One day after being held to just four hits, the Mets busted out with 12 hits and six walks en route to a 6-2 win over the Marlins Saturday afternoon in Miami.
Mark Canha led the way, as he reached base four times, including a bloop opposite field double and a home run. The announcers talked about how Canha had worked in the offseason on his lower half, hoping to get more power. He didn’t hit his first homer last year until May 2nd, so the offseason work has already paid off for him.
Pete Alonso and Omar Narvaez each had two hits, with Alonso having a double, two runs scored and an RBI while Narvaez drove in two runs. It’s a continuation of a strong Spring for Alonso, who looks really good with whatever weight he’s lost. Narvaez looks like he’s going to be a solid upgrade from James McCann. It was a signing that got lost with all of the big money deals but looks like it has the potential to be a big plus.
Tylor Megill managed to get thru five innings and picked up the win. He had trouble with his fastball and change but showed good breaking stuff throughout the game.
The Mets needed five relievers to finish the game, including the four remaining “locks” in the pen. Buck Showalter did a very nice job of giving his relievers days off last year but we’ll likely see at least two guys pitch tomorrow who threw today. Not anything to get worked up about but something to keep in mind going forward.
The Marlins have some good young pitching but the Mets have games with five and now six runs scored so far, a nice sign for an offense that many thought would have trouble scoring runs and duplicating their production from a season ago.
Gut Reaction: Lindor’s great defense is very apparent this year. At a key point of the game he saved a run and possibly two runs and turned it into an out. The bullpen was solid again. A win Sunday will take the first series of the year.
Nice win against the fish. Concerning that Escobar is not hitting, but Baty had a nice HR down in Syracuse. Yes it’s only game three. But we need to beat up on the weaker teams given our division. I’m in for a series win tomorrow. That’s how we did it last year winning series after series.
12 hits, 6 walks, and only 6 runs scored. Too many runners left stranded. Nice game for Canha obviously. Let’s see if others join in the fun today.
Regarding Lindor; watching him live for the last two ST games, his defense was just super. That plus a 2 run homer made me think that 2023 may just be a continuation of his great 2022.
Generally speaking, teams don’t score a lot of runs without leaving a lot of men on base. If you look at season-ending totals, the teams with the most runs scored are generally high in LOB, too. Last year, the Dodgers led the majors in runs scored and finished 2nd in LOB. The Mets were fifth in runs and third in LOB.
Great team win. Up and down the lineup a lot good to see. Generally solid defensively, esp Lindor and (cough), Pete, and Nimmo. McNeil is a second baseman. I wish they’d leave him there.
We cant overlook the growing concern that starters are not doing enough, which is causing the pen to be leveraged, already. We’ve seen this before, but it leads to pen burnout, which causes a lot of long-term problems. Burning that many relievers against the Marlins is really sad. I’ll also cast some questions Showalter’s way: why pull a reliever after a small number of pitches?
Great looking win, but starters gotta be better than 90 pitches through 5.