Dedniel Nune, Photo By Ernest Dove
After being listed as the starter for days waiting out postponements and rain delays Mets pitching prospect Dedniel Nunez finally made his St. Lucie Mets debut tonight in game one of the double header against the Jupiter Hammerheads. The 22 year old from the Dominican Republic was recently promoted from the Columbia Fireflies where he appeared in four games, making three starts for the club ending with a 4.03 ERA, 3 walks, 33 strikeouts and a 0.76 WHIP.
After a leadoff groundout Nunez allowed a walk and two singles, setting up an eventual sac fly to give the Hamerheads the early 1-0 lead.
Nunez then began to turn it on from there starting in the next inning in which he recorded two strikeouts, both on fastballs, relying heavily on his fastball throughout the night. On the evening Nunez was sitting 90-93 and topping 94 MPH on his fastball showing life and movement.
He was flashing a 77-79 MPH breaking pitch at times and a few recorded breaking pitches in the 86-87 MPH range. Overall Nunez stuck with the fastball, which after the second inning he appeared to make an effort to change speeds dropping his fastball to 90-91 with more movement leading to a total of four strikeouts in total during the outing.
I noticed a lot of soft contact against Nunez, some possible questionable calls throughout on close pitches in the zone, ultimately leading to Nunez only lasting 4 innings, totaling 72 pitches, 43 of which for recorded strikes. In total Nunez finished at four innings, two hits allowed (both in the first inning), one earned run, one walk and four strikeouts. Below is video sequence of all four Nunez strikeouts tonight.
The Mets offense struggled all night only amassing two hits, both of which were off the bat of the hot hitting Luis Carpio. The only run for the Mets came in the third inning on a Quinn Brodey groundout scoring Manny Rodriguez. Below is video of the run.
The game remained tied 1-1 going into the fifth inning. That’s when reliever Briam Campusano came into the game and was electric throughout. Campusano struck out five batters over three scoreless allowing only two hits and not issuing a walk. Campusano, the opposite of Nunez, relied heavily on his off speed pitches the entire outing, showing lots of movement on pitches ranging from upper 70s into the mid 80s while also flashing low 90s fastball that topped out once at 93 MPH. Below is video sequences of all five strikeouts recorded tonight.
The game would remain tied and go into extra innings, with the Mets starting the top of the eighth in game one of this double header with Manny Rodriguez being placed on second base. Catcher Mitch Ghelfi successfully sacrificed Rodriguez over the third on a bunt. Then an extremely unfortunate base running mistake occurred as Rodriguez was caught too far off the bag at third and the Hamerheads catcher threw it over, leading to a short rundown and Rodriguez was tagged out. Hansel Moreno, who was at bat at the time eventually walked but then Quinn Brodey grounded out to end the inning.
The Hammerheads responded quickly in the bottom of the inning as opposing first baseman Lazaro Alonso hit a laser into deep right center field scoring the winning run off Mets reliever Joe Cavallaro who had just entered the game winning 2-1.
The loss dropped the Mets record to 16-13 before they won game two of the doubleheader 2-0 ti improve to 17-13 on the season.
