N.Y. Mets: Tylor Megill Opens Season With a Dandy

From the desk: HEAD-BUTTING MR. MET

TYLOR MEGILL 

DELIVERS GAME ONE REMEDY

Tylor Megill's next start will be the twentieth of his young career.  But as they say, necessity is the mother of all invention as he very suddenly went from being a member of the depth squad to taking on full-time responsibilities.  

For the next couple of months, Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt are to form Flushing's alternative one-two punch; or so we fanatics hope.  Afterwhich, all eyes are on Carlos Carrasco, Taijuan Walker, lone-lefty David Peterson, and even Thomas Szapucki(?).

Thrown into the opening fray on short notice, then waiting out a rain delay, the Mets' sophomore right-hander Tylor Megill effectively picked up where he left off.  

Last season, in his 18th and final appearance, he faced 17 Atlanta Braves, throwing 74 pitches with 47 going for strikes.  He allowed just one hit, one walk, and fanned six.  

Thursday evening, Megill opened the 2022 regular season for the Mets with five shutout innings at Washington.  In another economically efficient performance, Tylor faced 18 batters and threw 68 pitches, with 47 (69.1%) going for strikes while averaging 11.3 pitches per frame.  He yielded only three hits (one for extra bases), walked none, and struck out six en route to his fifth ever major league victory.

Thanks to a 2.7 W/9 average, Megill, as a 25-year old rookie, was able to close out the 2021 season with a representative 1.283 WHiP to complement a 9.9 K/9 average.  He pitched seven complete innings just once, on September 10, at Citi Field against the Yankees; Tylor yielded two earned runs on four hits and one walk and fanned a career-high ten batters.  His only mistake was surrendering an early second-inning home run (solo) struck by Joey Gallo.  More importantly, in my opinion, that effort demonstrated measurable progression from start number one through number fifteen.  Otherwise, Megill offered up five or six other mention-worthy performances.  

Eight times he did indeed yield three runs or more.  But if you kindly omit an August 24 start against the Giants and a September 15 start against the Cardinals, Tylor closed out his 16 other starts with a 3.46 ERA through 83 innings pitched, while his overall season BABIP remained under three.

His fastball presently clocks in the mid-90s.  I'm just no fan for many reasons of the fastball; change; slider repertoire.  I like curveballs.  I digress ...

If Tylor Megill's performance continues trending in a positive direction, perhaps Mets fans can spend less time dwelling on Jacob deGrom.