213 Miles From Shea

The games still don’t mean anything but the Mets keep on shutting their opponents down. The Mets beat the Rangers 5-0 yesterday behind deGrom who tossed 4 scoreless innings allowing a hit and striking out 4 in his final tuneup before his debut in the second game of the season. Here are some additional notes from the game:

• Montero pitched two scoreless innings with no hits and two walks while striking out 1
• Familia had added in an inning where he allowed a walk and a hit but no runs
• Mejia had a normal Mejia inning. He allowed a hit, got a strikeout and no damage was done
• Blevins had a clean inning
• The Mets had four doubles: Lagares, Wright, Monell and Granderson
• Wright actually went 3-3, Lagares 3-4 and Granderson 2-4. It would be nice if the top of the lineup for the Mets can do that often

The Mets play their last meaningless game of the season today with the Rangers and after that, everything gets real as the team will travel for the season opener in the Nation’s capital. Lets Go Mets!

The Mets finally experienced in 2015 that odd sensation in spring training: the tie. The Mets and Cardinals went the whole game without scoring a run and ended the game after 9. The Mets went off to Texas to get ready for a two game set with the Rangers and I have no idea what the Cardinals did because I really don’t care. Anyway let’s take a look at some of the notes:

• Harvey was the main story of the day for the Mets. He pitched 4 innings, allowed 3 hits, struck out 4 and ended spring with a 1.19 ERA. Excited for the third game of the season yet?
• Carlos Torres, Goeddel and Thorton all added in scoreless outings after Harvey
• The Bats didn’t do much. Granderson went hit-less in 1 AB, Mayberry came in for him and promptly got a hit
• Wright and Duda both went 0-3
• Captain Kirk and Rosario both got a hit
• Tejada got a double

The Mets play a night game tonight against the Rangers and a 2 PM game tomorrow and then its off to DC to ruin the start of the season for the Washington Nationals. Lets Go New York!

The Mets dropped a meaningless game 5-4 yesterday against the Cardinals behind Opening Day Bartolo Colon who allowed 3 ER over 5.0 innings of work and 3 hits while walking one and striking out two. I’m not too concerned about him for Opening Day because this seems to be just the way he is. He’s too, uh experienced (trying not to call out his age here) for games to get to him mentally. Anyway let’s take a look at the rest of the squad:

• Blevins allowed a hit to the only batter he faced
• Alex Torres had a clean inning of relief in his Mets debut, even added a strikeout for good measure. He pitched after Carlos Torres, so the box score looks a funky.
• Reynolds was the best offensive player of the game for the Mets who went 2-2 with a double and 3 RBIs
• Lagares, Muno, Duda, Cuddyer, Johnson and Rosario all added hits

The Mets go back at it against the Cardinals this afternoon in their last Spring Training Game in Florida before heading up to Arlington for a two game set before opening the season.

Two days ago the Mets completed a pair of trades to bring some lefties into the Mets pen. The second trade of the day brought Jerry Blevins over from the Nationals in return for Matt den Dekker. Matt was known for his defense and at one point int time looked like a candidate to start in center back when it was an open competition between Captain Kirk and Juan Lagares. We know how that story played out and Matt really became a player without a role on the team. Rather than adding to the current logjam of players the Mets have in certain areas, they traded for Jerry Blevins to get another lefty in the pen.

Jerry Blevins has been in the league for a while, breaking in at age 23 in 2007 with the Athletics. He landed with the Nationals last year via a trade. In his last few years:

2012: 5-1, 2.48 ERA, 63 G, 65.1 IP, 54 K, 1.071 WHIP
2013: 5-0, 3.15 ERA, 67 G, 60.0 IP, 52 K, 1.067 WHIP
2014: 2-3, 4.87 ERA, 64 G, 57.1 IP, 66 K, 1.238 WHIP

Curious turn of events for Jerry last year. His strikeout numbers took a significant increase, as did his WHIP and as did his ERA. Overall his work load for the last several seasons seems stable and hopefully since the Mets now have two lefties in the pen, they won’t have to over work either one of them.

I am in almost literal disbelief that Spring Training is almost over. I’m at the point where I am completely used to looking at meaningless stats from meaningless games. Anyway, the Mets beat the Nationals yesterday 2-0. Let’s take a look at the box score:

• Mayberry went 3-4 while picking up his 4th homer of the spring
• d’Arnaud picked up two hits
• Captain Kirk continued to cool off going 0-4
• Niese had a strong start allowing 4 hits, no walks over 6.0 innings of work striking out 3 and shutting out the Nationals
• Blevins got his first Mets action facing one batter, striking him out
• Gilmartin pitched two innings, allowing one hit, a walk and getting a strikeout

Niese lowered his Spring ERA to 1.65 as he continues to have a strong, quiet spring. It’s nice having players that are having quiet success, it feels great. Blevins pitched exactly as he was supposed to in his first outing.

