WASHINGTON — Without A.J. Minter, Danny Young becomes the last lefty standing in the bullpen.
A journeyman southpaw who has pitched in five different organizations, the Mets have given him a chance to prove that he’s capable of pitching in the big leagues consistently. Young has made good on their belief in him since last season. He picked up big innings in the postseason when the bullpen was thin last fall and the Mets have deployed him against some of the league’s toughest left-handed hitters late in games.
The 30-year-old University of Florida product primarily works off of a hard sinker, which he started throwing more last season. He’s had some of the best results with his sweeper this season in small samples sizes. He’s thrown it seven hitters, and they have yet to get a hit with the pitch. Four times, he’s used it to strikeout hitters, with the horizontal break being tough to pick up.
He’s also throwing them for strikes.
“He’s attacking,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Monday at Nationals Park. “He’s throwing his pitches in the strike zone, and there’s a lot of movement there. It could be a tough left-on-left matchup, I like how he’s using all of his pitches. The biggest thing is just throwing strikes.”
This is the longest he’s been with a big league team, having been with the Mets since late last May. He has mostly neutral splits against righties and lefties, which makes it easy to deploy him in a variety of situations. Without a left-handed reliever in line in Triple-A and Minter out for the foreseeable future, it’s safe to say Young will be sticking around for a while longer.
The Mets had no update on Minter following imaging on Sunday. Mendoza said Minter will see other doctors as well, but a lat injury has been confirmed by imaging.
DISAPPEARING DIAZ
The Mets have gone to Ryne Stanek twice in save situations over the last weekend instead of closer Edwin Diaz. Stanek blew both saves, but that hasn’t changed the Mets’ opinion on how to best use and best protect Diaz.
The team didn’t want to use Diaz in back-to-back outings this weekend in Washington after he had a heavy workload earlier in the week. Diaz got up twice Wednesday in an extra-inning walk-off win over the Philadelphia Phillies, before coming off the mound with cramps in his hip. If the Mets are concerned about the hip, they aren’t saying. The focus seems to be more on managing his early-season innings load.
“It was just more usage,” Mendoza said of the decision to sit Diaz on Sunday. “The two ups the last time there with a hit, and then he threw 21 pitches, I think it was the day before. So we knew, because again, the way we’ve been using these guys, we knew yesterday we didn’t have him.”
Diaz has thrown more innings than Stanek, but that doesn’t take into account the times the Mets have needed their setup man and their closer to warm up in games without sending them out to pitch. Plus, Diaz’s outings have been somewhat long this season, with the right-hander putting men on base or giving up runs before locking down saves.
Stanek is eager to get back out there after two extremely challenging outings in Washington.
“That’s the job,” he said. “You go out there. I mean, they get paid to play ball too, so you go out there and you execute your game plan. A couple couple balls fall or squeak through, or whatever happens. That’s out of your control. You go there and you execute, and you move on.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Right-hander Paul Blackburn‘s rehab from a sore knee more than a month ago has been delayed by a stomach virus. Last week, Blackburn missed a rehab start with the illness and it seemed to hit him pretty hard at the wrong time, with Mendoza saying he lost weight right at the point where he was beginning his build-up. He’ll throw a bullpen at Citi Field on Tuesday when the Mets return home to face the Arizona Diamondbacks for three games.
Left-hander Sean Manaea (right oblique strain) and right-hander Frankie Montas (right lat strain) are still playing catch, but not yet ready to take another step in their respective rehabs.
