Adrian Houser struggled mightily during his brief time with the Mets.
The right-hander ended up being designated for assignment after pitching to a 5.84 ERA across 23 appearances (seven starts) while being bounced back and forth between the bullpen and starting rotation.
Houser then found himself stuck working his way back to the majors, until last week.
After landing with the Chicago White Sox on a one-year big-league deal, he immediately jumped into their starting rotation and provided a much-needed veteran arm for the young and struggling club.
And, of course, his turn came around for the series opener Monday afternoon.
Taking the Citi Field mound for the first time since being released by the club he delivered a terrific outing — limiting his former teammates to just three hits and a walk while striking out six over six-plus scoreless innings.
“He was really, really good,” Carlos Mendoza said. “He was able to maintain the velo. The way the ball was coming out it was 95, 96. The movement, I thought the changeup was really good and he kept attacking — he didn’t shy away from contact.
“We had a few at-bats where guys were up there swinging at the first pitch and he kept them in the ground. Watching last outing in Seattle and his last few in Triple-A, the velo is there — he was on it today.”
Houser is now just the sixth player in franchise history to throw six-plus scoreless innings in each of his first two starts with the White Sox.
Luckily for the Mets, they were able to overcome the revenge game and rallied for two runs off of the sluggish Chicago bullpen — walking things off on Francisco Lindor’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth.
“Houser was really good for them, it was just a great team win,” Lindor said.
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