Former Florida ace Brandon Sproat made his Major League debut on Sunday for the New York Mets on the road against the Cincinnati Reds.<\/p>\n
The Gators alum shined in his debut, carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning. He finished the game pitching six innings, only giving up three hits and striking out seven batters while walking four. The right-hander ultimately got the loss, however, as the Mets lost to the Reds 3-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mets\u2019 fifth-ranked prospect impressed both Reds manager Terry Francona and his own manager, Carlos Mendoza.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I was very impressed,\u201d the Mets skipper said, according to MLB.com<\/a>. \u201cThought he was solid, you know. He pitched. I was impressed with the way he used the secondary pitches\u2026 Overall, a great performance.\u201d (quote from MLB.com)<\/p>\n Sproat was excited to make his dream come true, but remained humble postgame when asked about his performance.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was really good,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have my best stuff out there, but went out and competed for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n Sproat\u2019s family was in attendance to watch the game. He credits his mother, Carolina, for guiding him to achieve his lifelong dream.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was one point in the sixth (inning) when I heard my mom. I know that voice from anywhere,\u201d Sproat said postgame. \u201cBut super-blessed for (family) to make it. They have been my backbone from day one\u2026 always supported me and I love them to death.\u201d (quote from Pensacola News Journal)<\/p>\n The 24-year-old pitched for the Gators from 2020 to 2023, leading them to the College World Series in his final season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over his Gator career, Sproat tallied 223 and \u2154 innings pitched over 56 appearances. He made 37 starts, going 19-8, finishing his collegiate career with a 4.27 ERA and 242 strikeouts. He earned ABCA First Team Southeast All-Region and Second Team All-SEC honors in his final year. The New York Mets selected him 56th overall in the 2023 MLB draft, one year after selecting him in the third round, where Sproat ultimately decided to return to Florida for one more season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sproat is the third pitching prospect the Mets have called up in the last month in an effort to lock up a wild-card spot and a playoff birth. Fellow rookie prospects Nolan McLean (No. 3) and Jonah Tong (No. 4) have impressed as well, with a combined record of 5-2 over seven games.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing what Nolan\u2019s done so far, it\u2019s incredible. Seeing Jonah\u2019s debut, that\u2019s incredible as well,\u201d Brandon said after his debut. \u201cI think the Mets have a great farm system, and they do things right. So I think there\u2019s a bright future for us.\u201d<\/p>\n That bright future will hopefully be a deep playoff run for him and the Mets. The Mets hope Sproat, McLean, and Tong can potentially lead their playoff rotation. New York sits at third in the wild-card for the last playoff spot, three games behind the San Diego Padres and three games ahead of the San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n While it hasn\u2019t officially been announced, based on the Mets\u2019 rotation, Gator fans can anticipate Sproat to make his next start Saturday, September 13, at Citi Field against the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n Category: Baseball<\/a>, College Baseball<\/a>, College World Series<\/a>, Former Gators<\/a>, Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Baseball<\/a>, MLB<\/a>, NCAA<\/a>, SEC<\/a>, University of Florida<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Florida ace Brandon Sproat made his Major League debut on Sunday for the New York Mets on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[72037,72038,3307,66840,49,48,6388,72039,5915,72040,6389,462,475,72041,1464,82,72042,44112],"class_list":["post-132137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-collegebaseball-gators-uf","tag-gatorsbaseball","tag-baseball","tag-brandon-sproat","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-florida","tag-florida-baseball","tag-florida-gators","tag-florida-gators-baseball","tag-gators","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-not-latest","tag-sec","tag-sports","tag-uf","tag-university-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}