Quintana had been scheduled to start the afternoon road game in West Palm Beach, Fla., which was briefly delayed before being canceled altogether.

The left-handed Quintana is now expected to start Thursday against the Washington Nationals at the Mets’ Clover Park, with Luis Severino sliding back to pitch Friday on the road against the Miami Marlins.

Quintana, 35, allowed two runs in 1.2 innings in his first start of the spring last week on the road against Houston.

“Overall, he was OK,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after that outing. “It was one of those outings where he goes out there to work on certain pitches, with the two-seam being one of them. He threw a good pitch to [Jose] Abreu and struck him out.”

With ace Kodai Senga set to miss the start of the season with a shoulder strain, the veteran Quintana could be in line to start the Mets’ regular-season opener against the Milwaukee Brewers on March 28 at Citi Field.

Last spring, Quintana was diagnosed with a rib legion. He didn’t debut until late July and ultimately pitched to a 3-6 record and a 3.57 ERA over 13 starts.

SENGA MAKES PROGRESS

The Mets continue to express optimism about Senga’s shoulder, with Mendoza on Wednesday describing the early stages of the right-hander’s rehab as “so far, so good.”

“He’s strengthening that shoulder,” Mendoza said. “He’s continuing to say that he’s feeling good, progressing well with the limited activity he’s doing. A lot of shoulder exercises.”

Senga received a platelet-rich plasma injection in late February for the strain in the posterior capsule of his right shoulder. At the time, the Mets shut down Senga’s throwing for three weeks.

The Japanese-born Senga recorded a 2.98 ERA and 202 strikeouts in 166.1 innings during his debut MLB season in 2023.

Mendoza has said the Mets don’t expect Senga’s injury to be a long-term issue.

“We’ll wait until he starts playing catch and all that, but as of right now, he’s moving in the right direction,” Mendoza said Wednesday.

RAIN DELAYS FUJINAMI

Wednesday was supposed to mark the first appearance this spring by reliever Shintaro Fujinami, who recently returned from his native Japan after dealing with a personal issue there.

The rain cancellation changes those plans.

The hard-throwing right-hander, who struggled with walks en route to a 7.18 ERA over 64 appearances with the Oakland A’s and Baltimore Orioles last season, joined the Mets in the offseason on a one-year, $3.35 million deal with incentives.

That’s according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, who mentioned the Mets’ interest in signing the crosstown superstar next offseason as a significant takeaway from his visit to Port St. Lucie this week.

“The most interesting thing heard at Mets’ camp yesterday — and it’s not surprising, given that the [Max] Scherzer contract (and others) will melt off their payroll next winter — is that they fully intend to take a run at Juan Soto next winter,” Olney wrote Wednesday on the social media site X.

Soto, whom the Yankees acquired in December in a franchise-altering trade with the San Diego Padres, is an impending free agent who is expected to pursue a historic contract when he hits the open market after the 2024 season.

Soto turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension offer from his original team, the Washington Nationals, in 2022, which prompted him to be traded that year to San Diego. Only 25 years old, Soto already boasts four top-10 finishes in NL MVP voting; three Silver Slugger Awards; three All-Star selections; a batting title; and a World Series championship.

The Mets and their deep-pocketed owner, Steve Cohen, largely avoided the top of this offseason’s free-agent class outside of a failed attempt to sign Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who joined the Los Angeles Dodgers on a record-setting $325 million contract over 12 years.

Next offseason figures to be different for the Mets, who must also decide whether to re-sign homegrown star first baseman Pete Alonso, who is set to be a free agent. Like Soto, the homer-hitting Alonso is represented by agent Scott Boras, who is notorious for getting his clients the most money possible.

“My whole focus this year is to be the best I can be, be as locked in mentally and physically as possible to help this team win,” Alonso said last month after arriving to spring training. “That’s my job. We’ll see what happens in the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The Mets gave contracts worth $43.3 million annually to Scherzer before the 2022 season and co-ace Justin Verlander a year later, only to trade both during the team’s disappointing 2023 campaign. The Mets are still paying sizable sums in 2024 to Scherzer, now of the Texas Rangers, and Verlander, who is now with the Houston Astros.

