Andrew Keys - St. Lucie Mets May Recap

     The month of May has been quite an interesting few weeks for all of the Mets teams.  Because the major league club has had up to 17 players on the injured list at one time, Acting GM Zack Scott has been forced to comb through the organization and go outside the organization to acquire players to fill their roster. That has also affected their minor league affiliates, who also have been drained of players forcing players to play out of position and to move players up and down through their farm system.

     The St. Lucie Mets opened their season on May 4^th after having their 2020 season wiped out due to the pandemic.  That game featured their 2 top prospects CF Pete Crow-Armstrong and C Francisco Alvarez contribute. Crow-Armstrong batted over .400 in his first 6 games before suffering an injury on his non-throwing shoulder, but did require surgery to repair a torn labrum and injured cartilage. The surgery is season ending, so we will have to wait until next season for him to get some more professional experience.  Matt Allan already had Tommy John surgery and will miss the season as well.

     Francisco Alvarez however didn’t stay long with the St. Lucie team but for much happier reasons.  In 15 games, Alvarez hit .417 with 2 HRs and 12 RBI. He was then promoted to High A Brooklyn, where he getting his feet wet with more advanced pitching.

     Some players to keep an eye on is Zack Ashford, who is hitting .340 in 14 games.  P Cam Opp has only given up 1 earned run in 11 IP, Hunter Parson has a 1.80 ERA through 11 innings, and Justin Lasko, pitching to a 1.96 ERA in 23 IP. Another pitcher to watch closely is Austin Faith, who has 23 K’s in 16 IP with a 2.76 ERA.

     The St. Lucie Mets end their first month of the season with a record of 16-8, in first place by a 4 game lead. The roster has included rehab appearances by Jacob deGrom, who completely annihilated the Cardinals, hitting 102 MPH on the radar gun over 4 IP, with only 2 batters making contact.  In addition to his lights out performance, he bought Chick-Fil-A for team prior to the game and Outback after the game.  Seth Lugo also pitched as well as Noah Syndergaard, who had to be pulled from his last rehab start after 1 inning. Syndergaard, who first was hitting 95 with his fastball, ended the ending with pitches that were in the high 80s and the opposing team were hitting the ball hard against him.  The Mets then announced that he had right elbow inflammation, shutting him down for 6 weeks, when he was on the verge of rejoining the team in mid-June.  This setback could lead to Syndergaard not returning to the Mets until August, September or possibly at all this season, after which he becomes a free agent.

   I was able to attend opening day, and then returned for the Noah Syndergaard game. When we saw that he didn’t return to the mound for the second inning, we all started to check Twitter for any information, eventually leading to the report of his elbow inflammation.

     On May 30, the team set a record with 18 walks In a pounding of the Daytona Tortugas by the score of 15-3.  There are a number of players with a lot of talent and are quite hungry to progress through the system, with the eventual goal of reaching the big leagues.  The first month of minor league baseball is in the books. Let’s see what June will bring!