Mike Vasil, Bullpen Keep Braves Regulars Quiet In 2-2 Tie
Photo by Ed Delany of Metsmerized
In what could be a pitching matchup we see at Citi Field or Truist Park in the future, both the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves threw one of their top pitching propects against each at CoolToday Park in North Port, Florida. In the end, the two teams played to a 2-2 tie in a game that took two hours and seven minutes to complete.
Mike Vasil, the #11 prospect in the Mets system according to MLB Pipeline, threw the ball well against a Braves lineup that featured many of the regulars. He went three innings, allowed two runs on six hits, and struck out three in his spring debut.
Vasil showed some good stuff in the first couple of innings as he recorded strikeouts against Matt Olson, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Eddie Rosario. He even featured the split changeup in the strikeout he got against Olson in the bottom of the first:
Mike Vasil struck out one of the hottest hitters on the planet on 3 pitches.
The Mets right-hander finished the 2022 season in High-A Brooklyn.
Last pitch is a split-change he's been working on.
— Michael Mayer (@mikemayer22) March 23, 2023
Vasil’s lone mistake came in the bottom of the third. With the Mets already up 2-0, Orlando Arcia led off the inning with an infield single. Two batters later, Vasil left a pitch up to Olson that was crushed to deep right for a game-tying home run (Olson’s seventh of the spring). The 23-year-old settled in and after allowing a single to Marcell Ozuna, he got Michael Harris II to hit into an inning-ending double play.
As for the Mets lineup, Pete Alonso was back after playing for Team USA in the WBC and he was 0-for-4 with a strikeout. They were going up against the top prospect in the Braves system in left-hander Jared Shuster. Shuster kept the Mets mostly in check except in the top of the third.
Danny Mendick began the inning with a walk and Tomas Nido hit his third double of the spring to right. Both runners would come around to score on sacrifice flies by Eduardo Escobar and Starling Marte. Outside of that inning, Shuster was solid as he went six innings, allowed two runs on two hits, walked two, and struck out two.
Out of the three hits that the Mets had, two of them were doubles (Nido and Darin Ruf). The team as a whole only struck out six times, but there were a lot of quick at-bats in this game from both teams.
After Vasil’s day was done, Elieser Hernandez came in and threw a 1-2-3 fourth inning. Nathan Lavender ran into trouble in the fifth with two walks and a disengagement violation. However, he was able to escape unscathed and he has yet to allow a run this spring.
Denyi Reyes came in to pitch the sixth and seventh inning and allowed one hit over two scoreless innings. Grant Hartwig pitched the eighth and struck out a batter in a 1-2-3 inning.
Justin Courtney ended up getting the ball in the ninth to help preserve the tie and he delivered as the 26-year-old right-hander threw a 1-2-3 inning.
On the back fields, Brandon Nimmo had a two-run triple in five plate appearances and Jeff McNeil took nine plate appearances in his return from the WBC.
Elieser Hernandez, Photo by Ed Delany Metsmerized
Player(s) Of The Game
The Mets bullpen gets the nod in this one for keeping the team in the game after Vasil’s outing was over. Hernandez had his shortest outing of the spring, but it was the first one in which he did not allow a run. As for Lavender, it was his first outing this spring in which he did not record a strikeout, but the Austin Riley lineout into a double play was able to bail him out.
Reyes appeared in his first game in almost three weeks and it was his second outing against the Braves. Even though he didn’t record a strikeout for the first time this spring, he got some key groundball outs after an Ozuna double that led off the sixth.
Hartwig had a quick eighth inning, but he did get Geraldo Quintero to strike out looking and the other outs came via a ground. Courtney made his fifth appearance of the spring and ended up getting a strikeout of his own in the ninth.
On Deck
The Mets will be at Tropicana Field on Friday when they take on the Tampa Bay Rays (14-11). You can catch the game at 1:05 p.m. ET on Bally Sports Sun (MLB TV) or listen to it on MLB.com. Max Scherzer will make his final start of the spring for the Mets against Luis Patiño (1-1, 6.43) for the Rays.
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