While we are only in the second week of spring training games, one of the early standouts for the New York Mets has to be right-hander Tylor Megill. On Tuesday, he continued his strong start to the spring campaign when he started against the New York Yankees. 

True, the Yankees did not have their stars on the field, such as Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, like what the Astros had down in West Palm Beach last Thursday, but that doesn’t take much away from Megill. He threw three hitless innings, walked two batters (one hit batter), and struck out six batters on 49 pitches (29 strikes). 

When you dive deeper into this outing, it was a tough start for Megill as he walked Anthony Volpe on four straight pitches. He was able to regroup with back-to-back swinging strikeouts and a groundout to escape the inning without allowing any damage. 

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The second inning was just the same as the first. Megill lost the battle with Oswald Peraza as he hit him with a 2-2 pitch. Despite allowing his second stolen base, the right-hander regrouped and picked up three consecutive swinging strikeouts to end the frame. Jeter Downs ended up striking out looking to begin the third to make it four straight strikeouts. 

According to manager Carlos Mendoza, it was good to see Megill get the chance to work from the stretch and get out of those jams as a warmup for what will happen plenty in the regular season.

 “The one thing that I liked about today was that he had to work from the stretch,” said Mendoza. “He had some base stealers there, and he held the ball. Quick steps, and he was still executing pitches…He came into camp to compete, and he is throwing the ball well.” 

The key for Megill in this start was picking up more whiffs from the Yankees hitters. According to Baseball Savant, he ended up recording 10 whiffs on the 22 swings that he drew (45%). During his first appearance against St. Louis on February 24, he had six whiffs. 

The two key pitches that caused a lot of those whiffs were the slider and the splitter (three apiece). Out of his six strikeouts, the last pitch was a slider or a splitter on four of them. 

In his first three appearances this spring, Megill has pitched to a 1.13 ERA and has 13 strikeouts to only two walks in eight innings of work. Keep in mind that last spring, Megill managed only 12 total strikeouts in five games (17 innings). 

The 13 strikeouts are tied for the most of any pitcher in all of baseball this spring. While stats are not the end-all, be-all in spring, keep in mind that the one pitcher he is tied with is one that will be a pick by many to win the NL Cy Young this year in Spencer Strider. 

As the splitter continues to get more comfortable for Megill, he can continue to grow in confidence and go from competing for a rotation spot to one of the keys to a successful New York Mets rotation in 2024.