There were a lot of good things that came out of the New York Mets’ 8-4 victory against the Washington Nationals on Thursday at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie. Reliever Dellin Betances‘ first outing of the spring wasn’t one of them.

David Peterson, Jeurys Familia, and Aaron Loup combined for four scoreless innings before Betances entered the game, and that’s when things went off the rails for a short period of time. The tall right-hander did get through an entire inning, but it included allowing four earned runs on two hits (including a three-run homer from Ryan Zimmerman) and two walks.

The most eye-popping part of Betances’ outing was the velocity — or, the lack of velocity — from his fastball. For someone who used to pump fastballs in the mid- to upper-90s on a consistent basis, it’s certainly weird to see him settle in at 91 or 92 mph, which is what happened on Thursday. Of course, this isn’t necessarily an unexpected development, and while there’s still time for Betances’ velocity to increase prior to Opening Day, learning how to pitch without the velocity he’s always had is going to be a learning process.

And if he wants to win the fan base in Flushing over like he did in the Bronx, he’s got a lot of work to do in a short period of time.

When discussing his reliever’s less-than-stellar outing on Thursday afternoon, manager Luis Rojas provided the following thoughts, which were captured by Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News:

Any way you slice it, this was not an optimal first impression for the 2021 version of Betances. He could’ve been helped out by some better defense behind him, but it shouldn’t overshadow the general struggles he experienced against the Nationals, which are a continuation of what happened last year. With Seth Lugo sidelined for the beginning portion of the regular season, the performance of Betances and Familia will likely be even more magnified than before, so it’ll behoove the Mets to get his confidence up in time for the regular-season opener, which is fast approaching.