Scherzer’s contract ends after the 2024 season, while Verlander’s $35 million option for 2025 would vest if he pitches 140 innings this year. The Mets would owe Verlander, who is set to begin the season on the injured list with a shoulder issue, $17.5 million in 2025 should that option vest.

A Mets push for Soto could create a bidding war between the New York clubs, as the Yankees are also expected to try to re-sign the slugger after trading five players, including prized pitchers Michael King and Drew Thorpe, to acquire him and fellow outfielder Trent Grisham.

As Olney noted Wednesday, not every team can afford Soto, who crushed a career-high 35 home runs last season.

“You have a handful of tanking teams that would never consider taking on his salary,” Olney wrote on X.

Soto is off to a red-hot start in spring training, going 6-for-9 with five extra base hits, including three home runs, and seven RBI through his first four games. Soto, whose .421 career on-base percentage ranks 19th in MLB history, is batting second in the Yankees order, right in front of Aaron Judge.

The hulking right-hander hurled three hitless innings and struck out six Tuesday against a Yankees lineup missing many of its regulars, marking Megill’s latest strong outing of spring training.

Megill issued a pair of walks to shortstop Anthony Volpe and plunked second baseman Oswald Peraza but was otherwise dominant, at one point striking out four Yankees in a row during his scoreless start at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.

The 6-7 Megill, 28, now boasts a 1.13 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 8.0 innings over three appearances this spring. He threw 29 of his 49 pitches for strikes Tuesday, with his fastball regularly hitting 94 miles per hour and sometimes reaching 95.

Megill is fighting to start the season in a Mets rotation that will begin the year without ace Kodai Senga, who is dealing with a strain in the posterior capsule of his right shoulder. The Japanese-born Senga, who posted a 2.98 ERA during an All-Star debut season last year, received a platelet-rich plasma injection in late February, and the Mets shut down his throwing for three weeks.

Originally a 2018 eighth-round pick, Megill last season made 25 starts for a Mets team that dealt with an early injury to Justin Verlander and later traded Verlander to Houston and co-ace Max Scherzer to Texas before the Aug. 1 deadline.

A three-year MLB veteran, Megill last season pitched to a pedestrian 4.70 ERA – right in line with his career mark of 4.72 – but is working this spring with new pitches including a sweeper and a cutter.

“It seems like this offseason went terrific and my pitch arsenal is completely different,” Megill told the Daily News last month. “My slider is spinning pretty true. I used to throw like a gyro-slider and now it’s spinning like a fastball. The sweeper is good. It’s tight and it’s big.”

Without Senga, the Mets’ rotation features a vacancy behind Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and Adrian Hauser. Other candidates to fill that fifth slot include Jose Butto, Joey Lucchesi and David Peterson, who each started games for the Mets last season.

“When we’re talking about a shoulder, it’s scary, but after going through and doing all the imaging and all of that, we feel a lot better [about Senga],” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said on ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday’s game. “Kodai’s feeling a lot better. We don’t think that is going to be a long-term injury. We are expecting Kodai to pitch a lot of games for us.”

Most of the Yankees’ starters did not travel to Port St. Lucie for Tuesday’s spring training edition of the Subway Series, though catcher Austin Wells, center fielder Trent Grisham and Oswaldo Cabrera all faced Megill, along with Volpe and Peraza.

The Mets won, 5-4, with Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor both hitting doubles, and Lindor, Starling Marte and Brett Baty each recording an RBI.

Yankees top prospect Spencer Jones entered in the fifth inning and went 1-for-2 with a double, improving his batting average to .467 and his OPS to 1.289 in 15 spring at-bats. Mets third baseman Rylan Bannon robbed Jones of a would-be game-tying hit in the ninth inning with a diving stop on a ground ball that he turned into a force out. The Yankees re-assigned Jones to minor-league camp after the game.

Diaz ended the encouraging outing by striking out fast-rising Mets prospect Jett Williams on a backfield at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, where the right-handed reliever’s trumpet-heavy entrance song “Narco” blared.

The 1-2-3 frame marked Diaz’s first time facing hitters in a game setting since he suffered the catastrophic knee injury nearly a year ago during the World Baseball Classic.

“I just feel like I need competition. I’m ready,” Diaz said afterward, according to SNY. “I’m throwing my pitches like I want to. I feel 100 percent ready, so I need games, I told them. …Today was really good.”

