Welcome back to the Mets Beat newsletter! Anthony DiComo has covered the Mets for MLB.com since 2007, including the past 16 seasons full-time on the beat. Paige Leckie is filling in on this edition of the newsletter. WASHINGTON -- Sometimes overlooked in baseball is the mental aspect of the game. For a team sport, a lot rides on individual performances, and it’s easy for players to blame themselves when the result doesn’t go their team’s way -- particularly when a player is less practiced with regard to mental fortitude. Many players, particularly relief pitchers, will say they try to treat every situation they’re thrown into as the same. They’re there to do the job, whether there are two outs and no baserunners or no outs and runners in scoring position. So it’s refreshing to hear Reed Garrett discuss his approach to pitching out of the bullpen, and the mental acumen that goes with it. For Garrett, it comes down to one thing: "Attacking the strike zone with all four of my pitches and challenging them and making them beat me -- not beating myself.” In his third year with the Mets since being claimed off waivers from Baltimore in June 2023, Garrett has carved out a nice role for himself as he pitched his way into high-leverage situations. Over the course of 2024, when Garrett pitched to a 3.77 ERA with 14 holds and four saves, he turned into one of New York’s go-to bullpen arms with runners on base and one of the club's most reliable arms in general. There were some rough patches, including July, when Garrett made only four appearances before hitting the IL with right elbow inflammation. |
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In large part, Garrett’s consistency on the mound is a credit to his mental work and his positive self-talk. At various parts of his routine -- as he walks to the bullpen, as he prepares to warm up and even as he gets ready to take the mound, Garrett tells himself, “If I get an opportunity to pitch, I will succeed.” “One of the biggest things that I've learned,” Garrett explained, “is just, if you try to suppress that feeling, or if you try to, like, pretend that you're not nervous or have a little bit of anxiety, or -- everybody has a little bit of doubt -- if you acknowledge it and say, ‘All right, I know that you're there, but like, I am going to execute and I'm going to succeed.’ “... It's that constant, like positive self-talk, of not letting the external factors creep in and overtake my sense of self confidence and my sense of knowing that I'm going to execute.” Garrett developed that self-talk when he was pitching in Japan in 2020 and 2021, when he was having a tough time. He called Josiah Igono, who was the mental strength coordinator with the Rangers when Garrett was first coming up in pro ball, and began the process of relearning those mental skills. “It's something that I had to learn and grow through as a player and as a person,” Garrett said. “And I think that has helped me not only in baseball, but in life.” |
That mentality is certainly paying off tenfold for Garrett in his professional life. Entering play on Monday, he was the lone reliever in MLB to inherit at least nine baserunners and not allow any to score this season. He also hasn’t allowed an earned run in any of his 13 outings this season. Going further back, Garrett hasn’t allowed an earned run in 26 of his past 27 games dating to Aug. 22, 2024, a stretch during which he has a 1.50 ERA (four earned runs over 24 innings) with eight walks and 27 strikeouts. That’s not too shabby. And it’s that mental aspect -- along with his skill on the mound, of course -- that makes Garrett such a talented reliever, one who the Mets trust in the most crucial of situations. "He's a huge part of that bullpen,” said manager Carlos Mendoza on Saturday. “The way we've been using him, especially coming in with traffic -- and his ability to execute pitches, his ability to have the awareness of the situation and slow the game down -- he's been huge.” |
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MLB MORNING LINEUP PODCAST |
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Which Mets team had the most home victories in franchise history? A) 1969 B) 1986 C) 1988 D) 2000 |
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With their four-game wraparound series in Washington in the books, the Mets are heading right back home to Citi Field, where they’re seemingly unable to lose. So far this year, the Mets are 12-1 in Queens, including a perfect 7-0 previous homestand. This kind of thing, of course, isn’t sustainable. Yet it wasn’t so long ago that the Mets were head-scratchingly bad at their own ballpark -- so much so that they brainstormed changes to their daily routines in hopes of improving. That’s no longer an issue, as the Mets have clearly figured out how to win at home. It helps that attendance has been notably high, with a record number of fans attending their first home series, and an average of more than 36,000 per night coming out for weekday games against the rival Phillies. “Not only have the numbers been good on paper, but it has felt like that in the ballpark, and it’s been exciting,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said last week. “Our players have talked about it. I think we all feel it when we’re here.” “We need to keep riding the wave,” owner Steve Cohen added in a social media post following the end of the Phillies series. The Mets will look to keep that momentum going with a quick three-game homestand against the competitive Diamondbacks. Tickets are available for those three games here. |
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C) 1988 The ’88 Mets went 56-24 at Shea Stadium, good for a .700 winning percentage. They ultimately lost to the Dodgers in an epic National League Championship Series. |
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