Game Preview: Mets @ Nationals

Major League Debut Derby.

The Mets and the Nationals play game two tonight after last night’s romp via young prospect Espinosa who exploded at the plate vs the Mets. Tonight will feature the Major League debut for both starting pitchers. On the Amazin’s side, 24-year old Dillon Gee gets a shot to show if he has the goods to be a starter in the Majors and for the Nationals, they will show off their recent acquisition from Cuba, Yuneski Maya.

Dillon Gee has been a talked about prospect for a while now, because its hard to see on the surface whether he has the ability to be a star, or whether he is just not going to pan out (obvisously this is the discussion for every prospect, but the consensus on Gee ranges). Anyway he has had a good comeback year (only pitched 48 innings last season due to innings). This year he is 13-8 with a 4.96 ERA in AAA with 165 strikeouts to only 41 BB. Yes, that is a 4 to 1 strikeout ratio. That is where he makes noise as a prospect. It will be interesting to see what he does tonight.

Maya was a player that I really wanted the Mets to get at the start of this season, so now I’m hoping I was wrong about him. If you thought that Mejia was rocketed through his system, wait to you see how Maya (who is an accomplished Cuban pitcher) moved through the Nationals system. He made 2 starts in the Rookie League (with a 1.29 ERA), made one start in Advanced Single A (6 ER in 4 IP) then two starts in AAA with one earned run in 10.1 innings. Essentially he traveled like a pitcher on rehab.

Lets Go Mets!

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