Jason Vargas, who won 18 games for Kansas City last season, will make his first spring training start for the Mets today, as he’ll battle the Miami Marlins at 1:10 PM at First Data Field.
Seth Lugo, Jeurys Familia, Jerry Blevins, AJ Ramos and Corey Taylor are also supposed to pitch in the game as well. It will be shown on SNY and can be listened to on 710WOR.
Matt Harvey‘s first start of 2018 was an encouraging one as the former ace only allowed one run in two innings. Harvey pitched a scoreless first, but ran into trouble in the second. A couple of hard-hit balls and a walk produced a run for the Braves.
Harvey would leave the game after that inning, his afternoon concluded after 37 pitches. By the end of his outing, Harvey was consistently touching 95 mph with decent off speed pitches, which certainly bodes well for the upcoming season.
After the Braves scored in the second inning, Brandon Nimmo tied up the game with a long shot to right. A few batters later, Zach Borenstein grounded into a double play, which enabled Jose Lobaton to score. Gavin Cecchini then continued his strong spring with an RBI single.
Zack Wheeler relieved Harvey and had almost the same results. His two innings were effective and his stuff played well in the relief outing, however he did gave up a run on a wild pitch. The Mets would hold onto their 3-2 lead until the bottom of the 7th, when über-prospect Ronald Acuna plated two.
Despite the deficit, the Mets prospects refused to give up. With two outs in the top of 9th, Jeff McNeil singled in Luis Guillorme to tie the game and the relatively-unknown Arnaldo Berrios homered to give the Mets a 6-4 win.
P.J. Conlon earned the win after pitching two scoreless innings. Tyler Bashlor recovered from his horrendous start to the season and pitched a perfect inning.
Mets News
Mets fans said good-bye to a familiar face yesterday as Lucas Duda agreed to a one-year, 3.5 million dollar deal with Kansas City Royals.
Jacob deGrom threw a “modified side session” and reported no issues, which might alleviate concerns that he wouldn’t be ready for Opening Day.
MLB News
Astros first baseman Yulieski Gurriel will be on the disabled list for the next few months as he recovers from hamate surgery.
Pirates outfielder Daniel Nava will undergo back surgery and miss the next three months.
MLBPA will be live-streaming an exhibition between the camp of unsigned free agents and the Japan Rallway Easy at 11am today.
The Red Sox will be amending the name of the infamous “Yawkey Way” outside Fenway Park.
NL East News
Matt Gelb of The Athletic tries to make sense of the Phillies’s strange plan of positioning their outfielders this year.
New Nationals manager Dave Martinez made quite the first impression when he invited several camels to Spring Training.
Bob Nightengale of The USA Today reports that the Nationals have been “monitoring” Jake Arrieta‘s market.
Latest From MMO
John Sheridan released the second-ever MMO mailing.
Sheridan discussed a way to get fair playing time for both Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki.
Josh Finkelstein released his interview with Mets pitching prospect, Corey Oswalt.
Tim Ryder described how Terry Collins is still influencing the Mets.
This Date in Mets History
Budding superstar Michael Conforto turns 25 today.
Former Met backstop Ramon Castro is 42 today.