Diaz threw 14 pitches, with his fastball ranging from 96 to 98 miles per hour, according to Mets manager Carlos Mendoza.

“He came out good, so all positive there,” Mendoza said on the ESPN broadcast of Tuesday’s game between the Mets and Yankees.

Diaz, 29, continues to make progress in his rigorous rehab, having previously thrown live batting practice multiple times this spring, including to top bats Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo on Feb. 23.

Diaz plans to return to Mets after appearing in another minor-league game Friday.

A two-time All-Star, Diaz pitched to a 1.31 ERA, 32 saves and 118 strikeouts in 62.0 innings during a dominant 2022 campaign, which he then parlayed into a five-year, $102 million contract that remains the biggest ever for a reliever in terms of total value.

Diaz didn’t pitch in 2023 after injuring his right knee as he celebrated a Puerto Rico victory in the WBC last March 16.

A healthy Diaz would bolster a Mets bullpen that posted a 4.45 ERA without him last season.

“It’s game time,” Diaz said Tuesday. “After my last live [BP] I told them I wanted to [raise] my level of competition, so I wanted to feel like I was in a real game. I know that was an intraquad game, but I knew I had to make pitches and field my position if they hit it by me or cover first. So, I told them I was ready to be in the games.”

MCNEIL MAKES PROGRESS

Tuesday also brought a positive injury update for Jeff McNeil, whose ailing arm is “feeling a lot better,” Mendoza said.

The Mets recently shut down the utility man with left biceps soreness.

“The downtime the past couple of days helped,” Mendoza told reporters. “We’re going to give it another couple of days before we put him on a hitting progression.”

McNeil was scheduled to go through a workout and participate in defensive drills Tuesday and could play defense in a minor-league game Wednesday.

The 31-year-old won the National League batting title with a .326 average in 2022. That average dipped to .270 during an injury-plagued 2023 season that ended a few days early due to a partially torn UCL in McNeil’s left elbow.

The right-handed hurler on Monday signed a three-year extension worth a reported $126 million to remain with the Philadelphia Phillies through 2027, demonstrating his standing as one of MLB’s premier pitchers.

That $42 million annual salary represents the fourth-largest in league history – all for a player the Mets let leave in free agency four years ago, and go to a division rival, no less.

“We think Zack is as good as anybody in baseball right now,” Dave Dombrowski, the Phillies’ president of baseball operations, said Monday at a news conference announcing the extension.

“I don’t think I could think of another individual I’d rather have take the ball in a big game.”

Wheeler, 33, boasts a 43-25 record, a 3.06 ERA and 675 strikeouts in 629.1 innings since joining the Phillies before the 2020 season, establishing himself as a dependable workhorse who overcame the injuries that plagued his early years.

He’s been even better in the postseason, pitching to a 2.42 ERA during Philadelphia’s runs to the World Series in 2022 and the NLCS last year.

Originally taken sixth overall by the San Francisco Giants in 2009, Wheeler went to the Mets two years later in a trade for Carlos Beltran. By the time he made his MLB debut in 2013, the hard-throwing Wheeler had emerged as one of baseball’s top prospects, inviting fantasies of an overpowering Mets rotation that, by 2015, also featured Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard.

That rotation crashed, however, as arm injuries ailed all five pitchers.

Wheeler underwent Tommy John surgery before the 2015 season to repair an elbow tear, rendering him inactive for the Mets’ run to the World Series that year. Subsequent setbacks cost Wheeler the 2016 season, too, threatening his future as a frontline MLB starter.

Arm issues persisted for Wheeler in 2017, who struggled to a 5.21 ERA over 17 starts during his first season in three years.

In 2018, Wheeler finally began to resemble the pitcher who arrived with so much hype.

Wheeler posted a 3.31 ERA over 182.1 innings in 29 starts, marking his best season in the majors. He followed that up in 2019 with a 3.96 ERA over a career-high 195.1 innings in 31 starts and entered free agency after back-to-back durable seasons.

Wheeler turned those encouraging campaigns into a five-year, $118 million contract with the Phillies, who paired him with All-Star Aaron Nola atop their rotation.

