NEW YORK — Edwin Díaz, the New York Mets’ star closer, said he isn’t concerned about his velocity being down to start the season.
Díaz, who missed all of last season after a knee injury that required surgery, attributed the lower readings through his first seven appearances of 2024 to simply getting his arm back in regular-season shape. He also said his mechanics “have been a little bit off.” Díaz said that on Monday, his last outing, he was pulling himself to the first-base side. He worked on the issue before Wednesday’s game.
Díaz has averaged 96.6 mph on his four-seam fastball so far this season. The pitch sat at 99.1 mph in 2022 and, to compare to the first month of a season, 98.1 mph in April 2022.
On Monday, Díaz worked the second appearance of a back-to-back for him. He threw seven fastballs, with an average of 95.8 — essentially a full mph down — with the hardest one timed at 97.7. The previous day, the velocity looked fine — he sat at 97 and threw as hard as 98.3 — so the days of consecutive work may have been a factor in the dip.
Regardless, Díaz has succeeded in every outing. He has converted all four of his save opportunities and has a 1.29 ERA with 10 strikeouts in seven innings. He has allowed just two hits (one being a solo home run, his only earned run surrendered) and two walks. Díaz’s expected numbers and peripheral data also suggest he has picked up where he left off in overwhelming batters.
“As soon as everything picks up, I’ll be fine,” Díaz said. “I am getting outs with 95 to 98 right now, and my goal is to maintain 97 to 100 the rest of the season. And if I am able to do that, then I think my slider will also be way better.”
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said the club wasn’t worried about the velocity, either. It’s also typical for pitchers — ones who didn’t miss all of last season — to need time to ramp up during the season to reach a certain level of velocity.
“That’s in the normal range,” Stearns said on Tuesday during an availability with reporters. “And back-to-backs early in the season. Not concerned.”
In Díaz’s first month back after missing last season, the Mets have been conservative in how they’ve used the closer. He’s appeared exclusively in the ninth inning and for no more than three outs in each of his first seven appearances.
However, manager Carlos Mendoza was prepared to call on Díaz for a longer outing last Sunday against the Royals. In a scoreless game, Mendoza gave the ball to Brooks Raley to face the bottom third of the Kansas City order in the eighth inning. Díaz, who usually doesn’t start warming up until the half-inning before he enters, was up in the pen to start the frame. That was with an eye toward the lineup turning over to right-handed hitters Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr.
Had Garcia stepped to the plate with a runner in scoring position, the Mets were going to turn to Díaz to close out the inning. And, depending on how many pitches that required, New York was willing to extend the closer into the ninth inning.
Raley retired the Royals in order, the Mets took the lead in the bottom of the inning, and Díaz closed it out (despite allowing a solo home run) in the ninth. But the moment showed that after a preliminary period of caution, New York is ready to start deploying Díaz like they did in his outstanding 2022 season.
(Photo: Adam Hunger / Getty Images)
