The St. Lucie Mets lost 4-2 to the Bradenton Marauders and were swept in the two game home stand to start the year.

The offense has continued to struggle through the first two games, finally scoring for the first time this season in the sixth inning courtesy of major leaguer Travis d’Arnaud, still on rehab assignment who came through with a lined single up the middle to score Desmond Lindsay who had already reached on a broke bat single earlier in the frame. The Mets made attempts at comebacks late with balls hit hard multiple times but the summer winds are not yet blowing out and the outs kept coming instead in big spots with RISP.

It was back to back 2018 draft picks to start the season for St. Lucie as tonight right-hander and former 19th round pick Tommy Wilson made the start after 7th rounder Kevin Smith started the opener last night. Wilson, per stadium radar, was throwing a low 90s fastball which topped out at 92 from the start, appearing to have some struggles early with fastball command leaving balls up in the zone.

Wilson still showed command overall of his off speed pitches throwing an assortment of breaking balls ranging as low as 76 MPH, later hitting 82-83 MPH working around a walk and single given up to record a scoreless frame with one strikeout. Below is one of Wilson’s two strikeouts on the evening.

In the second inning Wilson appeared to settle down, going almost exclusively with his breaking stuff throughout the inning over the fastball which still was hitting 90-91 MPH in a scoreless inning of inducing a pop out, groundout and finally strikeout looking on a stadium radar detected 91 MPH. After two fly ball outs to start the third inning Wilson gave up a hard hit liner to right field but the runner tried to stretch it to a double and was gunned down on a strong throw to second base from Mets right fielder Quinn Brodey to end the inning. The first run allowed and of the game came in the forth inning as Bradenton’s Calvin Mitchell hit a leadoff homerun to deep right field over the wall to put the Marauders on the board. Wilson would settle down immediately and set down the next three batters afterwards.

It was the fifth inning when things appeared to go wrong as Wilson showed a dip in his velocity, giving up three straight hits to start the frame including a two run double to Adrian Valerio and a sacrifice fly to Chris Sharpe to make it 4-0 Marauders. It could have been more but Quinn Brodey proved strong again in the outfield tracking down a hard hit single and throwing out the base runner attempted to stretch it to a double to end the inning.

That would be it for Wilson who overall through 5 innings, given up 7 hits, 4 ER, 1 BB and 2 strikeouts in taking the loss.

For me a possible intrigue with Tommy Wilson is in his delivery. Below is a close up video of Wilson delivery, hand separation and ball deception I perceived.  Going forward, long term, I’m wondering if this deception with more consistent command and perhaps an uptick in fastball velocity can be had and services be needed in the bullpen for the organization.

Offensively, there appears to be ongoing concerns in consistency with the club and first pitch swinging.  Something that also tended to plague them during the 2018 season. The opposing starter Aaron Shortridge maintained a very low pitch count in the early innings.

There also appears to be serious ongoing commitment with the team and perhaps the entire organization up the majors to make bunting a part of the plans. For the second game in a row it was noticeable how often St. Lucie Mets bats were attempting bunts including hitters with 1 or 2 strikes already against them in the count. It appeared even strong power potential hitter Carlos Cortes was instructed to try and beat the shift leading off an inning in this game but failed to do, bunting it foul and later grounding out to second in the ninth inning of tonight’s game.

The strength of the team through two games appears to be the bullpen who went another four scoreless innings collectively tonight from three relievers. The pen has now totaled 8 and 1/3 innings of scoreless ball as a group with 0 walks and 11 strikeouts between them.

First man out of the bullpen tonight was side arm right hander Joe Cavallaro, who on the night went 2 innings giving up 2 hits, no walks and 3 strikeouts. Below is video of Cavallaro, his arm slot and one of his strikeouts recorded.

Cavallaro is what you may expect from a pitcher with this kind of delivery, topping mid to upper 80s on his fastball, relying on movement especially against right handers of which he is most deadly with his upper 70s breaking pitches.

The next reliever out of the pen was also the man throwing hardest of anyone pitching tonight for the club, right hander Yeizo Campos, who turned age 23 last week. Stadium radar had Campos sitting consistently at 94 MPH with a breaking ball in the low 80s keeping hitters unbalanced throughout his 1 inning of work, recording two strikeouts and allowing one hit in the eighth inning. Below is video of one of his strikeouts.

 

The final reliever of the night who pitched the ninth for Mets was big left hander Blake Taylor. Taylor sat in the low 90s with stadium radar picking up one pitch at 93 MPH to go with a mid 80s breaking ball. It was a perfect inning with all 3 batters grounding out to the shortstop.

Regarding the position players the one gold star on the night must go to outfielder Quinn Brodey, who went 1 for 3 with a lined opposite field single in the third and two strong plays defensively to prevent runners from advancing in the game.

As for the rehabbing major leaguers, Todd Frazier was hitless during the two game homes stand, defensively switching each night, playing half the game at third base and the other a first.

Travis d’Arnaud had the honor of driving in the first run of the St. Lucie Mets season. Below is a live video tweet recording the at bat and RBI single.

Travis d'Anaud AB bot 6 https://t.co/S4E67RfWYJ

— Ernest Dove (@ernestdove) April 5, 2019

The St. Lucie Mets now head to Bradenton to play the same Marauders for another two-game set in search of their first victory.

For look at the full box score of the game click here