Before he signed with Philadelphia, Wheeler allegedly checked in with then-Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, and said he heard “crickets.”

“That’s how they roll,” Wheeler said at the time.

In reference to Wheeler’s contract, Van Wagenen suggested the pitcher was able to “parlay two good half-seasons over the last five into $118 million.”

The deal paid off handsomely for Philadelphia, as Wheeler finished within the top 12 of National League Cy Young Award voting three times from 2020-23, including as the runner-up in 2021 and in sixth place last year. His 213.1 innings in 2021 led the NL.

“I just try to take the ball every time out and just be consistent and be consistently good,” Wheeler said Monday. “I’ve got to give credit to the training staff, keeping me out on the field, and working with Caleb [Cotham], our pitching coach. He’s helped me out a ton, off-speed wise, and just taking me to that next level.”

Wheeler’s extension kicks in for the 2025 season. The Mets handed out two of the three deals with larger annual salaries to since-traded aces Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, whose contracts both average $43.3 million per year.

Ironically, as Wheeler thrives, the Mets’ current staff is dealing with a key injury to Kodai Senga, who is out indefinitely with a shoulder strain.

“We know pitching is a risk at any age,” Dombrowski said Monday. “We think [Wheeler] knows himself well, works well with the training staff, and we think he can continue to last and pitch at this type of level.”

If that’s the case, the Mets will be forced to watch Wheeler dominate for an NL East opponent for at least four more seasons.

The plan created by Mets trainers and biomechanical specialists laid out a target number of games he would play, how he would go about his pregame work, his postgame work and his lifts based on data collected from Catapult fitness trackers. It was a load management plan of sorts, and whether or not you agree that everyday players need to have their workloads managed, Nimmo was happy with the results. They were also hard to argue: Back-to-back seasons with 150 or more games played after injuries had limited him in previous seasons.

But this blueprint was created for him when he played center field. Now that he’s going to play both left and center fields, it will have to be altered on a game-by-game basis.

“Ultimately, it comes down to [the question], how does my body feel?” Nimmo said Sunday after playing in his first Grapefruit League game of spring training. “And what decision are we going to make together with the information that we have and how I feel?”

Nimmo went 0-for-2 at the plate Sunday against the Houston Astros, exiting before the rain began. He typically plays about eight or nine Grapefruit League games a year, plus a few more games on the backfields. But he’ll get into more games this spring to be able to get reads and reps in left and center fields.

His routine and recovery plans will vary based on his energy output in the field. If it was a high output day, he’ll scale back after the game. If it was a day without much running, he might add in some running after the game. Nimmo, who will be 31 later this month, wants to maintain his center-field lungs, even if he’s playing a long stretch of games in left field.

“We’re probably going to try and keep my workload like centerfield,” he said. “You try and stay with that workload that you had in center field and make sure that you’re working up to it. That could even mean after games in the early bits, maybe I’m going on the treadmill and doing four more sprints after the game or something like that. We try to make things as consistent as possible.”

As a full-time center fielder, the Mets had a good idea of how much ground Nimmo would be required to cover. Now, they aren’t sure. However, he is sure that he will continue with this load management program.

The Mets and his agent, Scott Boras, suggested this to him following the 2021 season. With a shortened spring training because of the lockout in 2022, he didn’t play in as many Grapefruit League games. He realized his body felt better going into Opening Day and his production levels stayed high.

Historically, the Mets have been criticized for their inability to keep their best players healthy and there have been times where it was warranted. Former manager Buck Showalter also threw the team under the bus recently, when he revealed on Foul Territory that he was told to bench the Wyoming native after a productive game at the plate.

But all controversy aside, Nimmo is an example of the team doing something right. His recent health is a success story for the Mets. If the leadoff man can play another 150 games this season, then it will only serve to highlight that success.

“I think there’s a right way to do it,” Nimmo said. “I think you drive the ship and you listen to your body and you come up with a plan, but be adjustable on it. I don’t think that it has to be like, ‘This is what the numbers say, and so you need this.’ I think it’s just kind of coming up with a plan like, ‘OK, this is what the numbers are saying. How do you feel?'”

