Noah Syndergaard named Opening Day Starter

After yesterday’s matinee at Port St. Lucie, in which Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard preformed admirably for 4.2 innings, Mickey Callway committed to Noah for the Opening Day start.

Noah is set to be the first pitcher to start in back to back Opening Day games since Johan Santana started three straight games between 2008-2010.

Mickey also announced that Jacob deGrom will pitch the second game of the season, on Saturday March 31st.

So, that leaves Matt Harvey, Jason Vargas, Robert Gsellman, Steven Matz, Seth Lugo and Zack Wheeler out for the last three starting spots, unless the Mets want to start with a six-man rotation, which is unlikely given the number of days without games in April.

The two probables out of those list of six candidates is Matt Harvey and Jason Vargas. It’s Harvey’s walk year, so you want to see if he can re-claim any value before becoming a free agent (despite a fairly poor 5.59 ERA this Spring).

The other near-lock is Jason Vargas, only for the fact that the Mets just signed him to an $8 million dollar deal, and he’s not going to Triple-A or the bullpen for eight million.

That leaves the fifth spot up for grabs. Statistically speaking Matz and Wheeler look to be the least likely, as they’ve struggled in most every start they’ve had and have the two highest ERA’s of pitchers that have started a game this Spring.

Lugo has looked slightly sharper than Gsellman, but neither have had many opportunities.

Oh, and Rafael Montero? DFA him, already.