It’s tough for the Mets to ask for much more than what the pitching staff has been giving them so far this season. But on the occasions where they are asking for more out of their arms, the pitchers are ready to push themselves.
However, sometimes the push comes with the pull.
Monday night with the Mets up 5-0 on the Philadelphia Phillies in the ninth inning, Max Kranick was tasked with pitching a third inning. A third up proved to be a little too much for the right-hander. After giving up a run, manager Carlos Mendoza realized it, he had closer Edwin Diaz warm up quickly in the bullpen.
“The way I manage a game is, you win today, and you worry about tomorrow, tomorrow,” Mendoza said Tuesday at Citi Field. “Yesterday with that decision, I knew I was pushing Kranick. But then having to use another guy might affect today’s game. I was trying to get greedy out there and seal some outs, but knowing that I was asking a lot of Kranick. The one thing with him is, you’re going to get strikes. But, you know, they got him.”
And then the Phillies got Diaz too, with Bryson Stott hitting a three-run homer with two outs to cut the Mets’ lead to one. Diaz, as he has done this season, managed to get the final out to post the save.
In this case, Mendoza recognized that he had asked too much of Kranick and he altered course. But what fans don’t see in the bullpen is how hard the relievers are pushing one another.
“There’s that friendly competition where all these guys are doing really good, so I don’t want to be the guy that’s not doing good,” said left-hander A.J. Minter. “So there’s that good battle back and forth.”
With 10 appearances now under his belt this season, his first with the Mets and his first since undergoing hip surgery last summer, Minter has a sub-2.00 ERA and hasn’t allowed an earned run since April 2. While he’s “pleased,” with how he’s started the season — especially health-wise — he’s still trying to add a few more ticks on his fastball.
“I’m hard on myself, and I want to be back to the old, 100% self throwing 97,” Minter said. “But yes, I mean, I still think I can get there, for sure. I feel good physically, I think there’s just a few things like just mechanically that I think I can fix a little bit. Still working on it, but I don’t think it’s just going to come overnight. I’ve still got to continue to get reps and feel more comfortable.”
Minter has been sitting around 94-95 with his four-seam fastball this season. Without the velocity, he has to be more careful with the location, but he can’t back down from attacking hitters. If anything, he might have to mix his pitchers more to keep hitters off balance.
As a result, he’s throwing more cutters at the moment. That pitch hasn’t lost any velocity, and it’s still generating plenty of whiffs, even if it’s playing more like a slider.
“That’s what baffles me, I can’t figure it out why is my cutter velocity still the same in recent years, and the fastball is not,” Minter said. “I think it’s just a comfort pitch for me. And, you know, right now it’s more of a slider. In the past, it was more of a true cutter, but I’ve always just kind of manipulated the grip a little bit and how I throw it forward out of my hand. That’s where I get more of a slider trajectory movement.”
Whatever the movement is, it’s working.
“I’ve learned that more movement is better,” he said. “Rather than throwing a hard type of small slider kind of a cutter right now, I’m trying to get more movement on it.”
Minter’s splits have been mostly equal against right- and left-handed hitters, which allows the Mets to deploy him in various situations and leverages. They can use Minter for the eighth inning to set up for Diaz, especially against teams in the NL East like the Phillies and Braves that boast so many dangerous left-handed sluggers. Or they can use him in the seventh to hold a lead for Ryne Stanek, who brings the heat with a hard fastball.
The current group does a little of everything. Mendoza likes the different pitch shapes his relievers bring. They have a mix of hard throwers like Stanek, Diaz and Kranick, and guys like Reed Garrett and left-hander Danny Young, who don’t rely on a fastball at all. Huascar Brazobán suppresses hard contact and Jose Butto is solid and steady, able to throw multiple innings like Kranick.
But the key to the bullpen might just be how much the competition aspect.
“It’s contagious,” Mendoza said. “It’s like hitting. One guy goes, and before you know it, you’ve got 3-4 guys that are going as well. Same thing with the bullpen. One guy takes a ball, goes out there, and the guys behind are like, ‘Alright, I gotta follow up that,’ just feeding off each other.”