Infielder Luisangel Acuña and left-hander Kolten Ingram were optioned to Triple-A. Players can come back and play in Grapefruit League games as extras after being sent to minor league camp, but not if they were optioned. Acuña, the Mets’ top overall prospect according to MLB Pipeline, played his final Grapefruit League game of spring Sunday against the Houston Astros.

“It was a really good opportunity to get to know a lot of these kids,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “Watching them go about their business on and off the field or the interactions in the clubhouse with some of our established players watching, watching them go about their routines and their preparation, it was really good.”

Mendoza spoke to the group Sunday, trying to impress on them the value of big league clubhouse experience. He wanted them to

“The relationships, their connections, watching the veteran guys go about their business, how they prepare, their routines, how they develop those routines,” Mendoza said. “Basically, the biggest takeaway is how to lead by example, not only by what you say, but by your actions. Those were some of the messages I sent to them.”

The Mets believe this group is impressive on the field and off of it. Williams is only 20 and already very polished. He garnered praise from the veterans for his work ethic and his ability to take a joke (at 5-foot-6, he was at the center of many).

The Mets decided early on that Vasil, Scott and Dominic Hamel would start the season in Triple-A, so sending them to the minor league side makes sense. They can still come back to the big league side to throw in Grapefruit League games and face some tougher lineups over the next few weeks while using the morning workout to prepare for the season with their likely Syracuse teammates. Hamel, who pitched Sunday against the Houston Astros, will likely be sent back to the minor league side soon as well.

The message from Mendoza was well received.

“The first time I was in big league camp, I think I was just naive,” Orze told the Daily News. “I didn’t understand what this really was like. I was still the college kid trying to prove that I’m good enough. I was thinking that I’ve got to outperform people to make the team and this and that. It’s like, that’s not the point.”

The point, Orze said, is to learn about how the veterans became successful and how to carry yourself as a pro.

“That’s the biggest thing,” Orze said. “You watch all these guys that have had a ton of time here and see how they go about their work. It’s not trying to prove anything to anybody because they don’t need to. [The mindset is], I do this really well, I’m going to continue to do it, I’m going to be a good human being, I’m going to be fun to be around, I’m going to stay positive in the clubhouse and we’re going to make these 200 or so days that we’re going to be together enjoyable.”

PERKS OF THE BUSINESS

Adrian Houser was over on the minor league league side when he saw a shirt he knew he needed to have. The blue shirt featured the infamous photo of Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and boxer Mike Tyson at Shea Stadium. The photo was captioned “Strike first.”

“I saw one of the pitching guys wearing it and I was like, ‘I need one of those,'” Houser said after making his second Grapefruit League start. “And they’re like, ‘Alright.’ Had it in my locker within the hour.”

The right-hander allowed three earned runs on four hits over 1 2/3 innings in the rainout against the Astros. He struck out two and walked one. He made some modifications to his changeup and his slider and was working through them in a game for the first time.

“Besides the results, I was pretty happy with how I felt today and how the stuff was coming out,” Houser said.

THE MANE EVENT

After four years, left-hander Sean Manaea finally cut his hair. The chop came Sunday, one day after he made a Grapefruit League start on a warm, sticky day and realized the long locks can be uncomfortable on the mound.

The left-hander gave up some hard contact early in the game, allowing three earned runs on five hits in the first inning. While Manaea wasn’t exactly happy with the runs, the pitches felt good out of his hand and he was able to use all of them, which is what he wanted coming into the day.

“Not exactly the results we wanted, but from an overall feel standpoint, I thought everything felt really good,” said Manaea, who signed a two-year $28 million contract in January. “I was attacking guys, just generally using everything I had and using all of the pitches I had.”

Manaea was somewhat erratic at the start, but his execution was much better in the second and third innings.

Luis Arraez, who has won the last two batting titles in the AL and NL, squared up the second pitch from Manaea. He lined it to left and advanced on a wild pitch.

Tim Anderson made weak contact and grounded out for the first out. But then Jazz Chisholm hit one hard — 106.2 off the bat — and so did Avisail Garcia. He gave up a third straight hit to Nick Gordon and a fourth to Jon Berti.

But then Manaea got Trey Mancini and Nick Fortes to pop up and end the inning. He retired the side in order in the second and was removed after giving up a double to Berti in the third, finishing the day with 56 pitches.

