Photo by Ed Delany/MMO
Newly acquired right-handed starter Rick Porcello threw two scoreless innings Thursday night versus the Marlins, only giving up two base hits and striking out two.
Porcello retired the opening duo in the bottom of the first, getting leadoff man Jonathan Villar to ground out before winning an eight-pitch battle with Brian Anderson on a strikeout looking.
The Marlins did threaten with two outs, however, as Corey Dickerson grounded a 3-2 pitch through the hole into right field for a single and Jesus Aguilar lined a base hit into center field. Porcello only needed to two more pitches to get out of the inning, however, as he got Garrett Cooper to ground into a force out.
Porcello settled down in his second inning, getting Matt Joyce and Jon Berti to ground out before striking out Ryan Lavarnway on four pitches.
Rick Porcello had two strikeouts last night vs the Marlins, second via his curveball.
His curveball spin was in the 89th percentile last year and was his best pitch in terms of whiff% (28.7) and wOBA (.299).
Despite that, his curveball usage (12.6%) was lowest since 2012. pic.twitter.com/vb1gOF8WCd
— Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) February 28, 2020
The solid performance for Porcello on Thursday improves on his first start, in which he went only one inning, faced five batters, and gave up two hits leading to one earned run.
“Feels good,” Porcello said in an interview after coming out of the game. “I think I commanded mixing pitches a little bit better today, had some good changeups mixed in, some good cutters, sliders.”
A large struggle for Porcello thus far in his Spring appearances has been his pitch count. Porcello threw 17 pitches in his single inning debut this spring, and then totaled 40 in his second appearance Thursday on only 26 strikes. In a rotation with no clear order behind Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Marcus Stroman, Porcello will need to reduce his pitch count in order to be effective in this Mets rotation.
Porcello did induce four groundball outs on Thursday, which is a good sign for the veteran pitcher whose flyball percentage sat at a career-high 41.5% last year; a year in which his ERA soared to 5.52. A key for Porcello will be to lift his ground ball percentage into the forties and above, as his best seasons in the past have centered around this.
“There’s always things to work on, this is only the second time out,” Porcello said. “A couple fastballs ended up not exactly where I wanted them to, so keep working on fastball command and some of those little things and just keep making progress.”
