Just Mets

The Mets defeated the Cardinals 3-2 in Jupiter this afternoon, notching their 15th win in Grapefruit League play. Here are some of my takeaways from Sunday’s game:

Lucas Duda can hit lefties.

Three hits and two RBI against LHP Marco Gonzales and LHP Randy Choate. He now has four hits in his last two games against left-handed pitching, not to mention his hits earlier in camp against both David Price and CC Sabathia.

It’s early, and normally I’d say this is meaningless. But Duda had 20 hits in 125 at-bats against left-handed pitching all of last year, only four of which were for extra bases. For the sake of both his confidence and the endless discussion about his inability to hit southpaws, this goes a long way towards curing both issues.

Curtis Granderson can also hit lefties.

Granderson’s incredible spring only became more impressive on Sunday with two hits of his own against southpaws. He also drew a walk and is now hitting .475 for the spring.

If he (along with Duda for that matter) can show even a modest improvement against left-handed pitching, he will make David Wright and Michael Cuddyer that much more productive as they will have many more run scoring opportunities to take advantage of.

Dillon Gee seems close to being ready.

It hasn’t been an easy camp for Gee, considering his fluctuating role and the fact he’s now had to ramp things up quickly after only recently being installed back into the rotation. But he’s been a professional throughout the entire process, and quietly had an excellent camp.

Today was no exception to that. He got off to somewhat of a rocky start early on, but got really stingy at about the fourth inning and needed only 70 or so pitches to complete his seven inning outing. Dillon had a real nice feel for his change-up today, which is the key for any success he’s going to have at this level. His ERA stands at 2.49 for the spring, which is right on par with the performance of Jacob deGrom, for what it’s worth.

Other notes from Sunday:

Dario Alvarez – who remains in big league camp as he makes a case for a spot in the bullpen – retired lefty Scott Moore in the eighth, the only batter he faced.

Ruben Tejada drove in a run in the sixth inning – he is now second on the team with 11 RBI this spring.

Mets pitching only allowed one Cardinal to reach base after the fourth inning.