The Mets were bitten by the walk on Tuesday afternoon, and as a result had to settle for a 6-6 tie with the Astros at Clover Park. Each of the Mets’ ten pitchers issued a walk, and the team issued 13 walks in total on the afternoon—Houston walked just four. That, as Gary Cohen mentioned, is not a recipe for winning baseball games. The Mets ended up with seven hits on the day, while the Astros had nine hits of their own.
- Jack Wenninger pitched two scoreless innings in his first spring outing. The right-hander escaped a bases loaded jam in the first and a one-out double in the second to keep Houston off the board.
- The Mets jumped all over
George CostanzaJason Alexander in the first inning. Juan Soto poked a ball through the infield for a single, and Bo Bichette rocked a liner off Alexander that ended up going for an infield single. Alex Tauchman, in his first at-bat as a Met, launched a three-run home run on a change up that just cleared the right field wall. Two batters later, Ronny Mauricio hit a solo home run to give New York an early four-run lead. Alexander did not make it out of the first inning for Houston. - The Mets extended their lead to five after Marcus Semien doubled, advanced to third on an out, and scored on a Bichette sacrifice fly.
- Jonathan Pintaro pitched a scoreless third but allowed a run in the fourth and could not escape the frame. He pitched 1 2/3 innings of one-run ball, as he walked two, struck out one, and allowed one hit. Jefry Yan closed out the fourth.
- Huascar Brazobán and Austin Warren pitched scoreless, hitless innings in the fifth and sixth, respectively. Brazobán struck out one and walked one, while Warren walked a batter.
- The Mets added an insurance run in the sixth on an A.J. Ewing sacrifice fly, which scored Austin Barnes, who led off the inning with a double.
- Daniel Duarte had a rough go of it in the seventh, allowing three earned runs on three hits, with a walk and a strikeout in 1/3 of an inning. Bryce Conley was called upon to close out the seventh, and he did so while issuing one walk and striking out one batter in 2/3 of an inning.
- The Mets narrowly avoided allowing a run in the eighth, as Jose Ramos threw out Lucas Spence at home on a Brice Matthews fly ball to right field.
- The inning ending double play would turn out to be huge, because things got dicey in the ninth with Josh Blum on the mound. Blum loaded the bases on two walks and a single, and exited with one out. Colton Cosper came in and allowed a run to score on a force out, and Spence drove in the game-tying run on a two-out, two-strike single. The Mets went down meekly in the ninth.
- In all, the Mets got one hit apiece from Semien, Soto, Bichette, Tauchman, Mauricio, Barnes, and Tyrone Taylor.