The John Lannan reliever experiment is over and now it's Daisuke Matsuzaka's turn. Can he be more effective than the lefty from Long Island? We'll find out.
After just 14 games and five mostly poor appearances, the Mets have pulled the plug on the John Lannan bullpen experiment, as they outrighted the lefty to Triple-A Las Vegas earlier this afternoon. To replace him on the roster, the Mets promoted righty Daisuke Matsuzaka and he'll take over as the club's long reliever out of the bullpen.
Without a second left-handed pitcher to complement Scott Rice, the Mets took a bit of a risk in placing Lannan, who had never pitched in relief in his big league career before this season, in their bullpen. Lannan signed a minor league deal with the club and had a decent spring while competing for a job on the team's roster but just couldn't get it going out of the pen. He allowed runs in 3 of his 5 appearances, totaling 7 runs allowed on 7 hits over just 4 innings of work. Lannan's lack of a career platoon split made him a somewhat curious choice for a second lefty relief job to begin with but it was the home run issues (3 allowed in 5 appearances) and lack of swing and miss stuff that seemed to plague him in relief.
Matsuzaka, also signed to a minor league contract in the offseason, is now in his second stint with the club after making 7 so-so starts in August and September 2013. The righty was excellent in spring training but lost the 5th starter competition to Jenrry Mejia. With Las Vegas, the righty started two games and threw to a 2.25 ERA, as he struck out 12 and walked 6 over 12 innings.