Christian Scott does not have a strict innings limit, despite the way in which the Mets have limited him this season, David Stearns said.
There isn’t a set figure the team has earmarked when it comes to the rookie right-hander.
But they are doing their best to ensure his future health, such as pulling him at 77 pitches in Monday’s loss to the Pirates and sending him down to the minor leagues in June so they could cut down on his innings.
“There’s no crystal ball here. We don’t know exactly what the right answer is, in terms of pitch counts. We don’t have a firm innings limit on Scotty,” Stearns, the team’s president of baseball operations, said Tuesday at Citi Field before the Mets and Nationals opened a three-game series. “We’re going to try to do our best to evaluate how he’s feeling start-to-start, month-to-month and go from there. In this case, we have a pitcher who hasn’t pitched a lot on normal rest. He’s coming back on four days’ rest.
“We kind of knew that one of these first couple of starts we’re probably going to push him a little harder and one of them we’re going to have a little bit more reins on him.”
The 25-year-old Scott has pitched well, notching a 4.15 ERA in seven starts with a 1.03 WHIP and 30 strikeouts in 39 innings.
But, as a converted reliever, he has never thrown more than 87 ²/₃ innings in a single season, and is already at 81 ¹/₃ — factoring in his innings at Triple-A Syracuse — this year.
So the Mets are treading carefully with him.
“Trying to give him as much rest and recovery as possible. There’s no innings limit, there’s also trying to be smart about this,” Stearns said. “We’re trying to get him to the finish line of what we hope is going to be a competitive year and a playoff push and hopefully beyond that.”
The other factor in him getting the early hook against the Pirates, despite allowing just two base runners in 5 ²/₃ innings, was it was his first start on four days’ rest all year.
The Mets have given him extra rest at the big-league and minor league levels.
Once Kodai Senga returns after the All-Star break, the plan is to go to a six-man rotation, which will enable Scott and the rest of the rotation to have an extra day of rest between starts.