Last night was the third straight game in which the Mets got fewer than five innings of work from their starting pitcher, with Tylor Megill exiting the mound in Atlanta having recorded just 14 outs. That was the same number as David Peterson on Monday night, and two more than Carlos Carrasco managed on Sunday in St. Louis.
Carrasco has had 10 starts of fewer than five innings this season, matching his total of a year ago, and becoming the first Mets starter to have multiple seasons of such futility. The record is 11 starts where no amount of offense would have qualified the pitcher for the win, set unsurprisingly in 1962, by Jay Hook — who did complete 13 of his 34 starts that year, too. Glendon Rusch completed one of his 33 starts in 2001, and also got bounced early 11 times to match Hook.
Along with Carrasco, the Mets have had Al Jackson in 1963 and Jack Fisher in 1965 reach double figures in this sorry category. So, never more than one pitcher in a season, although they’ve been close: Jackson had nine in 1962, as did Galen Cisco in ‘65. Gary Gentry and Nolan Ryan each had nine in 1971, as did the trio of Mark Bomback, Ray Burris, and John Pacella in 1980. Peterson is one away from making it another sour trifecta.
It was the 1980 Mets who set the team record for this with 58 games in which a pitcher failed to get through five innings. Last year, they got to 40. It’s not September yet, and they’re at 38, with Carrasco one away from tying the team record, Megill now at eight, and Peterson with seven. The remaining 13 of those starts: three apiece by Joey Lucchesi, Max Scherzer, and Kodai Senga, two by Denyi Reyes, and one each by José Butto and Justin Verlander.
We Can Pod It Out 173: Carry That Weight