Mick Abel tees up longballs for Mets in latest troubling outing

PHILADELPHIA — Mick Abel’s five major league starts have been a mixed bag.

When he’s been good, he’s been very good.

When he’s been bad, the ball has flown, specifically at Citizens Bank Park.

Saturday night, Abel endured the roughest outing of his big-league career, allowing four solo homers in three innings to a New York Mets team that would bash seven of them in an 11-4 win over the Phillies. That volume of long balls left Abel not so much looking for an answer as trying to narrow down the scope of the obvious fix: His fastball command.

“I think fastball command in general, just kind of was in the zone too much, trying to go top rail or above the zone with it,” Abel said. “Just kind of left it over the plate.”

Abel allowed no home runs in his first two MLB starts, then three on June 10 against the Cubs. He was back to none in five solid innings against Miami on June 16. Then came Saturday night. All seven of the home runs he’s allowed in the big leagues have been of the solo variety.

There’s no single, clear culprit in his arsenal. Abel’s homers against the Cubs came on three different pitches. Saturday, he left a fastball up to Brandon Nimmo in the first inning, then was beaten by Nimmo on a 2-2 curveball in off the plate his next-time up, a 369-foot cheapie that left the bat at 96 mph and would’ve gotten out of only nine other ballparks. “I missed, but still a tough ball to hit,” Abel conceded.

Before Nimmo, Francisco Lindor gave a ride to a 97-mph fastball just above the knees. After, Juan Soto put a charge into a 96.6-mph fastball at the top of the zone, both on 3-2 counts.

The easy answer, then, is fastball command, for a pitcher who throws his high-90s four-seamer 43 percent of the time and relies on a curveball off that as his primary secondary pitch. Saturday, he needed his fastballs at the top of the zone higher, his fastballs in the middle of the zone nearer the edges and his breaking balls off the plate farther off it.

“Just didn’t execute pitches,” manager Rob Thomson said. “That’s really what it is. He left the ball out over the plate and up, not up enough, and they put some good at-bats on it.”

Abel didn’t walk a batter. He also only struck out one and allowed six total hits. He needed 73 pitches to get nine outs, which forced Thomson into the bullpen early and likely will necessitate a move to reinforce the ‘pen before Sunday’s series finale.

Joe Ross, Michael Mercado and Taijuan Walker, the latter working back-to-back days for the first time, also gave up solo homers. Ross pitched two clean innings before getting stretched into a third. He and Mercado gave up three earned runs apiece.

Home runs have not been a problem for Abel at other levels. He’s allowed only four home runs in 57 innings in Triple A this season. He gave up 15 homers in 108.2 innings last year and 15 in 113.1 innings in 2023. Command has been an issue, but only as it pertains to walks. He’s minimized that in the bigs, with four walks in 23.1 innings.

The more pertinent split might be in quality of opponent. He bullied the Marlins and Pirates, both last-place teams. He got hit around by the Cubs and Mets, both first-place teams, in the Mets’ case by percentage points over the Phillies thanks to Saturday’s win. The outlier is a solid Toronto team that he shut down for 5.1 innings of one-run ball.

For now, the focus is on the micro challenge of getting what could be an imposing fastball to do what he wants.

“I’ve got to take it as it is. Be honest with myself,” he said. “I wasn’t locating my fastball, so that’s probably what I’m going to get after in my ‘pen this week. Bouncing off-speed, making sure it’s down in the zone, not missing up with it, just get back to work tomorrow.”