Laura Albanese: Mets' Christian Scott showing results, resolve to be force in rotation
Mets starting pitcher Christian Scott against the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday. Credit: AP/Chris Szagola
PHILADELPHIA — Maybe years from now, people still will mention how Christian Scott, fresh off Tommy John surgery, pitched five scoreless innings only to have his manager tell a bunch of reporters it wasn’t enough.
That’s the best-case scenario, because it means that Scott will have succeeded enough to build a mythos around his career — part of the origin story for the promising pitching prospect who faded from memory when he suffered a UCL tear during a wild 2024 Mets season but returned two years later and reminded everyone exactly who he is.
And right now, “who he is” is one of the most dominant pitchers on the staff, part of the Mets’ future and one of the untouchables of this upcoming trade deadline fire sale.
To be clear, this is an endorsement of the very public challenge that interim manager Andy Green issued on July 8. In an era in which pitchers sometimes are coddled and managers often are neutered personality-wise, Green, who has very little to lose, let it rip. “He can step on the neck of the other team when he gets two quick outs,” he said of Scott then.
It’s a graphic, risky thing to say if you don’t know a young player’s makeup, but Green, who ran the Mets’ farm system until last month, knows Scott about as well as anyone.
Scott delivered in Thursday’s smoke-filled 4-1 win over the Phillies, allowing no runs and three hits with no walks and seven strikeouts in 5 2⁄3 innings. It took him only 79 pitches and he could have gone longer, but with a fresh bullpen, a day off Friday and two lefties coming up in the lineup, Green pivoted to Brooks Raley.
“I love when he challenges me,” Scott said of Green on Thursday. “I don’t want to hear how good I did. I want to hear what I need to improve on. It’s easy to come here and say I did a great job when me and him both know that I didn’t pitch up to my capabilities that day . . .
“Sometimes results [can] lie. I think it was a good kick in the [butt] a little bit, being able to light that fire into me, and I needed that for that day.”
Results can lie, but a reaction like that doesn’t.
Early in his major-league career, Scott has shown that he knows the difference between confidence and hubris.
At his best, he pitches fearlessly, fills up the strike zone and gives hitters multiple looks with his five-pitch mix. But he also uses his fallibility to his advantage: He threw 42% of his first pitches for strikes in the July 8 game against the Royals and 65% against the Phillies. Even in-game, he’ll throw a clunker here or there but manages to stop from spiraling.
The result is a 2.87 ERA that is 23rd among starters who have thrown a minimum of 50 innings and an average of 10.86 strikeouts over nine innings, seventh among starters.
“He’s been doing a lot” right, catcher Francisco Alvarez said through an interpreter. “I think the biggest thing is that he’s been able to mix his pitches better now. He’s been able to use them all for strikes. He knows how to command the first-pitch strike the way he wants to. He’s just been really impressive in that aspect.”
It gives the Mets reason for confidence and reason to keep him around along with their other standout younger players, even if the upcoming trade deadline makes it feel as if this team is about to move anything not nailed to the ground.
Assuming continued progress, having a rotation anchored by Nolan McLean and Scott, potentially alongside Clay Holmes, is a good start to 2027. And if Zach Thornton is anything like the Thornton we saw in his seven-inning performance against the Red Sox last Sunday, that’s formidable, too.
After his performance Thursday, Scott was asked about the conditions on the field. Canadian wildfires had thrust Citizens Bank Park into an ash-filled haze, and inadvertently, that provided some insight into his approach.
“I felt like I was breathing some metal in there,” he said. “But at the end of the day, a little spoonful of adversity didn’t hurt anybody.”
Even say, in the third, when Alvarez got smacked in the head on a backswing and Scott had to scramble to home plate to catch a foul pop-up — a white ball against a white mist.
“Just a little spoonful of adversity,” he repeated. “[That’s] two spoonfuls. Mix it in the coffee.”
And, in his case, make it better than it was before.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
