Mets Arizona Fall League Week In Review: Irving Cota Continues to Impress, Hitters Struggle

[Michael Reed]

With the second week of the Arizona Fall League in the books, we can start to make stronger declarations about the performances of the New York Mets prospects in the desert. With a majority of the pitchers receiving praise and the majority of the hitters struggling, there are lots of pros and cons to talk about.

After two weeks of play, the Surprise Saguaros are 8-3, tied for the best record in the AFL. The Saguaros went 4-0 this week including two blowout wins, which featured a dominant 10-0 victory over the weekend with Peyton Prescott receiving the win. Here is how the eight Mets faired in the four games played this week.

Bruin Agbayani 2B/SS/3B

Agbayani saw action in two of the four games played this week, generating one hit and four walks. Agbayani currently has a .091 batting average in the AFL, the lowest on the Saguaros. While Agbayani has reached base in most of the games he has played thus far, only twice has it been by way of getting a hit.

Boston Baro SS/3B/2B

Like Agbayani, Baro only saw action in two games this week, which is the same amount of hits he has so far. In that 10-0 win, Baro went 1-for-3 with two walks, two stolen bases and came around to score three times. He has seen the majority of his play at third base while also DH’ing earlier in the week. If he can build on his action-packed game from the weekend, Baro could be in for a strong finish to the fall season.

Cole Mathis 1B/DH

In Thursday’s 17-8 win versus the Desert Dogs, Mathis went 2-for-5 with two RBI singles and came around to score both times. Mathis sports the best batting average of the three Mets hitters in the AFL; however his average is only .167. The 10-0 game saw Mathis go 0-for-4, but he did not strike out. Mathis’s .602 OPS is 10th on the Saguaros, and he hopes to build on that during the rest of his time in Surprise.

RHP Irving Cota

Cota was featured in MLB.com’s Week Two top performers article, and for good reason. Over the weekend, he threw three perfect innings with five strikeouts. Cota leads the AFL in WHIP (0.52), batting average against (.040) and is second in strikeouts (12). He has only given up one hit thus far in 7.2 innings of work for the Saguaros. Notably, he has also generated six whiffs on his changeup and cutter, two secondary offerings cited as areas for improvement prior to the AFL.

Cota would need nine more strikeouts to tie his total from all of last season. His development has been exciting for the Mets, especially with how bleak the minor-league pitching infrastructure looks as of right now. If Cota keeps this up, you will continue to see his name in the top performers lists.

RHP Brendan Girton

Girton only saw one inning of work this week, but in that lone inning, he retired all three batters by way of the strikeout. In 2.1 innings of work in the AFL so far, Girton has not given up a run.

Coming off a season in which he sported a 6.72 ERA in Double-A Binghamton, his short season with Surprise can only be seen as a positive thus far.

RHP Ryan Lambert

Like Girton, Lambert also only saw one inning of work this week. In Lambert’s inning, he closed out Friday’s win over the Solar Sox with a strikeout and no base runners allowed. That is now three no-hit outings for him so far in Surprise, with five strikeouts to boot.

RHP Peyton Prescott

Prescott started Saturday’s game versus the Desert Dogs, going two innings before handing it off to fellow Met Irving Cota. Prescott gave up one hit but that run did not come around to score; he also recorded two strikeouts, bringing his AFL total to four.

So far, Prescott has allowed seven hits with only three coming around to score. He also currently sports the same number of walks as strikeouts, but his ERA remains at 2.35.

RHP Calvin Ziegler

Ziegler was the only Met to not record a positive outing this week, giving up two runs in one inning of work. While Ziegler currently holds a 19.29 ERA in 2.1 innings, he should continue to see work out of the bullpen for the remainder of the AFL.

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