Joey Lucchesi Had Mixed Results, But Settled Down After Rough Opening Frame

Joey Lucchesi made his first start as a New York Met in Game 2 of Saturday’s doubleheader in Denver against the Colorado Rockies.

It was Lucchesi’s first time pitching in 10 days and his results were mixed. He lasted three innings and gave up three runs, four hits, no walks, and struck out three.

Lucchesi was hit hard in the first inning. After giving up a lead off double to Garrett Hampson, Ryan McMahon followed with a sharply hit infield single that third baseman Jonathan Villar couldn’t handle.

With runners on the corners and no outs, Trevor Story hit a 99 mph, 401 foot sacrifice fly that Kevin Pillar caught on the warning track in right-center field to bring in the game’s first run.

After Charlie Blackmon followed Story with a bloop single to left, C.J. Cron cracked a 113 mph RBI double to extend the Rockies lead to 2-0.

Lucchesi settled in nicely after Cron’s double. A well placed RBI groundout from Josh Fuentes was the last run Colorado scored off the 27-year-old left-hander.

Out of Lucchesi’s 55 pitches, 49 percent of them were his signature “churve” pitch and 44 percent were sinkers. He also mixed in four cutters.

The churve was very effective. He didn’t allow any hits off the pitch and got 10 swings and misses out of 16 swings, good for a whopping 63 percent whiff rate.

Manager Luis Rojas used three relivers after pulling Lucchesi: Robert Gsellman and Trevor Hildenberger finally made their season debuts while Jacob Barnes pitched for the first time in a week and a half.

Gsellman and Hildenberger were sharp, with the former tossing a scoreless fourth inning and the latter a scoreless sixth. Barnes struggled though, giving up four runs, three hits, a walk, and a game-breaking three run homer to Josh Fuentes that extended Colorado’s lead to 7-2.

Since the Mets are off again on Monday, the team could decide to skip Lucchesi’s next start. If they decide not to skip him, his next turn in the rotation would come on either Thursday at Wrigley Field or Friday at Citi Field against the Nationals.