PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – Luis Severino’s terrific comeback spring continued Wednesday night as he fired four innings of one-run ball against the visiting Astros as the Mets beat Houston 6-5 at Clover Park.
Severino, who has only appeared in 45 regular-season games (41 starts) since 2018 because of injury, looked sharp for the third straight start. He allowed two hits, including a solo home run to Jake Meyers that first struck the top of the right-field fence.
Severino struck out three and did not walk a batter, throwing 47 pitches (32 strikes). One particularly nasty pitch – he blew a 97 mph fastball past leadoff hitter Trey Cabbage for the first out of the game.
The run was the first that Severino has allowed all spring in nine innings. He has given up five hits and zero walks while striking out eight. He has a 0.56 WHIP and a .156 opponent’s batting average.
Overall, Mets starters this spring have a 2.18 ERA, the best in the majors.
Here are the other takeaways:
- Houston starter Cristian Javier threw four shutout innings. But when he came out, the Mets, who had just two hits Tuesday night in a loss to Washington, had a big fifth inning against ex-Met Rafael Montero. They scored four times and Montero was yanked without recording an out. He gave up two hits while walking three and also made a throwing error on Joey Wendle’s infield single that led to a run. Also for the Mets, Tyrone Taylor singled in a run, Francisco Alvarez beat out an infield hit on a ball deflected by pitcher Drew Strotman and Ji-Man Choi walked with the bases loaded to force in a run.
- Reliever Jake Diekman took over from Severino and started the fifth inning by giving up a triple to center by speedster Joey Loperfido, creating a big scoring chance for Houston. But Diekman struck out the next three hitters – David Hensley, Grae Kessinger and Shay Whitcomb. He finished off a 10-pitch battle with Whitcomb by getting the batter to swing and miss at an 83 mph sweeper with the count full.
- The rest of the relievers fared well, too. Jorge López struck out two batters in a 1-2-3 sixth and Drew Smith fanned two sandwiched around a single and caught stealing in the seventh. In the eighth, Shintaro Fujinami was terrific in his third outing of the spring, going three-up, three-down and catching two batters looking at third strikes on 96 mph fastballs.
- Brett Baty was set to play third and bat cleanup Wednesday night, but was a late scratch. The Mets said he had minor back tightness and was taken out of the lineup as a precaution. He is considered day-to-day. Baty was replaced at third by Mark Vientos, who was supposed to be at first base. Choi started at first and batted fourth.
And in his final at-bat on the Vientos took advantage of a hanging breaking pitch to launch his third home run of spring training to make it 5-1 Mets. He finished the night 1-for-3 with a homer, a walk and two runs scored.
- Dedniel Núñez got the ninth inning for the Mets and after sandwiching a walk around two strikeouts, preceded to allow four runs on three hits (with a catcher's interference in there) to tie the game at five.
After a leadoff walk in the bottom half of the inning, the Mets' Austin Allen roped a Cole Mcdonald offering for a double off the wall in left to put runners on second and third. Mateo Gil walked to load the bases with nobody out and Joe Suozzi played hero ending it with a walk-off sacrifice fly to center.