Gilmartin is really starting to force the issue though that he should be on the roster. Let’s see what happens as the season approaches.

In the first of two trades yesterday, the Mets acquired lefty Alex Torres from the San Diego Padres for pitcher Cory Mazzoni and a player to be named later. The latter probably indicates a draftee from last year and Mazzoni had solid years for the Mets in the minors for a while. He has made some spot starts but with the current state of Mets pitching, there really wasn’t a spot for him. The Mets traded from an area of depth and got a pitcher to address an area of need: the lefty reliever.

Alex Torres has pitched in parts of three major league seasons, this year he’ll be 27. He was originally drafted by the Angels and was traded to the Rays as part of the Scott Kazmir trade. In January 2014, he was part of a large trade that landed him in San Diego.

In 2013 he pitched in 39 games and 58.0 innings with a 4-2 record, 1.71 ERA while striking out 62 batters with a WHIP of 0.897.

In 2014 he pitched in 70 games and 54.0 innings with a 3.33 ERA while striking out 51 batters and a 1.463 WHIP.

From a statistic point, his 2013 season was more impressive than his 2014 season. On the Mets he will probably be used in a capacity closer to his 2014 season (majority of appearances under one inning of work). While the WHIP is a little wary coming from a specialist, Torres brings more major league experience than the current options in camp and does look like an upgrade.

The Mets won big yesterday against the Marlins by the score of 7-1 (I mean as big as a spring training game can be) as both Duda and Montero had monster days. The game was a little lost in all of the other news that came out about the Mets yesterday, so lets take a look:

• Duda 2-3 with a double, a homer and 5 RBI’s
• Flores added a double to his strong spring
• Lagares, Wright and Cuddyer all had hits
• Montero pitched 6.0 innings allowing only 2 hits while striking out 6.
• Familia had a clean 0.2 innings
• Mejia allowed a run in relief

Montero is forcing the Mets hand now. Does he go to the rotation? His stuff has been filthy. What happens to Gee? Gee has also looked very strong this spring? Who goes to the pen? The Mets now have two more arms in the pen, does that mean someone gets traded over the next week?

The Mets picked up another win yesterday against the Cardinals. The Mets only scored 3 runs, which is unusual for them this spring but still got the win behind a stellar start from Dillon Gee who pitched 7.0 innings allowing 2 ER and striking out 3. He allowed a lot of base runners (7 hits and 3 walks) but didn’t allow them to hurt him too much. Additional notes:

• Alvarez had a successful LOOGY outing facing one batter and striking him out
• Gilmartin faced two batters and struck both of them out
• Lagares had a surprisingly quiet game at the plate going 0-3. I only personally saw his first AB where he hit the ball well but Heyward tracked it down.
• Granderson went 2-2 with two doubles and a walk
• Duda went 3-4, all singles. He had 5 hits in two games between Saturday and Sunday
• Reynolds also picked up a hit as he looks to have an inside track now for second base

The story of the game was Dillon Gee. Dillon is having an excellent spring and is looking to shatter our expectations for him. I forget how high my expectations were for Gee before last season and he’s starting to make me remember.

I know its Spring Training. I know the games don’t count. But the Mets struggled so much against the Nationals last year, Saturday’s game brought a lot of hope. The Mets had good pitching on Saturday and showed off a lot of power:

• Granderson and Wright went back to back with homers off of Strasburg.
• Monell and Duda each hit homers off of Roark later in the game
• In addition to the homers, Tejada, Reynolds, Flores and den Dekker all had doubles
• In addition to the doubles and homers, d’Arnaud and Duda both tripled.
• More impressive than the offense was deGrom who pitched 7.0 innings allowing only one earned run (a homer from Harper) while striking out 4

It was a good day for the Mets. We are now a week out from Opening Day and the Mets are looking locked in. I know the games don’t count but I’m hoping this carries on to the regular season.

The Mets are closing in on the start of the 2015 season as they took the Harvey Day show on the road to the Cardinals. Harvey did well allowing one run over 4.1 innings throwing about 80 pitches, 58 of them for strikes, and striking out 5. Let’s take a peak at the rest of the Mets squad:

• Torres had an ok outing allowing 2.1 innings and one earned run
• Gilmartin was given a classic LOOGY outing and nailed it facing one batter and striking him out
• Mejia didn’t have the greatest outing allowing a three run homer in 0.2 innings of working
• Granderson continued his hot streak getting two hits in 3 ABs
• Cuddy had another double as he continued his impressive spring (he also had a homer that was robbed)
• Campbell added two hits in four AB’s as he continues to try to break onto the 25 man

For the most part yesterday the offense was off, but they had a strong end of the game to make it close.

Gilmartin has had an impressive last two weeks as he moved himself from not having a shot at all of making the roster to looking like one of the Mets better options (which isn’t too tough, we don’t have many options for lefties out of the pen).