The Mets bested the St. Louis Cardinals 7-5 at Clover Park Sunday afternoon.
The highlight of today’s game was a 22-pitch plate appearance from Luis Guillorme that ended in a walk. The pitcher? The flame-throwing Jordan Hicks making his first appearance of the spring today.
Guillorme vs Hicks in its entirety: pic.twitter.com/BIdtqfWRo6
— Metsmerized (@Metsmerized) March 14, 2021
After the turn at the plate, the Cardinals had to make a pitching change as to not overtax Hicks, who had Tommy John surgery in 2019 and opted out of the 2020 season. Hicks threw six pitches over 100 mph, and Guillorme fouled the ball off 16 times. According to MLB‘s Sarah Langs, Guillorme had never seen a pitch faster than 99.4 m.p.h. in the majors before today’s appearance against Hicks.
Guillorme’s next plate appearance was a one-pitch line out to third base. Because of course it was.
Now let’s get into the rest of the game.
David Peterson started today’s game and went four innings, throwing 68 pitches along the way. The lefty was all over the place with his location over the first three innings. He gave up five hits and two walks leading to three runs across the first three frames. He gave up seven hard-hit balls (batted balls with an exit velocity of 95 mph or faster) in the first 16 batters. Peterson was able to settle down for his final frame in the fourth, logging a 1-2-3 inning on three groundouts.
Aaron Loup followed Peterson and allowed his first earned run of the spring on consecutive two-out doubles by Tyler O’Neill and Matt Carpenter. The first double of the inning was hit toward Dominic Smith in left field and only had an xBA of .070, but in fairness to Smith, that seems more due to where the ball landed (close to the foul line) than anything he did. He fielded a couple of fly outs cleanly today in a couple chances.
Arodys Vizcaino followed Loup with a scoreless sixth inning. The former Brave was hitting 96-97 mph on his fastball, which is nice to see following 2019 shoulder surgery.
Corey Oswalt took the next two innings and looked darn good doing it, too. Though he got to a couple three-ball counts, Oswalt struck out five batters and allowed no hits or runs over two frames. Oswalt averaged 92 m.p.h. on his fastball and hit as high as 95.7 m.p.h.
Yennsy Diaz took the last inning and allowed one run on a sacrifice fly following a double and a walk (and a sacrifice fly that got the double to third base).
The Mets’ bats were active for the first inning against starter Carlos Martinez. Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor, Michael Conforto and Dominic Smith each had singles to bring the Mets even at two. (Pete Alonso also had a 107 mph groundout in the frame, too.)
It wasn’t until the fifth inning where the Mets offense started to produce again when down 4-2. The inning started at 2:38 p.m. EST with Guillorme’s marathon plate appearance. Following that were were two hit batsmen, a walk and two pitching changes before a ball was eventually hit into play at 3:05 p.m. It was a Michael Conforto single that tied the game at four. Alonso followed with a two-run single to put the Mets up 6-4. A fifth run scored on a J.D. Davis double play with the bases loaded, putting the Mets up for good.
Overall, the Mets’ one-through-five hitters–Nimmo, Lindor, Conforto, Alonso, and Smith–had seven hits, six RBIs, two walks, and a hit batsmen in 16 plate appearances. (Smith’s replacement–Kahlil Lee–got hit with a pitch in his first plate appearance, too.)
The Mets have an off day on Monday. Luis Rojas said before the game the team would have the day fully off, too, with only Carlos Carrasco scheduled to appear at the Clover Park complex so he can play catch as he eases back into throwing, according to Justin Toscano.
The team’s next game is Tuesday at 1:10 p.m. at home versus the Houston Astros. Jacob deGrom is slated to start that game, and a game of his is finally slated to be televised this spring on SNY. This will be the third straight deGrom start against the Astros this spring and the first one we can watch live.
deGrom wowed his last time out hitting 102 mph in three innings with seven strikeouts, and he’ll continue his ramp up on Tuesday, likely getting to at least four innings.
The post Robust Fifth Inning Fuels Mets 7-5 Victory Over Cardinals first appeared on Metsmerized Online.
