Photo By Ernest Dove
The St. Lucie Mets won their final game of the season on a hot Sunday morning in Jupiter over the Palm Beach Cardinals. 22 year old lefty Miguel Gutiérrez gets the win pitching three perfect innings in relief of starter Yeizo Campos. This was only the 3rd appearance for Gutiérrez with St. Lucie after having spent most of the year in the backfields of First Data Field with the rookie ball level GCL Mets. Joshua Torres collected his 4th save of the season adding two more Ks to his total in the 9th to close it out. Torres finishes the year with 77 Ks in 63 innings all with St Lucie.
Wuilmer Becerra helped get the Mets on the board first by lining a single to leadoff the top of the 2nd and came around to score after Nick Sergakis tripled to right field. Sergakis went for the little league homer on the play when the incoming throw went by the third baseman but the Cardinals were able to throw out Sergakis at home.
Lucie Starter Yeizo Campos, who like Gutiérrez was jumped all the way from the GCL to High A Mets in this final month, pitched two scoreless innings before falling apart for one bad 3rd inning. With two outs the Cards collected three straight hits and three runs before the final out was made to take a 3-1 lead. Campos then settled down and pitched two more scoreless innings finishing with a line of: 5 innings, 5 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, K. Campos appeared to be a pitch to contact guy with lots of fly balls against him.
Starting from the 6th is when lefty Gutiérrez shut down the Cards for three hitless innings finishing with a line of: 3 innings, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, K. Gutiérrez despite only having one strikeout at times showed swing and miss stuff.
Gutiérrez walked away with the win thanks to a three-run 7th inning by the Mets offense. As was the case back in the 2nd, it was Wuilmer Becerra who started things off this time with a loud double driven to right field. Nick Sergakis then hit a solid line drive of his own for his double, his second extra base on the day, scoring Becerra to put the Mets down 3-2. Colby Woodmansee then drew a walk and it was Enmanuel Zabala who hit a bomb to the center field wall for the third double of the inning. Sergakis and Woodmansee both scored to give the Mets the 4-3 lead.
From there it was Gutiérrez and then Joshua Torres who closed out the win for the St Lucie Mets who finish the year 63-75.
Thoughts on the final game and its players with pictures and video:
Nick Sergakis came up big on the day with the triple to right and the double to left scoring Becerra each time.
Mets top 20 prospect Wuilmer Becerra continued his recent hot streak at the plate going 2 for 4 with a double and today looked good playing first base. Wuilmer hit the ball hard on his single and double today, and skied one to the warning track in the game. Defensively the usually outfielder Becerra made all the plays including the one in this video above. Becerra finishes the year with 6 mult-hit games in his last 10 hitting .390 with an .883 OPS during this span.
Photo By Ernest Dove
Perhaps the unsung hero of the day was infield prospect Colby Woodmansee. Colby was 2 for 3 with a walk in the game. More importantly it was his defense at third base that helped lead the Mets to victory. Woodmansee looks extremely smooth and sure handed in the field. Whether at SS, a game at 1B when I saw him last or today at 3B he shows great instincts and a strong accurate arm. It won’t show up in the stats sheet but he saved multiple hits and possibly even a couple XBH in this big ballpark at Roger Dean by making all the plays.
Photo By Ernest Dove
Final credit goes to Enmanuel Zabala who on this swing drove in the winning run.
Tim Tebow went 0 for 3 with a walk and to the delight of the crowd struck out swinging in the 3rd which triggered 15 minutes of 40% off all Cardinals gear at the stadium as was their promotion when the game started.
I had a great time watching St. Lucie Mets games this year. I’ll look to post a season in review here on Mets Minors in the near future.
And if its open to the public again this year I will look to head back to the instructional league later this month.
Final tallies
St. Lucie Mets
63-75
Win 4-3 over Palm Beach Cardinals
W: Miguel Gutiérrez (1-0, 0.00)
L: Guillory
S: Joshua Torres (4)
Notables
Tim Tebow 0-3 with a BB
Ian Strom: 1 for 4, single
Wuilmer Becerra 2 for 4, single, double
Nick Sergakis 2 for 4, 3B/2B 2 RBI
Colby Woodmansee 2 for 3, 2 singles, BB
Enmanuel Zabala 1 for 4, double, 2 RBI
Why are people so fucking mean to Tebow
I found it interesting every time tebow came to bat the stadium played the Florida state fight chant LOL.
I don’t really think if tebow hate to be honest. But the hype train, promotions and weekly report on skyrocking attendance made people feel a way even though tebow had nothing to do with that stuff.
He’s a great guy. He signed autographs before and after game and many folks drove HOURS just to watch him play and cared less about the Lucie Mets or the team they were playing.
Tebow had a fine season. Onward to 2018.
.226/.309/.347 is your definition of fine for a rightfield prospect? You might not want to apply for any GM openings anytime soon…
Given the circumstances, most would say that is fine, yes.
Michael Mayer, I agree with you and not with Lee Morrell – this is Tebow’s FIRST minor league year. Other than Pete Alonso, I do not think that ANYONE ELSE in the Mets Minors in their first year would have done as well if they split their season between Full A and High A ball. Would, for instance, Mazeika or Kaczmarski, who both hit over .350 their first year in rookie ball have hit as well as Tim did if they played a full year right out of the chute in Full A/High A? I doubt it. Do I wish he’d have done even better? Sure. But doing as well as he did, relatively speaking, at such a high level in year 1 gives me hope that year 2 could have surprising upside. I also think part of Tebow’s #’s dip late in the year was just the marathon of a full season catching up to him. I ran a marathon once – nothing got me ready for the last 4 miles!
He’s occupying a run producing position…corner outfield…I don’t care about his BA, that means nothing…I am talking about his anemic SLG and OBP. To be “fine” he’d need to be on base more, slugging more and producing runs…if he isn’t doing that, then he is wasting everyone’s time. And I’d say that about any 30 year old rookie with his athletic abilities. 57Ks in 216 ABs at St. Lucie? His K average was better than his BA…
You’re missing the entire point, but I’m sure you know that.
What point is that? That he is Tim Tebow and fills the stands? He is also a side-show who will never have the skills to make it above AA/AAA. If he does make it to the show, it will be to sell tickets and nothing more.
I get it, no harm/no foul…and all PR is good PR…but all of that comes to the detriment of the other players who miss out on 1 second of coaching or 1 second of PR because Mr. Attention Whore needs to talk about going 0-3 with 2 Ks…