Cardinals vs Mets Pick: Revamping St. Louis Visits Injury-Riddled New York (Mar 10)

• Longtime NL combatants the St. Louis Cardinals visit Port St. Lucie to play the New York Mets
• The Cardinals (8-8) start veteran righty Sonny Gray; the Mets (6-8) counter with righty Griffin Canning
• St. Louis is taking a step back from expecting to contend for a championship
• New York has star power but is dealing with injury woes

The Cardinals visit the Mets in a battle between longtime antagonists. St. Louis is taking a new approach to constructing its team and is still trying to shed some salary, hoping to find a taker for Nolan Arenado and Steven Matz.

The Mets were riding high after signing Juan Soto but just found out that they will be without starting catcher Francisco Alvarez who suffered a fractured hamate bone and needs surgery. Pitchers Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas are also out. Manaea has an oblique injury and Montas has a lat injury.

New Look Cards a Work in Progress

St. Louis did very little this past offseason other than to let Paul Goldschmidt leave as a free agent and to make major changes to its front office. Chaim Bloom will be the head of baseball ops after this season. They are trying to trade Arenado.

This spring, they are at .500. Depending on how this season goes, their starter against the Mets, Sonny Gray, could also be on the trade block.

The 35-year-old has thrown 2.2 innings this spring and surrendered 3 runs, all by way of the home run. This is his second start of the spring.

Catcher Willson Contreras has started the spring hitting well. The veteran is batting .368 with a home run. Lars Nootbar is batting .300 in 20 at-bats. Young shortstop Masyn Winn is batting .115. Arenado is batting .160. Nolan Gorman is hitting .207.

Mets Need to Patch Things Together

New York has made the tacit decision not to have a prototypical star-laden starting rotation for a big-money team. Already, they are getting excellent results from converted reliever Clay Holmes. With Montas and Manaea shelved to start the season, that makes pitchers like their starter against St. Louis, Canning, all the more important.

Canning has been mediocre throughout his career, admittedly for a bad team in Anaheim. He has thrown 1.2 innings this spring, surrendering 2 hits and a walk, striking out 2.

With Alvarez out, the Mets will lean on veteran Luis Torrens. Torrens is strong defensively and has occasional power at the plate. Brett Baty is mashing with a .375 average and 2 homers. Soto is batting .400 with 2 homers. Luisangel Acuña is struggling at .175. Francisco Lindor is batting .182 in 22 at-bats.

Cardinals vs Mets Pick: Gray Will Pitch Well and St. Louis Handles Canning

The Mets have myriad questions to answer as to how they will get through the early part of the season missing key pieces. The Cardinals have questions of their own, but they have the pitching advantage in this game with the solid veteran Gray.