New York

Mets

Soto finished 2-for-4 with three RBI in the lopsided contest. While the United States and Japan enter the World Baseball Classic as the consensus favorites, overlooking the Dominican Republic would be a mistake. Their lineup isn’t just formidable — it’s the kind of relentless, star-laden construction that can tilt a short tournament in a matter of innings. In an event where momentum compounds quickly, they have more than enough firepower to be the last team standing when the hardware is handed out. Soto put the metaphorical exclamation point on a five-run fourth inning, which also included homers by Manny Machado and Junior Caminero, by taking lefty reliever Brant Hurter deep to right-center field for a gargantuan round-tripper. The Dominican Republic kicks off the international tournament on Friday in Miami with a pool play matchup against Nicaragua.

Semien’s double was a 104 mph shot to lead off the game. He would later come around to score on a sacrifice fly by Bo Bichette. Semien would then walk in his second at-bat and score on a single by Francisco Alvarez. The 35-year-old is looking to have a bounce-back season in his first year with the Mets, and if he keeps getting on base like this, he has an outside shot at 90 or more runs scored.

Tong also struck out three and didn’t walk a single batter in the outing. Obviously, the five hits are not what you’d like to see, but Tong had a 63 percent strike rate and also racked up a 27 percent whiff rate. His cutter, in particular, was effective for him on Tuesday. The issue was that he threw first-pitch strikes to just five of the 12 batters he faced, which caused him to try to get into many hitter-friendly counts that led to those base hits. He’ll look to remedy that his next time out.

Garrett Stubbs tripled in the only run of the game today. Stock averaged 95 mph with his fastball as a Triple-A starter last spring, but he’s been up at 96.5 mph in his two appearances this spring and his cutter has been reliably in the low-90s. He’s going to be a long shot to make the Mets out of spring training, but he could see time in middle relief later on.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the hope is that Lindor will be able to take batting practice Wednesday. The star shortstop underwent hamata bone surgery in the offeseason, and recently had his stitches removed. There’s a good chance Lindor will be ready for the start of the regular season, and if not, it should be a relatively short stint on the injured list to begin 2026.

McLean is scheduled to start against Italy on Monday, but the right-hander will obviously need to get healthy for that to take place. The good news for fantasy managers is that there’s no reason to think McLean won’t be ready for the start of the regular season.

Hammer has intrigued in the minors with his ability to miss bats with a career 10.9 K/9, but he’s also posted an abhorrent 7.5 BB/9 in that timeframe. The Mets will try and get him to throw enough strikes while still missing bats. Weirder things have happened.

The cuts are starting early this year. Carrillo was an up-and-down arm who showed off a 100 mph fastball in his limited time with the Mets, but was ineffective in that action. He’ll be up-and-down again in 2026.

Yonatan Henriquez singed in Jason Bay to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. Taylor suffered a power outage last season, hitting just two homers in 341 plate appearances for the Mets, so it’s good to see him hitting the ball a little farther this spring. He’ll probably open up as the team’s right fielder against left-handers and the backup to Luis Robert Jr. in center.

Holmes allowed three hits and walked one while getting up to 63 pitches today. Of Team USA’s WBC starters, Holmes might be best equipped to deliver a five-inning outing during the tournament.