NEW YORK — As Tylor Megill ripped through another April, the chorus from he and the Mets resounded: This time, it would be different for the right-hander.
Three starts into May, however, Megill’s penchant for turning April flowers into May showers has manifested once again.
Megill was pounded by the Yankees on Friday, submitting the shortest outing of the season (2 2/3 innings) by a traditional Mets starter in a 6-2 loss. He surrendered four runs in the third inning that included three hits, four walks, including one to force in a run, and another Francisco Lindor error.
“Four walks in an inning, that ain’t gonna cut it,” Megill said. “I’m putting myself in bad situations by falling behind. That’s the main thing, just getting ahead of hitters.”
“He lost the strike zone,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “When you do that against an offense like this, they’re going to make you pay.”
Megill allowed four earned runs in his first 30 innings of the season. He’s yielded 14 in the last 14.
Megill’s tendency to fade isn’t necessarily tied to the calendar. It’s more that his first half-dozen starts of the season have often been his best.
Put that all together, and Megill’s ERA over his first six starts of any season is 2.78; afterward, it’s 5.62.
“We’ve got to keep working with him. He’ll get through it,” Mendoza said. “Whether it’s May or June, it comes down to executing.”
And so, before this season, Megill made it a focal point to not just start the season in the majors but to stay here for the duration. When he talked in late April about it being “a great time to be a Met,” he followed with his desire to remain one. “I want to be around these guys and help them win.”
On Friday, Megill looked a lot like the frustrating pitcher he was in the middle of last summer — the one with stuff good enough to blow heaters past Aaron Judge in the first inning but without enough command to avoid walking the seventh and eighth-place hitters consecutively with runners on to force in a run. In that laborious third inning, Megill went away from both his four-seam and two-seam fastballs and leaned more heavily on his secondary offerings, especially his slider: Of the 39 pitches he threw that frame, just 17 were fastballs.
He threw 14 sliders in the inning, just four of them for strikes.
Megill said he wasn’t comfortable with his fastball command that inning and was trying to generate some chase from the Yankees with his slider. However, the slider was in the dirt too often, and the Yankees chase less than any other offense in baseball this season.
In his defense, Megill’s last two starts have come against two of the best offenses in baseball: the Cubs and Yankees. He’ll be tested again next week in Boston.
Megill isn’t the only starter for the Mets whose results have taken a step back. Only once through the end of April had a Mets starter allowed as many as four earned runs in a game. Friday marked the fifth time in the last dozen games it’s happened, including each of the last two.
(Top photo of Francisco Alvarez and Tylor Megill: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)