Frankie Montas knew it from the jump during his season debut versus Atlanta on April 24: He was tipping his splitter.
The good news?
That discovery — along with another that surfaced Sunday in Pittsburgh — suggests that Montas and the Mets have a path forward. Despite early struggles, Montas still has high-end stuff and now believes he can pitch more effectively.
“I’m not going to say exactly what I was doing,” Montas told SNY. “But I was tipping the split. We got it cleaned up.”
In that game, Montas pitched five scoreless innings, but the Braves swung at just one of the nine splitters he threw — a strong indicator that they knew what was coming.
Then, after Montas’ first few pitches on Sunday, folks on the Mets bench noticed that runners on second base were picking up a tell on Montas’ sliders and/or sweepers, and using a signal to relay their findings to the batter (this is not cheating, but long accepted gamesmanship when a pitcher reveals what he is going to throw).
Like the issue of tipping his splitter, Montas believes that he has addressed the tells on the breaking ball.
“I feel good about the new pitch, the sweeper,” Montas said. “A hundred percent I was tipping it [in Pittsburgh]. We’re good. We’re definitely trying to clean it up.”
Montas’ first inning on Sunday ended up a disaster. He allowed five runs en route to a 12-1 loss against one of baseball’s worst offenses. But the tipping revelation offers a legitimate explanation for it, and reason for hope that Montas will stabilize in the near future.
It makes sense: In his first two starts for the Mets, Montas’ stuff has actually been high-end, particularly his heavy sinker and mid-90s fastball. The four-seam fastball was down an average of one mile per hour from the first start to the second, but it did not appear that the quality of Montas’ pitches were the problem.
Tipping wasn’t the entire issue. In Pittsburgh, Montas also threw a handful of pitches in unwise sequences. But that is good news, too, in that it is as fixable as tipping.
At a dark time for the Mets’ rotation, consider this a small reason for hope.
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