“I thought after the first inning, he settled in nicely,” said Mets manager Carlos Mendoza. “He left a couple pitches up in the first inning, one to Chisholm and one to Garcia and they got him, but overall it was good. The fact that he went out for the third inning and got his pitch count up to almost 60 was good. Overall, a positive step.”

With the Marlins being an NL East rival, Manaea didn’t want to give too much away. He didn’t want to sequence his pitches the way he might in a regular season game, especially with Miami using so many lineup regulars in the game. The goal of this start was to see how his pitches played, especially the changeup and the sweeper, but Manaea still had to balance that with getting outs.

“You face live hitters and you face your teammates, but it’s hard to recreate what an actual game feels like,” Manaea said. “Especially with the first start, I just want to make sure everything feels good out of my hand, which today, it was good. Even the bad ones, I got good feedback for what I should be doing going forward and in the next few starts.

“Leading up [to the regular season], it’s definitely going to be working on execution and game planning and all that stuff.”

Manaea will be an important arm for the Mets this season, which is what he liked about the opportunity to sign with the Mets. A swingman in San Francisco last season, the Mets think he’s more than just a back-end arm. With Kodai Senga set to miss at least the first month of the season, the pressure is on for the rotation to get them through.

The team might be overvaluing its pitching depth, but if Manaea can pitch the way David Stearns and the Mets brass think he can, then the team will look smart. Manaea turned his season around last year with the addition of a sweeper and continued his work at Driveline over the winter.

Manaea has a plan for how to best use all of his pitches. This start provided him a way to see how they play in certain spots.

“There’s always room for improvement and a little bit of tweaking,” he said. “It was really the first time I’ve used all these pitches in a game — in an actual game. So there was some good stuff out there.”

Jeff McNeil is one of them. The super utility guy felt soreness in his left bicep earlier this week after working in the batting cages. The left-handed hitter is coming off a left elbow injury already, which is why he hasn’t appeared in a Grapefruit League game yet.

Manager Carlos Mendoza isn’t sure which day the 2022 NL batting champ felt something in his arm, but the Mets don’t believe it to be serious. They’ve shut him down from hitting for precautionary reasons and will re-examine him Tuesday following the team’s off day to determine whether or not imaging is needed.

“It came up a couple of days ago after our live at-bats,” Mendoza said. “He went into cages and felt something with his swing. So we don’t think he’s anything serious. He just shut down for a couple of days from hitting, he’s doing infield drills and all that. We’ll reassess and see where he’s at after the off day on Monday.”

McNeil suffered a partial tear of his left ulnar collateral ligament late last season. It wasn’t a big enough tear that it required Tommy John surgery and McNeil spent the winter rehabbing the injury and the Mets worked him in slowly this spring.

Since he throws with his right arm, he’s able to participate in all defensive drills. But the Mets had to tell McNeil, a prolific golfer, that he has to stay away from the links until the injury clears up.

“He didn’t like that too much,” Mendoza joked.

Clearly, the Mets aren’t panicking about it. It’s important to note that it’s McNeil’s left bicep muscle, not the biceps tendon, which attaches at the elbow and the shoulder. A torn biceps tendon would require shoulder surgery, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Infielder Joey Wendle is working toward his Mets debut after being limited by shoulder soreness at the start of camp. Wendle, who the Mets signed to replace Luis Guillorme as the utility man off the bench, was shut down from throwing for the first few days of camp, but he’s playing catch and expected to play minor league games on the backfields before a Grapefruit League game.

The hope is that he can play in a Grapefruit League game next weekend. Wendle will start playing minor league games Sunday.

Outfielder Brandon Nimmo will make his Grapefruit League debut Sunday after playing on the backfields Friday. He’s expected to get reps in left and center fields this spring as the team prepares to move him to left to accommodate center fielder Harrison Bader and his defense.

ON THE FARM

Two future members of the rotation pitched in a Grapefruit League game for the first time this year. Right-handers Christian Scott and Mike Vasil threw an inning each in the Mets’ 4-1 loss to the Miami Marlins on Saturday at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium.

Scott, the club’s 2023 Minor League Pitcher of the Year, prioritized his sweeper. He allowed one run on one hit and a walk and struck out one. But he had five swings and misses, striking out Trey Mancini on three straight sweepers.

