Starling Marte returns, Juan Soto, Mark Vientos, Luis Torrens homer, Mets win

Plus, injury updates on Nimmo, Núñez and Álvarez, and notes on Marte, Canning, Soto, and McNeil

Image courtesy of the New York Mets

What’s up with the Mets? 🌴

• The Mets shutout the Cardinals 8-0 on Monday night at Clover Park (Box | Highlights)

• Griffin Canning started for the Mets and struck out five batters over 3.2 IP

• Ryne Stanek struggled in his outing, walking two over 0.2 IP, but Huascar Brazoban struck out two in his inning of work

• Starling Marte made his spring debut and doubled in two at-bats

• Juan Soto continued his torrid spring - he homered and singled to raise his spring OPS to 1.556

• Mark Vientos hit his second homer of the spring, an opposite field two-run home run in the fifth inning

• Luis Torrens - who is the Mets primary catcher for the time being - homered in his first at-bat of the night

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Injury Updates 🏥

• Brandon Nimmo (sore knee) resumed baseball activities on Monday - the Mets are hopeful he will be back in the lineup this week

• Francisco Álvarez (fractured hamate bone) underwent successful surgery on Monday

• Dedniel Núñez (right flexor strain) threw his first live batting practice session on Monday

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Stories from Port St. Lucie… 📰

• Edwin Díaz thinks his spring is headed in the right direction (NY Post)

• The Mets believe they have a strong pitching pipeline in the works (Newsday)

• Five under-the-radar prospects for the Mets (Athletic)

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Today’s Game 🗓️

Match-up: Mets (7-8) vs Astros (8-8)

Where: CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches - West Palm Beach, Florida

Starters: RHP Tylor Megill vs. RHP Hunter Brown

When: 1:05 PM EDT

Where to Watch: MLB Network

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Notes: Elbow injures, Marte’s return, Canning’s impressive start, Soto and McNeil… ✍️

We are coming up on the two-week mile marker to Opening Day. Rosters have been trimmed down, starting pitchers are starting to get stretched out, and we are seeing the primary players stay in spring games longer.

Now, the Mets just need to find a way to keep everyone healthy for the next 13 days before camp breaks.

A lot is being made about the Mets and Yankees injury problems to this point in camp. I am not going to downplay what has happened here to either club. For the Mets, they’ve lost two starting pitchers and their primary catcher. That’s big - make no mistake about it. And of course, the Yankees have taken an uppercut to the chin with the loss of Gerrit Cole for all of 2025 and what will likely be a part of the 2026 season as well, at a minimum. Not to mention a big piece of their offense in Giancarlo Stanton has complete uncertainty in front of him thanks to this “tennis elbow” situation in both of his arms.

But the Mets particularly are in far better shape than the Yankees, at least for the moment. They’ll get Sean Manaea back during the second or third turn through the rotation. They could conceivably have Francisco Álvarez back by the first week of May, if not a little bit later. And I fully believe David Stearns and his crew know they need a stopgap to back up Luis Torrens and they really don’t have one in-house. So, I am confident they will at least have more depth than they have right now before they play the Astros in Houston on March 27.

And look - we have been down this road before. Every team has broken pitchers, every team deals with this kind of adversity. It’s not to say these waters are easy to navigate, but I’d venture to guess the Yankees have a more difficult journey ahead in 2025 with their fractured roster than the Mets do.

Again, at least for the moment.

That’s not to say either I don’t sympathize with the Yankees. Cole is one of the best pitchers in the sport, and the sport is losing way too many great players for long periods of time to this injury. The Mets are also losing a similar number of pitchers to Tommy John Surgery - they lost Christian Scott, Brooks Raley, and Drew Smith last season alone, and that was just from their major league roster.

Something has to change in this game. I am sick of reading about and hearing about at least one pitcher going down with a torn UCL in this sport literally every single day.

Anyway, that’s my “keep calm, carry on” speech for the Mets right now. Remember - it could be worse, it has been worse, and unfortunately, it can get worse again. Just look across the RFK Bridge.

There are a few notes I wanted to discuss coming away from last night’s shutout win over the Cardinals. So, here we go…

Imagn Images

The Marte Party is back!

Well, he didn’t hit a home run, but he did double and score a run in his spring debut after dealing with continued knee soreness for about a month.

He said after the game his knee felt good, although it sounded like “good enough.”

Look - who knows what we can expect from Marte this season, assuming he stays with the club. He still looks like he can be an impactful bat, but he’s clearly no longer capable of playing every day, nor will he on this roster. He has evolved into a $19.5 million bench player, which is fine - I think we all knew the fourth year of this deal would turn into something it wasn’t and something that was not particularly pretty when he signed.

