Outfield competition
Morning Dose: Monday, March 2
☀️ Good Morning:
We will finally have real baseball games this month!
We just have to survive the World Baseball Classic and hope nobody gets hurt over the next three weeks.
It was a busy weekend in Mets Land, so grab your coffee and let’s get into it!
🍎 WEEKEND RUNDOWN
A rundown of the key things that happened since we last spoke.
❶ The right field competition is heating up. Everyday there’s a new outfield hero. Carson Benge has four hits in his first 13 at-bats. Mike Tauchman homered in his first spring at-bat. MJ Melendez clocked two opposite-field home runs on Friday. And Tyrone Taylor joined the party with his second homer of the spring on Sunday.
⇢ Laser beam: The ball looked like a laser coming off Taylor’s bat in the fourth inning. At 108.3 mph, it topped his 106-mph home run last week as the hardest-hit homer by a Met this spring. While the fireworks belonged to the veteran, Benge actually topped him for the hardest hit ball of the day, an 110-mph groundout in the first that had an expected batting average of .540.
❷ Tobias Myers continues to stretch himself out. That’s not stress himself out, it’s stretch himself out. The swing reliever, acquired alongside Freddy Peralta from the Brewers, tossed 46 pitches over three innings of one-run ball on Saturday against the Nationals.
⇢ Undefined role: In a perfect world, the Mets will enter the season healthy and Myers will add important depth to the bullpen. Since nothing ever works out as planned, Myers is on a ramp-up schedule early in case he needs to be ready for an early role that requires him to cover starter innings.
