It was a sunny but blustery day at First Data Field in Port St. Lucie where the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the New York Mets by a score of 14-11 in a game that featured 34 hits, 10 walks and 4 errors.
Pitching:
Matt Harvey made his spring training debut and looked solid in the first, tossing a 1-2-3 inning and sytiking out a pair. In his second inning of work, Harvey was greeted by hard hit ground rule double by Tommy Pham and then he hit Matt Adams to put runners on first and second. That brought up Jose Martinez who cleared the bases with a three-run homer to put the Cardinals up 3-1 at the time.
Harvey quickly allowed another two runners to get on base, and after getting a grounder to short for the second out of the inning, manager Terry Collins had seen enough and pulled Harvey with his pitch count up to 39. Another run would get charged to Harvey when reliever Addison Reed was greeted with an RBI-single. All told Harvey allowed four earned runs on four hits in 1.2 innings with three strikeouts.
Addison Reed stayed in for the third inning and he quickly got himself into a bases loaded jam before some dude named Harrison Bader rocked him for a three-run triple that sailed over Curtis Granderson‘s head in center field to make the score 7-1.
Seth Lugo worked the 4th and 5th innings and didn’t fare too well either as the Cards lit him up for another four runs on five hits. Lugo struck out two and walked none. Adam Wilk allowed a solo homerun to Patrick Wisdom in the 6th inning and a ground rule double brought home the Cardinals’ 13th run of the game. Tom Gorzelanny and Logan Taylor pitched an inning each to finish the game.
Offense:
Yoenis Cespedes got the Mets on the board early when he took a fastball by Mike Leake and launched it over the center field fence for a solo home run.
The Mets scored two runs in the fourth inning when after singles by Cespedes and Neil Walker, T.J. Rivera brought home a run with a sac fly, and then Travis d’Arnaud drove home Walker with an RBI-single. With the bases loaded in the 5th inning, Neil Walker drew a walk for the Mets’ fourth run of the game.
The Mets scored six runs in the 7th inning highlighted by a big three run homer by little Luis Guillorme, he of one-handed flying bat catch fame. The Amazins’ loaded them up again in the 8th inning with nobody out but then three straight strikeouts with the bases juiced. Travis Taijeron closed out the scoring with an RBI-single in the ninth inning.
Cespedes had two hits in the game and is batting .538 this spring which I’m told doesn’t matter so just ignore this sentence. Yo looks like he’s ready to post some MVP numbers this season. Travis Taijeron went 4-for-4 in the game as the Mets collected a whopping 16 hits on the day.
On Deck:
Lefty Steven Matz will make his spring debut on Monday as the Mets take on the Miami Marlins in Jupiter for a 1:05 PM start.
