Even though he tossed five scoreless innings in Wednesday’s win over the Kansas City Royals, Mets starter Christian Scott believes there’s still lots of room for improvement.
The 27-year-old told reporters after the game that he didn’t have his “best stuff” and credited catcher Francisco Alvarez for calling a strong game against a Royals squad who had scored 31 runs in their last two games.
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“I felt good about it. I didn’t have my best stuff today, but I thought Alvy called a heck of a game to keep the hitters off balance,” Scott said. “It’s a team that scored a lot of runs recently. I’m just trying to mix speeds and do my best to stay in the strike zone, out of the strike zone, help them expand a little bit. But yeah, I thought Alvy called a great game, defense played great, and obviously A.J. [Ewing] leading off gave us a boost there. I’m just riding that wave.”
Scott noted how he had to battle through the first two innings and was able to hold the Royals scoreless despite throwing 49 pitches. He thought his cutter was strong, especially against left-handed hitters, and his slider was working well, too, in tough counts.
Overall, Scott allowed three hits and struck out five with a walk over 90 pitches, lowering his season ERA to 3.17. Looking ahead, the right-hander knows there’s more he can accomplish.
“There’s always something to get better at,” Scott said. “For me, I know it’s going deeper in games. I take that to heart, I take that personally. Being able to go out and do that consistently is my goal. I’m always throughout my career going to be trying to get better at something. For me, right now that’s what I’m going for.
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“Going deeper in games can help this bullpen out, help the team out. Being able to do that hopefully gets us more wins. That’s my goal going forward and I’m excited to do it.”
Interim manager Andy Green agreed, saying the two spoke after Scott’s night was done and believes “he’s better” than he was Wednesday night.
“It’s a great outing, you go five scoreless innings, right on 90 pitches. It’s a great outing. He’s better than that, too, at the same time,” Green said. “…He can step on the neck of the other team when he gets two quick outs. That’s how he’s going to get deeper into the baseball game. It was great, I don’t want to take anything away from it. Knowing what someone has inside of them and what they’re capable of… the process stuff for Scotty can get better and better.
“And part of that, he’s coming back off of TJ, he’s pitching in his first full major league season. He’s doing a lot of great things, but the bar is going to be held really high for him because we think he can reach it, we know he can reach it. We’re just going to keep talking about those things… There’s another level there and even with five scoreless, we’re going to keep asking for more.”
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With the team’s support behind him, the future looks bright for the righty. He will have to wait until after the All-Star break for his next start, but will certainly be looking to complete at least 6.0 IP for the first time this season when he does.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’