But if he can be this part-time DH who can occasionally fill in either in left or right field, perhaps he will be a less-is-more bat for this team and emerge as a secret weapon of sorts for Carlos Mendoza and the Mets.

Of course, the more Mendoza can keep Marte off the field, the healthier he is probably going to be at this point. That knee may never be 100 percent, so it’s going to require a lot of TLC if he is to avoid the injured list because of it in 2025.

NY Post

Juan Soto…

Even in Spring Training, the dude is must-see TV. He is just great, he is energetic, and he’s also fascinating to watch. Even now, in the most monotonous part of camp, all eyes and attention turn to Soto when he’s at the plate.

That’s at least part of why the Mets signed him. He’s the biggest attraction at the Mets amusement park right now.

I think we’ve all watched and appreciated the things Soto could do from afar and as rival fans and onlookers over the course of his career. And now that he’s on our side, we can take extra pleasure in watching him kill everyone else after he spent the last seven years killing the Mets.

Every young player should watch Soto, watch how he swings, watch his footwork, etc., and not just the output from his at-bats. Yes, his bat speed is incredible right now and that is hard to replicate, but his basic fundamentals and quickness of his hands are as correct and repeated as anyone there is in this sport.

NY Post

Griffin Canning’s impressive start

Griffin Canning is in a prominent role for the Mets right now. He would appear to be their fourth or fifth starter and more or less a lock for the rotation on Opening Day.

Yes, he is competing with Tylor Megill and Paul Blackburn for two spots in the rotation, but something tells me that both he and Megill are ahead of Blackburn, who has struggled in camp and is recovering from spinal leak surgery in the early part of the off-season.

There’s no dancing around the fact that Canning had a poor season in 2024 and has otherwise had a pedestrian major league career marred by injury.

But perhaps the Mets can unlock something with Canning this season. They’ve had a high success rate with these reclamation projects over the last few years, and I have to believe they saw something in his pitcher profile they could work with in their (non)secret pitching lab.

Now, Canning isn’t going to wow anyone with his stuff. He does have an excellent slider, but his sinker— which was working for him on Monday night— is a point of emphasis he has worked on this spring. If he can get that pitch going and become an effective ground ball pitcher, that will up his value for this team.

But of course, there’s that IF game we often play with this club.

NY Post

Has anyone noticed Jeff McNeil this spring?

His numbers aren’t jumping off the page in a small and scattered sample, but Jeff McNeil has notched four doubles this spring. In fact, four of his seven hits are doubles.

I don’t ever read too much into spring training stats. Having said that, what I do look for are physical changes and changes to a player’s approach, especially after a season or seasons in which they’ve struggled. For McNeil, he has altered his batting stance a little bit, which appears to be getting him to the ball a lot quicker. He’s also talked a lot about becoming more of an attacker rather than someone who tries to spray the ball around the field.

So far, so good for McNeil.

This feels like a make-or-break situation for McNeil at this point in his career. There are quality prospects behind him seeking jobs over the long term (Luisangel Acuña, Jett Williams, throw Brett Baty in there for the sake of the argument), and David Stearns has been very transparent about wanting to afford internal prospects opportunities, much the same way McNeil was offered a chance when he was called up late in the 2018 season.

I do think the starting job right now is McNeil’s to lose, and I don’t think he’s losing it for the time being. But I do think second base is fluid for the Mets, and that is by design. They don’t need to stay patient with McNeil if he struggles because they have quality options behind him. They proved last year they won’t, so why would it be any different in 2025?

But I do want to see McNeil be a part of the solution again. He may not be what he was over the first five years of his career, but he’s a homegrown guy who became a forgotten prospect in the middle part of the last decade, and all he did was hit throughout his professional career through the 2022 season. Players sometimes lose their way, and the game can be cruel to players who do, but he’s still here and has earned the right to at least be given another chance to be successful in whatever version of McNeil this is.

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Around the League 🚩

• The Yankees announced RHP Gerrit Cole will undergo Tommy John Surgery on his right elbow today - he will miss at least the entire 2025 season

• The Dodgers and manager Dave Roberts agreed to a four-year, $32.4 million contract extension (ESPN)

• Blue Jays reliever Erik Swanson will visit with Dr. Keith Meister for his aching elbow (MLB.com)

• C Yasmani Grandal turned down an offer from the Braves in February. If he doesn’t get an offer to his liking, he would consider retirement (Romero)