There’s just something about the return of warmer weather that seems to always give Tylor Megill the chills.
The month of May simply hasn’t been too kind to the right-hander throughout his career, and his late spring woes continued in the Mets’ 6-2 loss to the crosstown rival Yankees on Friday night in the Bronx. Megill lasted only 2.2 innings, allowing four runs on four hits with a season-worst five walks.
While the 2025 season is still relatively young, Megill has already seen the peaks and valleys. After producing a laudable 1.09 ERA across his first five starts, he’s allowed 15 runs over his last four outings (18.2 innings), bumping his ERA to 3.74.
But back to the warmer weather conundrum — Megill now owns a career 6.41 ERA between the May and June stretch. This mark is in stark contrast with his career ERA between the March and April window, which sits at 2.45.
“Four walks in an inning, that ain’t gonna cut it. I mean, that’s bascially what happened tonight,” Megill said after the loss. “I got into a tough situation, tried to make some pitches for chase, keep the score close. Ended up walking quite a few that inning. I feel like I made some good quality off-speed pitches, trying to implement some chase. But the fastball was kind of all over today.”
Megill’s mess was created in the third inning, as the Yankees brought 10 batters to the plate and produced four runs with help from some weak contact and defensive blunders.
The most frustrating moment came on a grounder up the middle from Paul Goldschmidt with the bases loaded and one out. Francisco Lindor snagged the hard chopper, but short-hopped the throw to Pete Alonso that bounced high off his glove at first and landed near the lip of the grass in right field. The infield single broke the scoreless tie and the throwing error allowed a second run to reach home.
But four of Megill’s five free passes came in the same frame, and that traffic on the bases forced Mets manager Carlos Mendoza to pull the plug much earlier than expected. Of the 72 pitches thrown by Megill, only 37 were for strikes. That’s an inadequate ratio.
“He lost the strike zone. He didn’t throw enough strikes,” Mendoza said of Megill. “When you’re doing that against an offense like these guys, they’re going to make you pay. It just comes down to executing. He kept going to that slider in that inning and couldn’t throw it for a strike. It’s as easy as filling the zone with quality pitches, and we didn’t do that today. … He’ll get through it. The stuff is there.”
Megill will look to rebound next Wednesday in a tricky road matchup against the Red Sox.
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