After not playing a split squad game for weeks, the Mets will play their last split squad today sending have their squad to the Astros and keeping another half at home vs the Cardinals.
Yesterday the Mets returned to competitive baseball for the first time since Monday as they beat the Marlins 6-0 largely due to the bats of Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto. The former who two homers, his first two of spring. The latter hit his 4th homer in his 4th game in a row leading the Mets Twitter account to call him Michael ConFOURto.
Hector Santiago makes the start at home against the Cardinals. Santiago has an upward mobility clause that kicks in next week so this start isn’t only for the Mets. If any other team likes what they see and thinks he can be on their 25-man, Santiago might be gone. During Spring Training he has pitched 5 major league games totaling 6.2 innings allowing 7 runs from 11 hits and a walk while striking out 12.
Jason Vargas makes road start against the Astros. He faced his first bump in the road in his last start where he allowed 4 runs towards the end of his outing. Before he did that though, his ERA for the spring dipped down to a 0.75. Overall this spring he has allowed 5 runs over 12.1 innings, a 3.65 ERA.
Things To Watch For Today:
- Michael Conforto’s very good week of baseball has raised his spring slash line considerably. At the start of the week, it read “slow start” now it’s at .265/.321/.531 and it says “bring me all your hopes and dreams Mets fans”
- Yesterday the bases were loaded for the Marlins in the top of the 9th. They had two outs and were down by 6. A ball was struck to right field that had 1, 2 runs written all over it but Keon Broxton made an excellent diving catch which is a huge reason why the Mets sought him out this off-season.
- Matz only pitching 5.0 innings yesterday allowed a whole bunch of other Mets to get some game action in. Bashlor had a good bounce back outing tossing a scoreless, hitless 1.0 innings. So far this spring it feels like he’s terrific or terrible.
- O’Rourke had an interesting outing where he got himself into and out of trouble walking 2 in an inning but not allowing a hit or a run. He dropped is ERA to 1.93.
