It wasn’t his best outing, but Christian Scott ate some valuable innings for the Mets in Thursday’s series finale against the Cardinals.
The young right-hander had allowed four runs on three home runs across the first two innings, and looked primed for a short outing, but Scott made some adjustments and pitched into the fifth inning without allowing another run. This allowed New York to salvage a game in the series by defeating St. Louis 5-4 on a late Juan Soto blast.
“It was weird, right? What we saw from that team this whole series, they don’t get cheated on fastballs,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after the game. “These guys are going to put their best swings at all times and they were super aggressive and you got to give Scotty credit that he recognized that and made some adjustments. Continued to stay on the attack, settled in nicely, but they clipped him there a few times.”
The Cardinals launched seven longballs in the three-game series. Against Scott, two came on fastballs up in the zone and the third on a sweeper up on a left-handed batter.
Not great from Scott, but the 26-year-old coming back from Tommy John, was generally happy with how he bounced back after the two homers. After that second longball, Scott allowed four baserunners (two walks, two hits) while picking up five of his six strikeouts.
“Obviously want some pitches back, and whatnot, but I feel like I’ve been doing a better job competing in the strikezone as the season has gone on,” Scott said of his performance. “Just got to get my timing down and being able to throw these pitches a little more that are new to me. Being able to do that consistently at a high level. Just focus on doing that.”
With the Mets bullpen struggling of late after subpar performances from Freddy Peralta and a bulk relief appearance from David Peterson, and relievers being called up and optioned daily, Mendoza appreciated Scott’s outing despite its short nature.
“[Scott’s outing was] important, especially with the way the first couple of innings unfolded,” Mendoza said. “They were hitting him hard, there was a lot of hard contact there. Again, nice job settling in, get into the fifth inning and we pieced it together. You have to give him credit; he didn’t back down.”
After scuffling a bit to start his season, Scott has turned in three pretty good starts. He struck out eight across five one-run innings against the Marlins at the end of May to earn his first career win. He followed that up with 5.2 scoreless innings against the Padres to earn his second career win.
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