The New York Mets were defeated by the Miami Marlins by a score of 7-4 on Wednesday afternoon in Jupiter.
Lets begin with Matt Harvey. After an electrifying performance in his first spring start, today the big righthander came back to earth a little against the Marlins who tagged him for six hits and two runs in 2.2 innings of work. Harvey struck out two and walked one, and afterward admitted he was tired and fatigued.
“I felt good,” Harvey said after the game. “My body was a little sluggish, but other than that everything was fine. I’m still working on getting in the swing of going out there multiple times and multiple innings.”
Harvey did show some toughness in the second when he allowed the first four Marlins to reach base. However after a Ichiro Suzuki RBI single, he bore down and got three outs with the bases loaded, the third one with a big strikeout. Harvey hit 98 mph a couple of times and averaged 95 on his fast ball.
Noah Syndergaard was in beast mode today. Our No. 1 ranked prospect struck out five in 2.2 scoreless innings of work, holding the Marlins to just one hit. Thor was also throwing some major heat, reaching 98-99 mph on his fastball. Huge showing for Thor.
Now the bad news, Scott Rice – our would be lefthanded reliever who has no feeling in his elbow – was cooked or fried today, you decide. He allowed the Marlins to score five runs, four of them earned, in a forgettable seventh inning that saw the Mets lead vanish and the Marlins jump in front. Rice was fooling nobody, walking two, allowing three hits, and was unable to get out of the inning. His ERA climbed to 13.50.
Offensively, Matt Reynolds batted leadoff and went 2-for-5 with two strikeouts. He looked a little rough in the field and also had a throwing error that scored a Marlins run.
Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Ruben Tejada had RBI doubles to quickly put the Mets up. Tejada was 2-for-3 with two RBI including a bases-loaded walk. Michael Conforto went 1-for-5 with three strikeouts.
Confucius Says: Better to get losses out of the way now and not the regular season.
On Deck: Jacob deGrom will start for the Mets on Thursday as we take on Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals at Tradition Field at 1:10 PM.
