Mets Lineup
- Collin Cowgill CF
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- David Wright 3B
- Ike Davis 1B
- Mike Baxter RF
- Lucas Duda LF
- Ruben Tejada SS
- Anthony Recker C
- Aaron Laffey LHP
Game Notes
The Mets optioned RHP Jeurys Familia to Triple-A Las Vegas. They also moved Johan Santana to the 60-day disabled list and removed him from the 40-man roster. The Mets will make a corresponding move tomorrow.
David Wright has now played 60 consecutive games without an error after Saturday’s win against the Marlins. He continues to extend the franchise record which was once held by Lenny Randle who played in 54 consecutive games without an error during the 1978 season.
John Buck contributed four RBIs and Daniel Murphy produced a tiebreaking triple in the seventh that plated Mike Baxter as the Mets beat the Marlins, 7-3, Saturday. He will get his first day off today and a well deserved rest. He has an NL-leading nine RBI’s through his first five games.
Terry Collins said the outfield won’t be as consistent as predicted only a week earlier. Baxter, who reached base three times and scored twice while batting in the leadoff spot, should start again Monday against Halladay in Philly, according to the manager. The outfield will be in flux most of this season and you can call it an outfield by committee.
Miami slugger Giancarlo Stanton tallied a pair of singles in Saturday’s loss to the Mets. The base knocks boosted his batting average to .222 (4-for-18), though the right fielder is still in search of his first homer of the year.
Game Preview
The Mets find themselves in a rubber game situation today as they bounced back from a two game slide yesterday. In their last game, the Mets and Marlins traded runs until it was a 3-3 game. After that, the Mets scored 4 unanswered run, 3 in a rally. The difference for the Mets in yesterday’s game was timely hitting and being aggressive on the base paths. Twice in one inning, a Mets runner stole second, forced a bad throw/reception and was able to move ahead to third base. Both of those runners would score. Today at Citi-Field, Aaron Laffey will be making his Mets debut as he faces Marlins phenom Jose Fernandez.
Fernandez, 20, will make his big league debut on Sunday, despite having never pitched at a level above Class A. The right-hander, ranked No. 7 on MLB.com’s Top 100 Prospect List, was the Marlins’ first-round Draft selection in 2011 and was selected after the Mets took Brandon Nimmo with the previous pick. He’ll be the youngest hurler in team history to appear in a game.
Aaron Laffey was with the Blue Jays last year where he had a 4.56 ERA over 20 games, 16 starts and 100.2 innings. In that stretch he walked 37 batters and struck out 48. For the Mets in Spring Training, he allowed 12 runs over 4 games. This is his first time in his career being on a National League team, thus it is also his first time facing the Marlins. The has faced a few batters on the Marlins roster:
Kotchman 9-12, 4 2B
Polanco 4-12, 2B
Olivo 2-10, 2B
Pierre 0-5
The Mets will be facing one of the prized prospects in the Marlins organization, Jose Fernandez. Baseball America ranks him as the #5 prospect in baseball and MLB.com ranks him as #7 (between d’Arnaud and Wheeler). Most people, basically everyone, expected to see Fernandez in the major leagues some time next year, maybe at the end of this year. However, the Marlins are going to do what the Marlins do and promoted the 20 year old phenom to the majors without reaching AA. Over 25 starts last year between low A and high A (or A and A Advanced, whatever it’s called now), Fernandez was 14-1 with a 1.75 ERA over 133.0 innings. In that time, he walked only 35 batters and struck out 155. He only pitched 2 innings in official spring training games this spring, allowing 1 hit, no runs and striking out 2. Today will be an interesting day.
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