Carrasco moves in right direction in Mets' win over A's

OAKLAND -- For the first time this season, Carlos Carrasco looked a little more like the pitcher the Mets need him to be.

It wasn't a perfect outing. From inning to inning, the 36-year-old righty alternated between setting the A's lineup down in order and working around heavy traffic on the basepaths. But it was enough to secure the Mets' third straight series win as they edged the A's 3-2 at the Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.

Manager Buck Showalter was proud of how his veteran starter competed despite a rough start to the season, saying Carrasco was in "attack mode."

"I thought he had a little better changeup-split," Showalter said (the Mets refer to Carrasco’s changeup as a “changeup-split” because it has some characteristics of a splitter). "Better feel for the slider. He got some counts in his favor, and got us on and off the field."

Carrasco managed to complete five innings for the first time in the 2023 campaign. Looking at the broad strokes of his afternoon, he put up his best performance of the young season, allowing two runs over five-plus frames. It was a welcome departure from his first two starts in which he combined to give up 11 earned runs across 8 2/3 innings.

Dueling against A's starter Shintaro Fujinami, Carrasco did not exit with the lead, but was able to keep the Mets in position for their eventual comeback in a two-run seventh inning.

"Everything feels good today," Carrasco said. "I only had an inning [where] they got two runs, and I was able to stop it right there."

Carrasco was also able to get a better handle on his command, with which he has struggled in 2023. Entering the day, he had walked seven batters in his first two starts. Throwing 51 of his 88 pitches for strikes, Carrasco limited the damage to a single walk on Saturday afternoon -- though he also hit three batters in a game for the first time in his big league career.

Carrasco hasn't exactly lit up the radar gun throughout his career, which has made his ability to locate his pitches critical to his success in the big leagues. As his velocity has declined this season, that precision has become even more important.

"I'm really happy, because the first two games, there was a lot [of walks]," he said. "I think that's really important, just to keep those walks really low."

It wasn't the cleanest of outings, but it still represented a step in the right direction as far as the Mets are concerned. The club needs Carrasco to emulate his performance from 2022 -- in which he went 15-7 with a 3.97 ERA across 29 starts -- to help stabilize a rotation that has already been impacted by injuries in '23.

Justin Verlander is making progress toward his Mets debut, but he is still a ways away as he builds up in his return from a right teres major strain. José Quintana will not factor into the pitching equation until at least the second half of the season, as he will require an extended period of recovery and then a full ramp-up after undergoing a bone graft surgery to repair a lesion on one of his ribs.

Adding another wrinkle into the equation, Showalter announced postgame that José Butto -- New York's No. 15 prospect, per MLB Pipeline -- will start Sunday's series finale in place of Max Scherzer, who is dealing with some lingering back soreness. Scherzer's next start will likely come on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

The Mets had already planned on inserting an additional starter into the rotation in the coming week to give their arms some extra rest, but they chose to do it sooner than originally planned in order to ensure Scherzer's ailment was "completely resolved," Showalter said.

Going from Friday night's 17-6 rout of the A's to a much tighter game on Saturday afternoon meant that the pressure to perform was significantly higher. New York's lineup squeezed past Oakland on the strength of home runs off the bats of Pete Alonso and Mark Canha, plus a two-out double in the seventh from Brandon Nimmo that drove in the winning run.

Carrasco's ability to keep the opposing lineup at bay even as he continues to search for his best stuff proved to be a decisive factor, something that will be key for the Mets going forward.

"He's a competitive guy," Showalter said of Carrasco. "Glad to see him make a big contribution to the win today."