The Mets defeated the Miami Marlins, 15-4, on Saturday afternoon as their spring training slate continued.
Here are the takeaways...
- Justin Verlander was extremely efficient in his Grapefruit League debut. The only damage against him was a two-out Jean Segura RBI double in the bottom of the first.
Other than that, he was in complete control against the Marlins lineup. Verlander struck out three batters on the afternoon and allowed just the one run on two hits and threw 35 pitches, 28 of which were strikes.
The right-hander generated a ton of swings-and-misses, and used all four of his pitches, all of which looked extremely sharp. His final pitch of the day was his fastest at 96.3 mph.
- Mark Vientos got the start at third and had himself a monster day at the plate. After singling in his first AB, he launched a two-run homer run to dead center in the fourth.
An inning later, he crushed his second homer of the day, this one a 469-foot three-run bomb also to dead center. Vientos finished the day 3-for-4 with five RBI.
Vientos is off to a strong start this spring and he will receive plenty of opportunities to continue showing what he can do moving forward with Pete Alonso and Eduardo Escobar leaving for the WBC.
- Speaking of Alonso, both him and Francisco Lindor (.429 BA) continued their strong start to the spring. After Lindor doubled in the fourth, Alonso drove him in.
- Lorenzo Cedrola also launched two homers and drove in five runs on the afternoon. Jaylin Davis, who the Mets recently signed to a minor league deal, continued his strong start reaching base three times.
- David Peterson walked two but threw a pair of scoreless innings, he’s still yet to allow a run across six spring innings. The lefty is heading back to PSL to get an X-ray after he took a comebacker off the outside of his foot.
- Right-hander Jeff Brigham also had a strong inning of work, striking out one.