Is Griffin Canning the Mets’ next reclamation project? ‘Tonight is the blueprint’

NEW YORK — As Griffin Canning weighed the offers from multiple teams last winter, he kept coming back to his two priorities.

“I want to win, and I want to get better,” he summarized in spring training.

And so Canning chose to sign with the New York Mets, optimistic not only that the team would contend but also that he could play an important role in it. After all, just a year earlier, Luis Severino and Sean Manaea had been in similar positions to Canning’s in their careers, and they’d become integral to New York’s run to the NLCS.

In Thursday night’s 4-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, Canning delivered one of the best starts of the young season for the Mets. His outing delayed a day by an illness earlier in the week, Canning submitted six strong innings, allowing a run on three hits. He struck out eight.

“Tonight is the blueprint,” Canning said. “Tonight is how I want to pitch.”

Thursday represents a road map for Canning, but not because of the solid final numbers. It’s how he got there.

The route to improvement, suggested to him by the Mets and others over the winter, was reshuffling his repertoire. Canning had leaned heavily on his four-seam fastball in the past; it was not his best pitch. Pitching coach Jeremy Hefner suggested Canning rely more on his slider and his outstanding changeup while mixing in a cutter or a curveball.

Through three starts, that’s how Canning had worked. He entered the night throwing his fastball less than a third of the time.

But Thursday, Canning and catcher Luis Torrens sensed early that St. Louis had adjusted to the pitcher’s new approach. Now the Cardinals were sitting back and waiting for his changeup.

“The lefties were 100 percent selling out for changeups,” he said. “I felt it pretty early with some of the swings they took on changeups. Just constantly playing the game and just pitching.”

“He’s got the ability to read the situation and read what lineups and hitters are trying to do to him,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “When he knows they’re sitting on his breaking pitches, he’s going to use his fastball.”

You could see the impact of that approach on the Cardinals. Canning doesn’t throw particularly hard, typically topping out around 94 mph with his fastball. But St. Louis was late on it throughout the night, including in some two-strike counts in which they were likely looking for something else. Why wouldn’t they? Entering the day, Canning had thrown a two-strike fastball 21 percent of the time. Thursday, it was just under 50 percent.

“He’s getting ahead with a lot of different pitches, using the fastball effectively,” Mendoza said. “When he’s ahead, he’s sneaking fastballs by them.”

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Canning came into the day having recorded just three swings-and-misses on 89 four-seam fastballs this season. Thursday, he generated seven in 45 deliveries.

In total, he threw the same number of four-seamers as he did sliders plus changeups. He finished the night retiring the last nine Cardinals he faced, five of them via the strikeout.

“The fastball had good life,” Canning said. “I was just rolling with what was working.”

“He beat us, bottom line,” Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said.

Through four starts, Canning’s line looks an awful lot like two guys who prompted him to sign with New York.

Of course, those were not the final versions of Severino and Manaea, who both improved — Manaea pretty drastically — as the season went on. But that just offers further encouragement for Canning. Thursday, he threw more curveballs and cutters than he had all season coming into the night. He’s a pitcher gaining greater comfort and confidence in his arsenal.

At the end of the night, after a few days feeling his worst, Canning could smile.

“I’m really happy about tonight,” he said.

(Photo: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)

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