If Your Birthday is March 22nd...

...you share it with Edwin Diaz.  The Mets closer -- back in action after missing 2023 with a knee injury sustained in a World Baseball Classic post-game celebration -- saved 32 games in each of his last two full seasons.   His return turns the Mets bullpen from a question mark into a strength, especially important as the club starts the year without its best 2023 starter Kodai Senga.

(Below:) Ike Davis looked like he would become a Mets mainstay -- until his career was sidetracked by illness and injury.  The son of longtime big league pitcher Ron Davis hit his peak in 2012, when he crushed 32 homers and drove in 90.  Ike spent time with the Pirates and A's before ending his career with an eight-game cameo with the 2016 Yankees -- making him one of the 155 to have appeared with both New York teams.  Davis, whose mother's family is Jewish, played for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.



 

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