Christian Scott was effective, but an elevated pitch count denied the Mets’ young right-hander a chance at earning his first big league win in his fifth career start Thursday night at Citi Field.
“I thought I put myself in bad situations early, I didn’t get ahead,” Scott said after taking a no-decision for his five-inning performance in the Mets’ 3-2 comeback win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“When you’re battling from behind the whole game, that’s gonna raise your pitch count and not let you go deep into games,” the 24-year-old said referencing throwing first-pitch strikes to just seven of the 20 D-backs he faced.
But despite being lifted after 91 pitches with 58 going for strikes, allowing two runs on four hits with a walk and four strikeouts, it was another good performance from the righty.
“They made him work, deep counts, but he continued to make pitches,” manager Carlos Mendoza said, adding the young righty “competed and gave us a chance.”
In the third inning, Scott ran into trouble with one out and a runner on first after a leadoff bloop single. The right-hander’s command – especially on his fastball – abandoned him as he threw six straight out of the zone.
After a mound visit from Omar Narvaez, Scott got his fastball over the plate but Ketel Marte laced the 2-0 offering into the right field corner (110.3 mph off the bat) for a two-RBI double.
The young righty needed 54 pitches to get through the first three innings and after a pair of deep counts to start the fourth, on another fastball over the middle of the plate – the 19th pitch of the inning – Pavin Smith smacked a double (110.6 mph) into the right-field corner.
But Scott showed some moxy: getting the next two batters down on strikes chasing elevated fastballs to strand the runner and working his first 1-2-3 inning in the fifth on eight pitches.
“That’s part of the development, right?” Mendoza said. “When he’s not feeling at his best and guys are putting together good at-bats off him and he continues to fight and continues to make pitches.
“The presence on the mound, his ability to slow the game down and continue to execute pitches. That’s a good sign.”
After five starts, Scott has surrendered 12 runs on 24 hits over 27.2 innings for a 3.90 ERA and 1.084 WHIP to begin his big-league career.
“Just learning after every start, thought I’ve thrown ok, nothing great,” he said of his year so far. “Just being able to go out there and compete every pitch. Not having great stuff every time out, going out there and finding a way to get outs, get ourselves in the best position to win a game that I possibly can and take it from there.”
Scott puts his ability to hit the ground running at the big league level down to his confidence in the work that goes into being ready to take the ball every fifth day and trusting his teammates.
“[Tomas] Nido and Narvy, they’ve called great games so I’ve been back there really just riding their wave,” he said. “Gotta do a better job getting ahead, especially with the offspeed stuff and not let them sit too much on the heater, but I thought the team did a great job today to be able to string this one together.”
The fourth-inning double was the visitor’s last hit of the game as the bullpen added four scoreless frames setting up Francisco Lindor and J.D. Martinez to drive in the runs for what Scott called “a great team win.”
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