The 2021 season has been a revolving door for Jerad Eickhoff.
Twice this season, Eickhoff has been designated for assignment, only to end up re-signing with the Mets on a minor league deal after electing free agency.
On Tuesday, Eickhoff was once again brought up to the major league level to make the start for the Mets, and it didn’t go as anyone had hoped, as the right-hander allowed 10 earned runs over 3.1 innings in the 12-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves.
The 31-year-old admitted that the circumstances were not ideal on Tuesday, but he didn’t make any excuses for his own performance.
“I don’t like to make excuses, and I just feel like I should be able to do that, I should be able to take what’s given, handle situations, handle circumstances and do it,” said Eickhoff. “And it takes time to be able to do those things, but given all that, I’m still frustrated that I let these guys down. You’re playing the Braves, obviously they’re right behind you in the hunt for the division here, so it’s frustrating. It’s embarrassing, it’s frustrating. Regardless of the circumstances, I feel like I have the stuff and the ability to be able to navigate that. But again, I was not able to do that tonight.”
The Mets have dealt with more than their fair share of injuries to their starting rotation, with Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Carrasco, and David Peterson currently on the IL (some on their way back sooner than others).
Because of all their injuries, the Mets have had to piece together pitching plans on certain days, as they did in Game 2 of Monday’s doubleheader when Aaron Loup was asked to start. Manager Luis Rojas said after Tuesday’s loss that Eickhoff was really the only option the Mets had after Monday’s two games.
“It can be really hard, and we saw it tonight,” Rojas said. “He didn’t pitch the way that he can pitch, and I’m talking about command. Is he a guy that induces contact? Yeah, he’s a guy who will induce contact and things like this are gonna happen. But for the walks, he was a little erratic with his command. You’ve got to say that some of the things that he went through in the week and then to get signed again and activated and brought in to start the game, it can be hard. And then the command wasn’t there. The homers are gonna happen, but you add the walks to the homers, and that’s what blew the game open at one point.
“He came in and he was ready to go for us. We couldn’t ask for anything else from the guy or our front office to go and acquire somebody. So, they found Eickhoff, he came in and just couldn’t get it done like he could.”
But the good news for the Mets is that help appears to be on the horizon. All signs point to Carrasco returning on Friday, with the hope that deGrom will follow not long after.
So while Tuesday’s loss was a tough pill to swallow, Rojas sees brighter days ahead.
“Looking ahead, there’s no blind spots right now. There are names on each day,” Rojas said. “There’s no TBDs. I know we’ve been talking ‘TBD tomorrow, TBD tomorrow, TBD Game 2,’ and right now there are names filling the spots days ahead… Looking forward definitely feels better in the next week or so, knowing that names are gonna be in that starter’s spot.”