Mets’ Tylor Megill bolsters case for injured Kodai Senga’s rotation spot with strong spring start vs. Yankees
Tylor Megill continues to make his case for a spot in the Mets rotation.
The hulking right-hander hurled three hitless innings and struck out six Tuesday against a Yankees lineup missing many of its regulars, marking Megill’s latest strong outing of spring training.
Megill issued a pair of walks to shortstop Anthony Volpe and plunked second baseman Oswald Peraza but was otherwise dominant, at one point striking out four Yankees in a row during his scoreless start at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.
The 6-7 Megill, 28, now boasts a 1.13 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 8.0 innings over three appearances this spring. He threw 29 of his 49 pitches for strikes Tuesday, with his fastball regularly hitting 94 miles per hour and sometimes reaching 95.
Megill is fighting to start the season in a Mets rotation that will begin the year without ace Kodai Senga, who is dealing with a strain in the posterior capsule of his right shoulder. The Japanese-born Senga, who posted a 2.98 ERA during an All-Star debut season last year, received a platelet-rich plasma injection in late February, and the Mets shut down his throwing for three weeks.
Originally a 2018 eighth-round pick, Megill last season made 25 starts for a Mets team that dealt with an early injury to Justin Verlander and later traded Verlander to Houston and co-ace Max Scherzer to Texas before the Aug. 1 deadline.
A three-year MLB veteran, Megill last season pitched to a pedestrian 4.70 ERA – right in line with his career mark of 4.72 – but is working this spring with new pitches including a sweeper and a cutter.
“It seems like this offseason went terrific and my pitch arsenal is completely different,” Megill told the Daily News last month. “My slider is spinning pretty true. I used to throw like a gyro-slider and now it’s spinning like a fastball. The sweeper is good. It’s tight and it’s big.”
Without Senga, the Mets’ rotation features a vacancy behind Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and Adrian Hauser. Other candidates to fill that fifth slot include Jose Butto, Joey Lucchesi and David Peterson, who each started games for the Mets last season.
“When we’re talking about a shoulder, it’s scary, but after going through and doing all the imaging and all of that, we feel a lot better [about Senga],” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said on ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday’s game. “Kodai’s feeling a lot better. We don’t think that is going to be a long-term injury. We are expecting Kodai to pitch a lot of games for us.”
Most of the Yankees’ starters did not travel to Port St. Lucie for Tuesday’s spring training edition of the Subway Series, though catcher Austin Wells, center fielder Trent Grisham and Oswaldo Cabrera all faced Megill, along with Volpe and Peraza.
The Mets won, 5-4, with Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor both hitting doubles, and Lindor, Starling Marte and Brett Baty each recording an RBI.
Yankees top prospect Spencer Jones entered in the fifth inning and went 1-for-2 with a double, improving his batting average to .467 and his OPS to 1.289 in 15 spring at-bats. Mets third baseman Rylan Bannon robbed Jones of a would-be game-tying hit in the ninth inning with a diving stop on a ground ball that he turned into a force out. The Yankees re-assigned Jones to minor-league camp after the game.
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