Richard Jones - Mets Spring Training - Sunday 3-12

On Sunday we traveled a little over two hours from Port St. Lucie to Lakeland to see the Mets take on the Tigers. We got up early to catch some backfield activity. It was cloudy so most of the backfield activity was canceled.

Terry Collins, again, made himself very available to the fans. He made several trips to the stands the take photos with Mets fans and to sign autograph. My nephew was one of the lucky fans. I'm seeing another side of Collins. You can see he genuinely enjoys interacting with Mets fans.

Ex-Met, Michael Fulmer started off great. He struck out the side in the first inning. The Mets looked bad with some awful swings. He was sitting at 94-95 MPH. He topped out at 96 MPH. He had a wicked 89 MPH slider. Adam Wilks pitched for the Mets. He was solid mixing his 87 MPH fastball and 81 MPH change up.

Rafael Montero's line score looked much better than his actual performance. He was hit hard and allowed a couple of inherited runners to score.

The highlight of the day for me was getting to see Andres Gimenez play shortstop. He looks like he belongs in my high school class. He looks like he plays the game the right way. He hustled for everything. He showed some very impressive speed running out a ground ball. I think this kid is going to be something special. Watching him and Rosario on the same field and in the same game made me believe Gimenez is going to be the better of the two. I just like the approach to the game I saw in Gimenez.