Recapping Friday’s Game:
The Mets had the rare Saturday day off – a Spring Training exclusive – after a terrific game on Friday that saw Francisco Lindor hit a grand slam for his second homer of the season. Lindor got off to a slow start this spring but this past week he’s been killing it, his batting average has gone up to .310 and his OPS has gone up to .892. Tomas Nido also showed off a bit a of power hitting his first spring homer on a day where he went 3-3 at the plate. Alonso continued his terrific spring with his 5th double of spring, raising his OPS to 1.367.
But the big story of the day was the pitching. Friday Morning we were talking about Carrasco’s injury and how the Mets would need Walker to step up. He pitched 4.0 innings allowing one hit and a walk while striking out 3 with no runs. Blevins came in after pitched a perfect inning. Oswalt – who was in competition for the fifth starting spot, but very far down the depth chart – pitched his way out of the competition allowing 5 runs over 2.2 innings. Finally, Zamora continued his very good spring with another scoreless inning of work, keeping his ERA at 0.
What We Are Watching Today:
It’s another Jacob deGrom start on a weekend, on the road. You know that means? No television coverage! After facing Grienke twice on the road, deGrom faces Scherzer today. You would think the MLB would want to do everything they could to promote a start like this today, especially with the basketball tournaments happening at the same time. But no. No cameras.
Anyway, today will be deGrom’s first start against an NL East team this spring. In his first three starts (two against the Astros, one against the Cardinals) he has allowed 1 run on a solo homer, 3 hits total in 9.0 innings while striking out an absurd 16 batters.
In another important turn of events, Dominic Smith returns to the line up today after being sidelined for the better part of a week with a wrist injury. Anyway today’s lineup is pretty close to an Opening Day lineup, including no DH and deGrom getting some AB’s too.
