Tom Brennan - ENCOURAGING SEASON DEBUTS FOR SOME TOP PROSPECT METS MINORS PITCHERS

I'M SEEING STARS, I TELL YA!

Only one win in the 4 season Mets minors openers: 

Yep, Syracuse, St Lucie, and Columbia lost, all 3 lacking much offense, but Binghamton won their opener.

But wins and losses aside, tracking how some top pitching prospects that are coming up through the system did is the name of the game, for those of us who we hope to see them become stars in Queens.

Let me highlight five of them:

PC - Ernest Dove

Binghamton's Anthony Kay pitched like a true first rounder in his AA debut.   He went 4 2/3 innings, allowing 3 hits, an unearned run, and fanning 4.  Step one on a fast track to the big leagues?

St Lucie lost 1-0, but two guys particularly stood out:

After a brief but entirely dominant debut in Brooklyn in 2018, 6'5", 7th round lefty starter Kevin Smith took the hard luck loss while tossing 4.2 innings and allowing just four hits and one run, walking just one and fanning six.  His career ERA and WHIP remain under 1.00, in case you were wondering.

PC - Ed Delany

5th round reliever in 2018's draft, Ryley Gilliam, pitched two scoreless innings and struck out five batters.  He now has fanned 36 in 19 pro innings.

Mack has this guy on the fast track.

Columbia's 6'3" 2nd rounder from 2018, 18 year old wunderkind Simeon Woods Richardson, pitched a mere 15 innings in lowly Rookie GCL ball in 2018.  

In 2019, he not only jumped 3 levels to Columbia, he was awarded the opening day nod.

He did get cuffed around a bit in inning # 2 while going just 1 2/3 innings.  But in his first inning in Full A ball, he did the kind of stuff that reminds one of a young minor league Nolan Ryan or Dwight Gooden: he fanned the side.  

An exciting, if not perfect, first step in full season ball for a likely future rotation pitcher for the New York Mets.

In relief of "SWR" stepped righty Willy Taveras, who had gone a terrific 7-1, 2.35 in lower rookie ball last year.  The 21 year old excelled last night in his full season ball debut, with 4.1 innings of one hit scoreless ball, with 5 Ks.  SAY HEY, WILLY!

And that's only OPENING DAY, folks.  Pretty exciting.