“He’s been a big leaguer for a long time, so for me to be able to go and throw three for strikes, that was cool for me,” Scott said.

Vasil gave up a double to Griffin Conine, the son of former Mets infielder/outfielder Jeff Conine, before retiring the next three to strand him on second.

Third baseman Brett Baty led off the top of the sixth with a solo shot off of Jhonny Pereda. His right-field blast was registered as 111.7 MPH off the bat. It was a good sign for Baty, who struggled to hit at a consistent level as a rookie and especially had problems accessing his power. Baty, 24, focused much of his offseason work on getting the ball in the air more often.

“Whenever you get one like on the barrel like that, it’s hard to explain but it just feels like nothing,” Baty said. “It felt really good.”

FAMILIAR FACES

Former Mets great Ed Kranepool visited the team in Jupiter on Saturday. He conversed with several members of the team, including Francisco Lindor, on the field during batting practice.

Friday, former football coach Bill Parcells took in the game from Roger Dean Stadium. Parcells, a Jupiter-area resident, has visited the Mets in the past during spring training, including last season when he spent time with his longtime friend Buck Showalter.

Alonso is a homegrown, home run talent. He has hit more home runs since he got to the big leagues than Judge has hit, or anybody else in the sport has hit, for that matter, and it’s not as if all the other guys haven’t had the same chance. And when this season is over, the Mets can’t let him go hit his home runs somewhere else. It wouldn’t be as dumb as trading away Tom Seaver, because nothing they’ve ever done or could ever do compares with that, and the way it shattered the relationship between the team and its fans in 1977.

But it would be the dumbest thing since.

Alonso is the biggest star in New York sports that nobody talks nearly enough about, or seems to appreciate enough. He is the Polar Bear, he is the Home Run Derby guy, he is the guy who broke Judge’s rookie record for home runs the year after Judge set it. Alonso has done what he’s done in New York the same as Judge has, as a slugging first baseman that his former manager, Buck Showalter, calls “country strong.” In addition to everything else, he is the most popular player the Mets have, by a lot.

He is more important to Mets fans than the owner or his money, certainly more important than the new set of numbers guys in the front office, fronted now by David Stearns. There has been a lot of change around the Mets since Alonso made it to the big leagues. The owner had changed, the names in the front office have changed. Alonso is already working on his third Mets manager, just five years into his career.

The thing that does not change around the Mets is Alonso.

He shows up every day, and he hits home runs. In those five years in the big leagues, he has missed a grand total of 24 games. Twenty-four. In a sport that is driven by numbers and sometimes suffocated by them, it is one of the most impressive stats anywhere.

Alonso is absolutely their biggest star. And missed just eight games last season. Judge, who ran into that outfield door at Dodger Stadium in June, missed 56 for the Yankees. There was season earlier in his career when he missed 50, and another when he missed 60. Giancarlo Stanton has missed around a million since he got to Yankee Stadium. Showalter always talks about players who “post up.” He means the ones who show up. Alonso shows up. Darryl Strawberry was another homegrown slugger for the Mets once. Not like Alonso, who is a young Mike Piazza, except he has never played anywhere else.

The Mets have to make sure that Alonso doesn’t leave them the way Piazza left the Dodgers when he was young. Of course Pete is represented by Scott Boras now, an agent who has wildly misread the current free agent market in baseball. Boras has a history of letting his stars play out their contracts until free agency the way Juan Soto is doing the same thing across town right now with the Yankees. But maybe Boras ought to take a step back — without nearly falling and breaking a hip tripping over his own ego — and see how perfect a fit Alonso is for his team, for his city, for Mets fans.

And the owner of the Mets, Steve Cohen, ought to take a look at how much money it cost the Yankees not to get Judge signed long-term before he hit the 62, and they had misread HIS market, and ended up having to cough up $360 million for the simple reason that they had no choice.

“My job is pretty simple,” Alonso told me before the Mets played the Cardinals at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium on Friday afternoon. “I go out, every single game, trying to justify my name being written into the lineup card.”

He grinned then.

“I just plan to age like fine wine,” he said, “and not milk.”

