitchener, Ontario, was a second-round pick in 2021. Metsmerized first reported he would need surgery.
➤ Grant Hartwig, who pitched an inning Wednesday, was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse.
There was no immediate corresponding announcement, though it’s possible that Michael Tonkin, who was brought back to the Mets through a waiver claim Wednesday, could join the team in Los Angeles.