With Carlos Carrasco, Noah Syndergaard and Joey Lucchesi all down with injuries, the Mets’ shorthanded rotation desperately needed a boost, and they’ve gotten an unexpected spark in Tylor Megill.
Pitching in just his second career major league game, the 25-year-old pitched five strong innings, striking out eight and making just one costly mistake, a three-run home run to Ozzie Albies in a 4-3 win for the Mets, who finally came alive offensively to capitalize on Megill’s strong outing.
Megill, called up earlier this month to make up for the loss of Lucchesi, who is done for the year with Tommy John surgery, has now allowed five earned runs in 9.1 big-league innings, but most importantly, the Mets have won both of his starts.
“Good stuff, man,” manager Luis Rojas said of Megill’s outing. “I can tell when this kid was putting in the numbers in Double-A and then in Triple-A, then comes in and brings in the same thing he was doing down there. He’s not overdoing anything. He’s not overly excited.”
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The lack of excitement and emotion on the mound was the prevailing sentiment from Rojas and battery mate James McCann after Tuesday’s win, as both raved about the rookie’s ability to remain poised on the mound in his first taste of the majors, while going up against a strong Atlanta lineup.
“That kid has pure ice through his veins,” Rojas said. “Second outing of his career, I know he faced the same team, but throwing some of the pitches he threw in the zone to those batters, facing Freddie Freeman and Acuna and those guys, just having confidence to throw those pitches in some hitter’s counts, and guys were battling and fouling pitches off. It just tells you there.”
For McCann, it was easy to anticipate another strong night for Megill once the pair started warming up before the game, where the youngster was already showing off his noticeable poise.
“He’s kind of like a slow heartbeat guy,” McCann said. “Even warming up before his first big league start, there’s no panic, there’s no stressing on his part, almost a too-cool-for-school type attitude. Then he gets on the mound and competes. It’s not a lazy thing, just a slow heartbeat. There’s no situation too big for him.”
Megill didn’t feel that poise himself in his debut, but he settled down and carried that into Tuesday night’s start, once again helping the Mets get a win and potentially forcing the team into a difficult decision once the demanding schedule littered with makeup games lightens up and there is no more need for a six-man rotation.
“I’d say when I’m out on the mound, I have a lot of emotions going, but in a way, today I was a lot more comfortable going out than in my debut, that was obviously a little nerve-wracking,” Megill said. “But having seen the lineup already, coming back out again, I had a lot of familiarity with the lineup, and just being able to execute and do better than last time.”
Either Megill or Jared Eickhoff will likely round out the rotation once it goes back down to five, and although Megill has looked better, it may go to Eickhoff with Megill having minor league options remaining. But regardless, the Mets have found an unexpected to contributor that has strung together crucial innings when the team needed them most.
“He’s been a blessing for us,” Rojas said. “This is one need that we had, and he happened to be the guy that was throwing the ball the best down there for us and he got the call-up, and he’s been responding well.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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