The Mets didn’t know what they had with the kid from Plant High. Nobody had any idea he would be this good. Then he hit 53 home runs as a rookie, and now he was the kind of breakout star as a kid that Dwight Gooden had been in 1984, when Gooden was still a teenager. Doc did it with fastballs. Alonso did it hitting balls out of sight. So he breaks rookie records, he breaks Mets home run records, he breaks RBI records. The Mets simply cannot risk losing him. He is as good a person as he is a teammate. As he is a Met.

“My goals haven’t changed,” he said, standing next to the batting cage, after Francisco Lindor had whooped and hollered and sounding like a cheerleader while Alonso launched balls toward the team bus. “I want to earn my stripes every game, every year. I want to be the best.”

I asked him if he is ready for the drama that this season will bring. He knew I was talking about the drama of his contract.

“I don’t look at it that way,” he said. “I look at the hard part already being over. Now I just want to do what I’ve always done, which means play and have fun.”

He was Rookie of the Year in 2019, and only finished 7th in the MVP voting, even if there wasn’t a more valuable hitter in the league that year. He has hit the 53 homers in a season. He hit 46 last year. The year before last he knocked in 131 runs. He wears No. 20. And, yeah, has missed 24 games in his big-league life.

Cohen wants his Mets to be new and different. Not if he loses Alonso, whether Cohen’s head gets turned by Soto at the end of this season or not, when Soto will be a free agent, too. Cohen grew up a Mets fan. His birthday is June 11. It means he had turned 21 four days before the Mets traded Seaver away in 1977. No one is saying Alonso is Seaver. No one the Mets have ever had is Seaver. Alonso is just the biggest star the Mets have now, and most popular. And he is theirs, at least for now. He is their Judge. The Yankees couldn’t afford to lose Judge. Cohen can’t afford to lose Pete Alonso. And can sure afford to pay him what he’s worth. Sooner rather than later. Or when it’s too late.

PAINT THE TOWN RANGERS BLUE, LEBRON IS STILL THE KING & RICHARD LEWIS WILL BE MISSED …

The Rangers are the best team in town.

It has been a long time since they were the best team in town, 10 years ago, back when they made that run to the Stanley Cup finals before losing a tough, tough series to the Los Angeles Kings.

The Knicks have fallen back lately, in what has been such an entertaining winter season at the Garden.

The Rangers, though, they just keep coming.

The Yankees fell down last year, the Mets fell down, the Jets fell down, the Giants fell down.

You can’t even find the Brooklyn Nets.

There was, of course, another time when the Rangers were the best team in town, and famously.

Another year that ended with a “4.”

That would be 1994.

When can I call off the prayer vigil for Scott Boras’ remaining unsigned clients?

LeBron had another one of those games and one of those nights this week, bringing the Lakers all the way back against the Clippers, when he clearly forgot what year it is.

Then he came back and did it again the next night against the Wizards, when the Lakers won in overtime.

And reminded everybody again that as hot a property as people still seem to think the NBA is, the league is still at its best and most compelling when he’s in the gym.

I love Steph Curry, don’t get me wrong.

And knew he we would show up the way he did at the Garden this week, in what felt like a one-night-only New York performance against the Knicks.

Curry has won as many titles as LeBron has.

It doesn’t change that LeBron, when he’s playing the way he’s been playing lately, really is still The King.

Put me down as someone who always thought that big-time college athletes always deserved to share in the riches they were bringing in for their schools, and their sports.

But the only difference between the current world of college sports and the old one we’re seeing now is that now it’s not just the schools and the networks acting like pigs.

By the way?

As soon as they take the playoffs to 12 teams, they’re already talking about 14 and if you think they’re going to stop there, send up a flare.

The transfer portal has turned college football especially into a traveling circus, and created a system where coaches don’t just have to recruit players out of high school, they have to recruit players they’ve already recruited, every single year.

Richard Lewis, who died the other day, was, to use a phrase he liked, one “amazing cat.”

He and Larry David, with whom Richard appeared in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” were born three days apart in the same Brooklyn hospital, and were dear and lifelong friends.

Richard was a terrific stand-up comic, he was a terrific actor.

He got sober more than 30 years ago, would end up battling Parkinson’s with grace.

And was so thoroughly and completely enjoying the second — or third, or fourth — act that he got with “Curb.”

Playing a part he was born to play.

Himself.

He will be missed.