After his dismal performance against the Houston Astros this week, the Mets demoted Tylor Megill to Triple-A Syracuse.
The Mets hoped Megill would build off the best start of his 2023 season -- when he gave up just one run in six innings against the Cardinals -- but that wouldn’t come to pass. Instead, the big righty gave up four runs in just 2.1 innings pitched on Wednesday, in what has become a pattern of inconsistency.
But the team believes Megill’s upcoming time in the minors will benefit him.
“Chance for him to get back to what he’s capable of,” manager Buck Showalter said prior to Friday’s game against the Phillies. “He’ll be the first to tell you what he can potentially bring. He talked about taking a breath, and up here he was working on some things trying to get back [to pitching better] and now he can go down there and, I don’t want to say experiment, but get back to where he was.”
Showalter said he and the organization had a “tough” conversation with the 27-year-old Thursday and Friday, but the Mets saw that Megill wasn’t consistently pitching to their expectation, and an extra reliever -- in this case, RHP Vinny Nittoli -- was needed for the weekend.
“We like him a lot and he’s capable of better,” Showalter said of the conversation he had with Megill. “Talk about things that need to be done and try to spell it out. Guys need to go down there with an idea and plan. He knows it, trying to execute it just not able to do it consistently enough. I look forward to him getting back into the mix here and he controls that. Go down there and pitch well.”
“I’m hoping to see him go down there and put some things into use and be a little more free to try some things that he’s been wanting to. It’s tough to experiment up here.”
Early last season, Megill was a revelation for the Mets when a lot of their big arms were down with injury. He went 4-0 in April with a 1.93 ERA thanks in large part to his high-90s fastball that dominated his opponents.
Unfortunately, Megill suffered his own injury that would sideline him for most of the 2022 campaign. And as Showalter would say Friday, the days of Megill consistently throwing 97-98 mph are behind him but there’s a bigger issue afoot.
“It’s there if he wants to go there. He can still go get it if he wants to,” he said. “Physically, it’s not in his best interest. He’s shown he can pitch, not throwing every pitch 97-98. The command is the thing that’s been the issue. The walks, the 0-2 to 3-2 [counts]. The most frustrating is his command … He’s chasing a delivery. I think the command has been the biggest issue.”