The Mets find themselves in a rubber game situation today as they bounced back from a two game slide yesterday. In their last game, the Mets and Marlins traded runs until it was a 3-3 game. After that, the Mets scored 4 unanswered run, 3 in a rally. The difference for the Mets in yesterday’s game was timely hitting and being aggressive on the base paths. Twice in one inning, a Mets runner stole second, forced a bad throw/reception and was able to move ahead to third base. Both of those runners would score. Today at Citi-Field, Aaron Laffey will be making his Mets debut as he faces Jose Fernandez in his baseball debut.
Aaron Laffey was with the Blue Jays last year where he had a 4.56 ERA over 20 games, 16 starts and 100.2 innings. In that stretch he walked 37 batters and struck out 48. For the Mets in Spring Training, he allowed 12 runs over 4 games. This is his first time in his career being on a National League team, thus it is also his first time facing the Marlins. The has faced a few batters on the Marlins roster:
Kotchman 9-12, 4 2B
Polanco 4-12, 2B
Olivo 2-10, 2B
Pierre 0-5
The Mets will be facing one of the prized prospects in the Marlins organization, Jose Fernandez. Baseball America ranks him as the #5 prospect in baseball and MLB.com ranks him as #7 (between d’Arnaud and Wheeler). Most people, basically everyone, expected to see Fernandez in the major leagues some time next year, maybe at the end of this year. However, the Marlins are going to do what the Marlins do and promoted the 20 year old phenom to the majors without reaching AA. Over 25 starts last year between low A and high A (or A and A Advanced, whatever it’s called now), Fernandez was 14-1 with a 1.75 ERA over 133.0 innings. In that time, he walked only 35 batters and struck out 155. He only pitched 2 innings in official spring training games this spring, allowing 1 hit, no runs and striking out 2. Today will be an interesting day.
Let’s Go Mets!
