Christian Scott knows that his stuff is going to play at the major-league level and after the first inning of his New York Mets debut on Saturday against the Tampa Bay Rays, he showed just that.
“I’m confident in my stuff, confident in my work, my preparation, my routine,” Scott said (h/t SNY). “I’m just going out there to attack hitters and see what happens.”
What happened was a 24-year-old right-hander showing dominance for the majority of his MLB debut. He gave up a run on consecutive hits to the first three batters he faced, bore down with a strikeout and a first-inning-ending double play, then hit his stride.
“[During that first inning, I was just thinking] get a ground ball, double play. I was able to do that and that was huge,” he said. “I was really able to cruise after that.”
Scott retired 12 Rays in a row from the bottom of the first to the bottom of the fifth while going 6.2 strong innings, allowing just that one run on five hits with six punchouts and one walk.
Across his 94 pitches, he generated 18 swings and misses — a season-high for any Mets pitcher in a single game — while 15 of the 18 balls that were put in play by the Rays were deemed soft contact by Baseball Savant. His offspeed pitches were his great equalizer. A mid-80s sweeper and a high-80s gyro slider kept Tampa batters out in front, which set up his mid-90s fastball well.
“I was super comfortable out there, trust my stuff, pound the strike zone,” Scott said. “It’s exactly what I wanted to do. I was able to throw a lot of changeups to righties today which was huge to get them off my heater and my sweeper and just cruise after that.”
Scott’s arrival and subsequent promise couldn’t come at a better time for a Mets rotation that is slowly returning to health with the returns of Tylor Megill, Max Kranick, and Kodai Senga on the horizon. In the meantime, though, New York is in the midst of a 27-day stretch that features 26 games, which will put further stress on a starting rotation lacking length that is now without Adrian Houser after he was demoted to the bullpen.
“This is what we’ve seen out of him in Triple-A. Body language, his ability to make pitches when he needs to, and he was tested right away,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “The adjustments he made after they were aggressive early in counts when he was using that sweeper and chasing, he was pretty impressive in a really good outing.”
