Blade Tidwell's immaculate inning shows a glimmer of promise...
The Mets win their third straight Spring Training game, beating the Rays by a 10-1 score. Plus, how the Mets could really use Blade Tidwell as a surprise contributor this year.
What’s up with the Mets? 🌴
The Mets won their third straight spring game, defeating the Rays by a 10-1 score (box)
No. 8 prospect Blade Tidwell pitched a pair of perfect innings – including an immaculate inning – with five strikeouts
CF Jose Siri went 1-for-3 with a three-run home run (2) and a walk in the victory
RHP Dominic Hamel pitched well in relief, allowing just one walk with three strikeouts over two innings
INF Brett Baty continued his hot start to Grapefruit League play, going 1-for-2 with a walk and a run scored
Baty now has a 1.648 OPS over his first five Spring Training games
C Francisco Álvarez had some fun before the game, taking grounders at third base (Newsday)
Today’s Game 🗓️
Match-up: Mets (4-4) at Red Sox (3-4)
Where: JetBlue Park — Fort Myers, FL
Starters: RHP Paul Blackburn (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. RHP Walker Buehler (spring debut)
When: 1:05 PM EST
Where to Listen: Audacy Mets Radio WHSQ 880AM
The Mets need Blade Tidwell to develop ✍️
Mets right-handed pitcher Blade Tidwell gave us all a glimpse into his promise on Saturday afternoon in Port Charlotte, Florida.
Over a pair of innings, the 23-year-old starter struck out five batters. Even more impressively, the righty hurler pitched an immaculate inning – nine pitches, nine strikes, three strikeouts.
The Mets are going to need to start seeing a lot more of this version of Tidwell.
Last year, the young pitcher ended the season as the Mets’ eighth-ranked prospect in their farm system. It was an overall challenging season for Tidwell, who had been far more impressive over his three-plus minor league seasons.
After pitching effectively to start the season in Double-A Binghamton with a 2.41 ERA through seven appearances (five starts), Tidwell got called up to Triple-A for the final phase of his minor league development.
This is where trouble really found the youngster, as Tidwell struggled mightily throughout the remainder of the 2024 season. Over his 19 appearances (17 starts) after being called up to Triple-A, Tidwell pitched a 5.93 ERA with 77 strikeouts, 53 walks, and 17 home runs allowed in 85 innings pitched.
After moving up to Syracuse, Tidwell saw dramatic increases in hits per nine innings (+1.5), walks per nine (+2.9), and home runs per nine (+1.6) with a drop-off in strikeouts per nine (-2.4) compared to his stats to start the season in Double-A.
There are far more question marks around Tidwell entering the 2025 season, as this becomes a massive year in the organization’s evaluation of the right-handed pitcher. It’s important to remember that Tidwell was drafted before David Stearns took over the Mets’ front office, and he may not have the same loyalty to Tidwell as he would for a player his own regime selects.
But if we’re being honest here, the Mets could really use a win in the pitching department right now.
Obviously, the club is dealing with a short-term injury to Sean Manaea and a longer-term injury to Frankie Montas, but beyond that, this is a team that is going into their second straight season trying to build a rotation out of reclamation projects. One reason behind the team having to do that is in large part due to the lack of development of pitchers for the Mets over the last decade.
It wasn’t too long ago that the Mets were viewed as a sterling example of producing dazzling starting pitching. Just eight years ago, this was a team that had a rotation featuring Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz, albeit one that didn’t last long together. Things haven’t gone as swimmingly for the club in that department since.
After Matz was the final of those five starters to make their major league debut in the summer of 2015, this organization really didn’t have a single starting pitcher with major expectations make it up to the major leagues until this past season when they called up Christian Scott. It felt like a significant moment for the team as they were attempting to get back into their pitching-rich ways.
Unfortunately for the organization and the player, Scott struggled to find consistency and finish games in the big leagues and ultimately had the remainder of his 2024 season and all of this season end due to Tommy John surgery.
Outside of Brandon Sproat, who has also dazzled this spring, there still is not in the Mets minor league chest when it comes to pitching. After Sproat, who at best would potentially make his major league debut no sooner than this summer, there aren’t many other viable big league options left. Thus, a potential opportunity has arisen for Mr. Tidwell.
The Mets starting rotation is thin right now, and even thinner considering the fact that they’re going to be utilizing a six-man rotation for the majority of this season. Right now, that means that Tylor Megill, Paul Blackburn, and Griffin Canning would all be pitching big league innings at one point or another, at least early on this season. With Sproat still needing some more Triple-A seasoning under his belt and the club’s other prospects such as Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong still likely another year away from being ready, this gives Tidwell a chance to get a look at some point early this season if he impresses in spring and in Syracuse.
There’s no discussion of Tidwell being able to win a job in Spring Training, rightly so, but I could see there being a plausible situation where the Mets call upon Tidwell sometime in May if he’s pitching up to his potential and the trio of Megill, Blackburn, and Canning are all not quite up to snuff.
Saturday’s two innings were a glimpse of what the Mets originally saw in Tidwell, but it’s going to take a lot more evidence from the right-hander to get a legitimate look.
Let’s see if he can provide it.
Around the League 🚩
Yankees DH Giancarlo Stanton will start the season on the injured list due to issues in both of his elbows
Rangers RHP Jacob deGrom is expected to make his 2025 Spring Training debut this upcoming Friday
Pirates RHP Paul Skenes struck out four batters over three innings in the club’s 5-2 win vs the Orioles
Dodgers 1B Freddie Freeman and 2B Hyeseong Kim both connected of their first home runs of spring in LA’s 6-5 win over the Giants
Yankees RF Aaron Judge had two RBI in his spring debut as New York beat the Astros, 9-3
It looked to me like Tidwell made an adjustment in his delivery compared to AAA last year. He looked more controlled, more directional toward the plate. In the clips I saw from Syracuse, he was flying off the axis a little, very much looked like he was overthrowing.
Not yesterday. Very good sign. And we have a real one in Sproat, too. #LGM 🍎
While we're having sweet dreams, let's imagine Siri learning how to hit and the wonderful problem of where to put Baty if he continues to hit like he has so far this spring.