Tylor Megill injured in Mets' victory over Brewers
Mets starting pitcher Tylor Megill is walked off the field by pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and a trainer during the fourth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers in an MLB baseball game at Citi Field on Thursday, June 16, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom can’t come back soon enough.
The Mets stole a win from the Brewers, 5-4, to take the series but lost righthander Tylor Megill to an apparent injury Thursday night at Citi Field, further exposing a back end of the rotation that suddenly has major questions.
Megill exited in the top of the fourth inning with what he said was discomfort in the back of his right shoulder. He’ll get medical imaging done on Friday.
“I’m pretty curious to see what it is. It’s very strange,” Megill said. “It’s more so on the deceleration and not the actual throwing itself. We’ll find out tomorrow.”
After the tightness built up over the course of the 28-pitch inning, it worsened on his final offering, a 92.5-mph fastball — the slowest four-seamer he threw all night by 1.4 mph — to Omar Narvaez with the bases loaded. He winced as soon as he let it go. He had touched 99 in the first inning and averaged 96.6, so the abrupt drop in velocity was noteworthy.
Already, Megill has been on the injured list once this season. He missed three weeks-plus with right biceps tendinitis but does not believe this is related. This was his second start since returning.
“My arm feels great and everything, and something else decides to go like that,” said Megill, who allowed four runs in 3 1/3 innings. “So obviously very frustrating. I just want to be out there playing.
“[The last pitch was] when I felt it more than before. I was like, it’s not worth it to keep throwing. Obviously I wanted to, but obviously I don’t want it to blow up or anything.”
When the Brewers’ starter, lefthander Aaron Ashby, left injured in the fifth inning (forearm tightness) the tied game became a battle of the bullpens. The Mets jumped ahead in the eighth inning with a huge assist from first baseman Rowdy Tellez.
Tellez fielded Luis Guillorme’s ground ball but, in trying to get it to second base, threw it into leftfield. That meant the Mets (42-23) had runners on the corners with nobody out instead of potentially nobody on with two outs. Moments later, Nick Plummer grounded another one at Tellez, and this time he threw to second successfully for an out — while pinch runner Starling Marte scampered home as the go-ahead run.
The Brewers (35-30) nearly tied it against Edwin Diaz in the ninth. In what could conservatively be described as an aggressive send by third-base coach Jason Lane, Hunter Renfroe was trying to score from first on a double looped down the rightfield line by Jace Peterson with one out. Pete Alonso took the relay from rightfielder Plummer and fired to Tomas Nido, who applied the tag.
“With our closer on the mound and a ball hit down the line that took a little time to get to — in their mind, they gotta go,” Alonso said. “Renfroe is a really good baserunner. He was hauling around the bases. At that point, you gotta do whatever you can to tie the game.”
Diaz, though, was surprised.
“We got lucky there,” he said. “I thought I gotta face [Christian] Yelich with one out and men on third and second, and the situation changed. After two outs, I said, ‘This game is mine.’”
But not before a visit from manager Buck Showalter. Before Yelich, a former NL MVP who has struggled the past two seasons, stepped to the plate, Showalter wanted to talk to Diaz.
“He said, ‘Do you want to walk him?’” Diaz said. “I said, ‘No.’ He went back to the dugout. That’s why he came to talk to me.”
Showalter’s version was a bit different: “No, I would never ask him that. It’s not his decision . . . I would never put him in that position [to decide]. I know what his answer is going to be.”
Diaz struck out Yelich on three pitches. The last: a 93.9-mph slider on the bottom edge of the strike zone.
“Sugar did his job shutting the door,” Alonso said. “It was an excellent team win.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
