Robert Gsellman made his return to the Mets rotation Wednesday night after having his turn skipped last week. The young right-hander pitched well, giving the Mets six innings and allowing three runs on six hits. He struck out three and walked one.

Gsellman picked up his first quality start of the season, in what has been a rough 2017 campaign for him so far. Through seven starts, Gsellman has a 2-3 record with a 6.45 ERA with 33 strikeouts.

On his start, Gsellman told reporters post game that he thought he was “getting ahead of batters early in the count, and maybe struggled a little bit putting them away, but I got the job done.”

“This is definitely a big step forward,” Gsellman added. “Throwing my slider for strikes was a big thing. That’s where I’ve been struggling. And my sinker was working really well so that’s what I liked.”

In position to get the win, Gsellman was curiously pulled after six innings with only 84 pitches thrown. Mets manager Terry Collins later said this was because Gsellman was struggling and he wanted to have the righty leave with a “good feeling.”

“I knew that was going to get brought up,” Collins said. “This kid has really been struggling. At times, you want him to leave with a good feeling… You send him out he gets in trouble, you have to go to Salas anyway. So we just said, ‘Let’s start the inning with Salas and he’s done his job.”

Fernando Salas came in to start the seventh and after getting the first two outs, he loaded the bases with a pinch-hit single and walking two straight hitters. Collins then replaced Salas with newcomer Neil Ramirez who coughed up a game-tying single to Wil Myers that was an inch from being a grand slam.

When reporters spoke with Gsellman after the game, he said that he was ready to go out for the seventh. “I was fine. I felt good,” Gsellman said. “If Terry wanted me to go out for the seventh, I could, but he’s the manager and he makes decisions around here.”

No matter the outcome of the game, it was a step in the right direction for Gsellman. The Mets will need some more innings out of him while they await the returns of Steven Matz and Seth Lugo.