Joey

Lucchesi

Lucchesi will stick around with New York as emergency starting pitching depth after passing through waivers unclaimed earlier this week. The 31-year-old southpaw made one start earlier this year for the Mets and holds a respectable 4.14 ERA, 1.28 WHIP and 383/133 K/BB ratio across 388 2/3 innings (80 appearances, 76 starts) in the big leagues dating back to 2018.

Lucchesi has been removed from New York’s 40-man roster to make room for newly-acquired reliever Phil Maton. The 31-year-old lefty has made only one start this season for the Mets. He figures to generate some interest on waivers in the coming days.

The Mets wanted extra bullpen insurance with a long stretch of games coming up, so they optioned Joey Lucchesi, who had just started on Wednesday to bring up Walker. The 29-year-old has thrown three scoreless innings at the big league level so far this year with three strikeouts and one walk. His time in New York doesn’t figure to be long since he will likely be the next man down when the Mets need a starter again.

Lucchesi started on Wednesday night and was ineffective, allowing five runs on five hits in 4 1/3 innings. He’ll now be sent down so the Mets can bring up reliever Josh Walker and get extra insurance for the bullpen with a long stretch of games coming up. We’ll likely see Lucchesi up again, but he remains off the fantasy radar for now.

Lucchesi was recalled for the spot-start in this one as the Mets transitioned to a six-man rotation. He was cruising until a disastrous fifth inning in which he walked three before the Phillies opened the flood gates. It’s unlikely Lucchesi gets another turn in the rotation after this start with Tylor Megill due back soon and Adrian Houser supposedly returning to a starting role.

Lucchesi will be making his season debut after amassing a 2.58 ERA and a 28/16 K/BB ratio over 38 1/3 innings in seven starts for Norfolk. He’ll serve as the spot starter against the Phillies today and then probably get returned to Triple-A.

Lucchesi will take the ball for a spot start in place of Adrian Houser, who wound up being scratched from his scheduled outing after warming up in the event that he was needed during the late stages of Tuesday’s contest. The 30-year-old southpaw will be making his season debut after posting a 2.58 ERA, 1.30 WHIP and 28/16 K/BB ratio across 38 1/3 innings (seven starts) for Triple-A Syracuse.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza declined to specify who will take Houser’s place after the 31-year-old righty was forced to warm up in the ninth inning during Tuesday’s contest against the Phillies. It’ll most likely be lefty Joey Lucchesi coming up from Triple-A Syracuse to make a spot start, but nothing official yet. Regardless of who winds up taking the ball, fantasy managers will want to steer clear of that matchup altogether.

This one certainly qualifies as a surprise since Lucchesi was considered a potential candidate to replace an injured Kodai Senga (shoulder) in New York’s season-opening rotation. The 30-year-old southpaw allowed four runs over 1 1/3 innings this spring in his lone Grapefruit League appearance.

After it was announced that Kodai Senga would start the season on the IL with a shoulder strain, there was some thought that one of Mike Vasil, Christian Scott, or Dominic Hamel would get a chance to crack the starting rotation, but that appears to not be the case. Instead, the battle for the final rotation spot is likely among Tylor Megill, Joey Lucchesi, Jose Butto, Max Kranick. Megill is making waves at camp for his new splitter, which he learned from Senga, so he appears to have the upper hand for now.