Hope you have multiple screens available if you like baseball!
The Mets finally play their first split-squad games of the season, and they are both scheduled night games. They just happen to be the same night as two WBC quarterfinal games. Just an incredibly busy, and hopefully exciting, night for baseball.
Spring training really is about the vibes. The individual results don’t matter in a vacuum but the feelings they bring, especially over multiple games, does. Yesterday Sean Manaea’s velocity was down again and this time it lead to three runs over 2 2/3 innings. The Mets and Manaea are not concerned about it but it is still feels like something to watch, something to be concerned about. It reminds us how important the health of each starting pitcher on the roster is.
The story tonight is Clay Holmes. Holmes had a tremendous outing against Great Britain in pool play, throwing three scoreless innings. An amazing 28 of his 38 pitches were strikes and he held Britain to one hit while striking out six. Team USA could not guarantee Holmes enough innings, so the Mets decided they needed to recall him to ramp him up for the season.
Three Things To Watch For:
- Clay Holmes. Holmes became a rock in the Mets rotation during his first season. He couldn’t go incredibly deep into games consistently, but he still blew through his innings in a single season record, tossing 165 2/3. For context his previous three seasons he tossed 189 2/3 innings combined. He had a 3.53 ERA, 4.11 FIP, 1.304 WHIP and a 114 ERA+. His 1.9 bWAR was a career high! When you combine spring training and the WBC, he has tossed 10 2/3 innings allowing three runs from five hits while striking out 10 batters.
- Checking in on challenges. With two games tonight the Mets have double the chances to practice challenging calls with ABS. It has not gone well for the Mets so far this season. Overall teams have had a 52% success rate with ABS. The Mets have been successful only 27% of the time. Baseball Savant has created comparative stat for teams challenging identical calls and the Mets have -5.1 calls overturned vs expected, this is good for 26th in the league.
- Kodai Senga: Don’t look at the results! In his last outing Senga allowed two runs, both on solo homers, over 2 2/3 innings while striking out two batters. Senga’s fastball in his last start averaged 96.7 mph, which a good bit higher than it was last season (94.7 mph) and higher than it was in 2023 (95.7 mph). Hopefully this wasn’t an aberration!
Let’s Go Mets!
