There are only six games left in spring training! The Mets will play the Astros for the seventh and final time this evening as they take a night trip to West Palm Beach. In an interesting scheduling quirk, the Mets and Astros will actually face each other in the Opening Series of the regular season starting on 3/27. Since the Astros are an American League team, the Mets and Astros will not face each other again in 2025 unless both teams make the World Series. It’s mildly interesting that these two organizations due to their spring training proximity get so familiar with each other and then just disappear from each other when the calendar flips to April.
Anyway the Mets have about a week to finalize their 40-man roster and their active roster. There was another round of cuts on Monday with four more players being assigned to minor league camp. The only surprising move was Chris Williams. This leaves the back-up catcher competition to Jakson Reetz or Hayden Senger (unless if the Mets make another move while other teams start to cut players).
Three Things To Watch For:
- The Lineup. Tonight’s lineup could be their Opening Day lineup. Jose Siri probably gets the start over Tyrone Taylor in center. The Astros are have Framber Valdez listed as their Opening Day starter, who is a lefty so it’s also possible someone else will DH against him. The big story here is Brett Baty seems to be the Opening Day second basemen! The Mets bats are facing off against Ronel Blanco who catapulted to fame after tossing a no-hitter in 8th career start. He’s battling right now for a spot in the back of the Astros rotation.
- David Peterson. Over three games and 10 2/3 innings, Peterson has a 0.84 ERA and 0.844 WHIP this spring. He’s scattered five hits and four walks while striking out eight batters. It looks like the Astros are running out their starting lineup (or something close to it), so this is an excellent opportunity for Peterson to test his stuff.
- Juan Soto. You know who has been having an excellent spring? Juan Soto. In 12 games he has gone 10-for-28 with two doubles, four home runs and seven runs scored. Surprisingly, four homers is good for 8th in the league as four players have already hit six home runs (two of them in significantly more games played) and another three players have already hit five.
Let’s Go Mets!
