Today I had the pleasure of making a trip to beautiful Port St. Lucie Florida to check out our A-ball Mets take on the Tampa Yankees at Tradition Field.  Unfortunately, the Mets apparently ran into a buzz saw by the name of soft tossing lefty James Reeves.

Throughout the morning, Reeves seemed to baffle Mets hitters by pounding the strike zone, throwing 63 of 83 pitches for strikes. When ahead in the count, Mets hitters found themselves all taking turns swinging at balls in the dirt with two strike counts, leading to many strikeouts and also many fighting off pitches and eventually leading to fly outs throughout the game.

However, every game still needs a star, so why not make David Thompson the star of the game for the Mets. David had both of the hits on the day against the Yankees.

Overall, David seemed to have a solid approach at the plate. He did appear to be one of the few guys in the lineup who was able at times to hold up on those balls in the dirt when behind in the count. And, Please don’t misunderstand the following comment, because it is NOT a comparison, but I would like to point out that the sound of the ball off Thompson’s bat brought flashbacks for me of Michael Conforto in 2015 while playing for the St. Lucie ball club.

It was also interesting to see in person as David Thompson played third base, and promising prospect Jhoan Urena played first today. As I’ve stated before, Urena has solid and compact body physically, and he certainly does not look out of place over that at first. He handled himself well with no issues on the day.

On the mound for the Mets was P.J. Conlon, who the stadium radar gun had sitting at 86/87 MPH on this fastball, while mixing in a mid to upper 70’s hook throughout the day.  When he was on, Conlon had the hitters off balance by mixing his pitches extremely well and mostly allowing fly outs to go along with his seven strikeouts on the day.

The issue at times was his pitch count overall, with Conlon finding himself in a lot of 3-1 and 3-2 counts and having to battle to get the batters out. Overall, Conlon gave up mostly singles on the day, and when the bases were loaded in the 3rd inning Conlon started throwing everything harder and ended up only giving up one run in the inning which could have been worse.

Conlon appeared to be really tough against opposing lefties, who had a hard time making any kind of solid contact at all on this breaking stuff, leading to many of the strikeouts, including checked swings that went to far. He seems to have a quirky hitch when he pitches from the windup. Overall I enjoyed watching PJ and I look forward to keeping an eye on his progress going forward. Of note, Conlon also showed a nice pickoff move leading to an out as well today.

Mets reliever  Robert Coles, never flashy or eye popping, did exactly what he did last time I saw him. He threw what the radar gun had at 89-90 MPH (maybe it was a little slow on the gun today) and had a pretty solid shutdown inning allowing only a walk and striking out one batter.

Mets reliever Kelly Secrest today surprised me by seemingly throwing a little harder than I remember from last year. Unfortunately, Kelly gave up a bomb to opposing Yankees hitter Jorge Mateo but consistently hit 90 MPH on the radar gun with a slow looping low 70s hook.

The one guy to keep an eye on in the relief core was obviously Domingo Tapia, still battling back from injury. Tapia was clocked at 92-93 and hitting 95 once in the appearance. However, Tapia was also getting hit pretty hard today, appearing to have many of his pitches high in the zone. What interesting is that during the inning he had a strikeout on a beautiful 80 MPH off speed pitch and then seemingly never pitched it again throughout the inning except for one 82 MPH breaking pitch that again was up in the zone and was hit hard.  I guess I would have liked to see him mix his pitches more in between his heater.

The final reliever was Mike Hepple, who the gun had at 89-92 MPH on his fastball with an upper 70s breaking pitch that got him through a pretty easy 9th inning only giving up one hit.

Other notes/thoughts:

Each time I see Luis Guillorme, I think the same two things.  He’s a magician in the field who makes hard plays look completely routine with lightning quick hands. And, I worry about his lack of true aggression at the plate.  I continue to see a lot of called strikes whenever I catch a game live with Luis at the plate.  I’d love to see Luis go for more first and second pitch swinging.

Vinny Siena had a rough day at the plate with three strikeouts, and lots of swings and misses while fighting to make contact with the breaking stuff of the Yankees arms today.

Kevin Kaczmarski has a swing that puts a lot of lift in the ball, but today they all amounted to fly outs to go along with his one strikeout.

Either way, It was fun catching another game and I hope to do so again next month.

All photos courtesy of Ernest Dove.