Sometimes in baseball, a starter throws incredibly well, but the bullpen falters and ends up costing the team the game – it's just the way the cookie crumbles.
The Mets were in that situation Sunday because Cookie didn't crumble; in fact, in his season debut, Carlos Carrasco threw 5 2/3 innings of two-hit, one-run ball, retiring the final 15 he faced in a row after allowing Nelson Cruz's solo homer and a Josh Bell single back-to-back with two outs in the first.
"Carlos is in a different place right now than he's been in a while," Mets manager Buck Showalter said after Sunday's loss to the Nationals. "It's really good to see, you see it in his face. It was good to see him get off to a good start on the season because we could use him."
Carrasco's first season in Queens was not at all what he or the team wanted. A hamstring injury cost him the first four months of the season, a thumb injury in September lingered even though he didn't miss a start, and he had offseason surgery to remove a bone fragment from his right elbow that compromised his offseason and his spring.
Oh, yeah, and in between all that, he had a 6.04 ERA in his 12 starts, allowing 36 runs in 53 2/3 innings.
But in his first outing of the season, Carrasco got two outs, and then, after getting into a jam, he not only escaped, he dominated the rest of the way. Given that Cookie had a 13.50 ERA in the first inning over his 12 starts last year, it's understandable if one thought he would fall apart.
Instead, Keibert Ruiz flew out, and four of Carrasco's five strikeouts came over the next 4 2/3 innings.
"It feels good," Carrasco said of the outing. "I was ready today. I didn't locate that pitch to Nelson Cruz as you see him hit it out of the park; I should've thrown that for a ball, not a strike. But after that, I was able to shut it down for 15 batters in a row."
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The key was Carrasco's arsenal of breaking balls, as he called his slider and curve "my best pitches."
"Every pitch felt really good today, and I was looking to throw my fastball for strikes, but my best pitches were my breaking balls," he said. "It was really good, all four pitches were working well today."
Carrasco turned 35 last month, and looking ahead, the Mets have a $14 million club option with a $3 million buyout for 2023 – but that option becomes guaranteed if he pitches 170 innings and is healthy at the end of the season.
In the closer term, that innings total is going to be important for a Mets team that is without Jacob deGrom indefinitely and has already seen leg issues compromise Max Scherzer and Taijuan Walker this spring.
But, after seeing Scherzer, Chris Bassitt, and opening day starter Tylor Megill throw strong games, Carrasco was fired up to keep the ball rolling on Sunday – and beyond.
'That's the way I feel right now, and that's the way I should feel the entire season," he said. "You see the way they were pitching, that's what I was able to do today."
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