Morning Briefing: The Dark Knight Rising?

The Mets will host the Houston Astros today as Jason Vargas looks to give the Mets their first winning streak of the Spring. This will be the third Spring Training meet-up with the defending World Series Champions. Vargas will face off against former-Met Collin McHugh in a 1:10 p.m. game.

Going into Spring Training, Matt Harvey certainly had something to prove and he’s silenced all doubters so far. Harvey pitched three effective innings, only permitting three Tigers to reach base. Despite showing diminished velocity from his peak years of 2013-15, Harvey has showed that he can still pitch well with his fastball in the 92-95 mph range in these early goings.

Another Met pitcher who suffered a lost 2017 season due to injury, Jeurys Familia, threw a scoreless fourth inning. AJ Ramos, Paul Sewald, and Jacob Rhame each copied Familia with scoreless innings of their own. The Tigers rallied in the ninth against Drew Smith, but Drew Gagnon retired Edwin Espinal on a nifty play from Ty Kelly to clinch the Mets fourth win.

Thanks to a Brandon Nimmo home run, the Mets took the lead on the first batter of the game and never looked back.

Later that inning, Travis d’Arnaud drove in Kevin Plawecki to double the Mets lead. In the seventh inning, Jose Reyes doubled in Patrick Biondi and Nimmo for his first hit since Feb. 24.

The Mets No. 1 ranked prospect Andres Gimenez made his debut in MLB camp pinch-running for Luis Guillorme.

Latest Mets News

MMO’s own Jacob Resnick reports that the Mets have signed Giovanny Alfonzo to a minor league deal and have assigned him to the GCL Mets. The nephew of former Met All-Star Edgardo Alfonzo, the younger “Fonzie” slashed .309/.338/.395 last year with the Long Island Ducks.

Detailed here, Michael Conforto faced overhand pitching for the first time since his shoulder surgery last year.

Latest MLB news

The Braves acquired Ryan Schimpf from the Padres for a PTBNL or cash considerations. Schimpf has shown a ton of power at the Major League level, but little else.

Ichiro Suzuki is getting close to returning home as Bob Nightengale of The USA Today announced that the future Hall-of-Famer is nearing a deal to return to the Mariners. He’ll give the Mariners a safety-net as their starting left fielder Ben Gamel suffered an oblique injury yesterday, which will keep him out for about six weeks.

According to Derrick Goold of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2017 breakout star Tommy Pham declined a two-year contract extension, claiming the Cardinals proposal wasn’t “strong enough.”

Goold also disclosed that the Cardinals and shortstop Paul DeJong agreed on a contract extension worth $26 million over six years.

Rian Watt of Fangraphs explores how in the digital age, communication between executives have changed.

Mark Petriello of MLB.com advocates for a team to sign Neil Walker.

ESPN has hired former Disney executive James Pitaro as its new president.

NL East News

Mark Bowman of MLB.com answers his weekly Braves Inbox.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports that Nationals pitcher Seth Romero has been sent home for violating a club policy. Even though Romero’s pitching skill put him high on many teams’s draft boards entering the 2017 draft, his makeup sent him tumbling down it and the Nationals snatched him up at pick #25.