The St. Lucie Mets lost game 1 of the three-game series with the Palm Beach Cardinals on Thursday night as they began a six-game road trip at Roger Dean Stadium. The wind was blowing in, but it did not stop the teams from combining for 12 runs on 18 hits during the evening.

It was a rough go of it for the Mets most of the night accounting for only five of the 18 hits along with 12 strikeouts against three drawn walks. The only position players to not strike out in the lineup were Blake Tiberi and Jeremy Vasquez.

The Mets were actually hitless going into the fifth inning when Quinn Brodey drew a walk, followed by a Luis Carpio dumped single into left field and later the big hit on the night for the team. Catcher Nick Meyer hit his first career homer in the pros with a shot into left field that just cleared the wall to tie the game at that point 3-3. Meyer had played in 43 games with the Brooklyn Cyclones in 2018 following the draft in which he was selected in the sixth round out of California Polytechnic State University. This was Meyer’s eighth game in 2019 with the St. Lucie squad.

The starter for the Mets tonight was right-hander Tommy Wilson. After two scoreless innings thrown with help from some timely strikeouts and a strike’em out throw’em out turn of events in the second inning he eventually gave up a run in the third off three singles allowed to put the Cardinals up 1-0.

Then the big hit to come in the fourth inning was a two-RBI double hit by opposing Cardinals leadoff hitter Justin Toerner giving them a 3-0 lead and eventually leading to the removal of Wilson from the game. Wilson finished with 3.2 innings, 7 hits allowed, 3 earned runs, 3 walks and 4 Ks. He was relieved in the inning by Carlos Hernandez, who immediately induced a pop out throwing all fastballs clocked at mostly 92 MPH per stadium radar.

Hernandez came back out in the fifth inning and was topping 94 MPH on his fastball to go with a steady mix of off speed pitches ranging anywhere from 78 to 80 to 84 MPH, but the Cardinals were jumping on the pitches throughout the inning. The biggest damage after a Chase Pinder RBI single in the inning was a three-run home run hit by Julio Rodriguez, his first homer of the season to give the Cardinals 7-3 lead. Hernandez would later allow a fifth earned run on the night in the sixth and finish with a line of 2.1 innings, 6 hits allowed, 5 earned runs, 0 walks and 2 strikeouts. The reliever saw his season ERA go from 0.00 to 4.82 after the appearance.

The Mets would tack on one more run in the game thanks to a hard-hit double down the first base line by Carlos Cortes and later an RBI single by Quinn Brodey who chopped one to shortstop that was deflected into the outfield to give Mets their forth and final run of the night.

The one major bright spot for the Mets pitching was reliever Marcel Renteria. The hard throwing right-hander was consistently clocked at 95 to 96 MPH on his fastball, with a heavy mix of his off speed pitches sitting in the upper 80s leading to two hitless innings of work, one walk and 2 strikeouts. Below is video of one of strikeouts off his breaking pitch.

Additional games notes, thoughts, observations and analysis:

Full game box score here

Blake Tiberi was a hard luck 0-for-5 tonight, snapping his 10-game hitting streak. Tiberi made good contact on the night, including a lineout in the third inning and a game ending shot heading up the middle but snagged with fast glove work and a quick turnaround throw by the Cardinals shortstop Jose Martinez with video shown below.

A player to keep an eye on despite the stats so far this year is second baseman Carlos Cortes. He has a strong body frame, shows the ability to barrel up on the ball and can get that nice sounding exit velocity of ball of bat, but the results have not been showing yet on the field. I would like everyone to look ahead and wait out perhaps 20 or 30 games and check back to see if the results start to go in his favor.

Jeremy Vasquez is another player showing ongoing positive signs at the plate which tonight included going 1-for-3 with a walk. Vasquez continues to make solid contact on a nightly basis.

It appears to be an ongoing issues of the numbers game when it comes to Luis Carpio.  The former highly regarded prospect has had a hard time cracking the lineup with Todd Frazier having been on rehab to go with the emergence of Tiberi and arrival of Cortes to the Lucie team this season. Before going 0-for-3 tonight the teams starting shortstop Manny Rodriguez had been putting together some good at-bats and there is still also utility player Cody Bohanek who can play numerous positions including shortstop as well. One obvious outlier is that Carpio is superior defender to Cortes, who was the teams DH tonight.

Nick Meyer, along with the big home run, also threw out another runner attempting to steal tonight. He has a cannon for an arm with quick feet and a fast release. He has now thrown out 6 of 12 attempted base stealers.

Quinn Brodey was 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. He has a .333 batting average on the season.

Desmond Lindsay saw a very rough night at the plate and now has six strikeouts in his last eight at-bats.

The learning curve continues for the athletically gifted Hansel Moreno who went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts. On one occasion the third base coach for the Cardinals went conservative on a base hit that went to left field where Moreno was playing, likely knowing this season that Hansel has been throwing out runners attempting the extra base almost on a nightly basis at this point.

The same two teams will be back at it again on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. with Luc Rennie listed as the start for the Mets.