Carlos Carrasco looks freshly baked and other bad cookie puns about his early success

Two starts into the 2022 season and Carlos Carrasco looks like a much different pitcher than he was in 2021. The veteran hurler missed the first few months of last year before joining the New York Mets right as they were ready to crumble.

Wait, you didn’t come here for cookie puns? Shame on you. I’ve got a whole jar full of them.

Back to baseball for a moment. Carrasco has looked freshly baked in his first two starts. He has 10.2 innings and only a single earned run allowed. He has also struck out 13 and held batters to a .135 batting average. This is the pitcher Mets fans were hoping to get when the team first traded for him prior to last year.

Mets pitcher Carlos Carrasco is cooking up a strong season early on

The only reason Carrasco isn’t sitting at 2-0 after his pair of starts is because the bullpen was crumby and the offense forgot to turn the oven on. Twice, already, Mets relievers let him down. In his most recent start, however, we can blame the bats a little more. It wasn’t until the eighth inning when they were finally able to score to turn on the heat and score a pair of runs late.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to like about what we’ve seen so far. Coming into the year with some doubts about his health, Carrasco is proving he has all of the right ingredients for a successful year number two with the Mets.

Dipping into his past a little bit, we can see how a lack of innings for Carrasco post-2018 remains somewhat of a concern. He missed a lot of 2019 due to health reasons as he worked to recover from leukemia, more time in 2020 because of the shortened season, and tossed just 53.2 innings in 2021. The results over those three years were a mix of sweet and bitter. He was back to his old ways in 2020 with Cleveland, going 3-4 with a 2.91 ERA in 12 starts. The promising return to form and a clean bill of health made him a much tastier trade piece for the Mets to acquire. It didn’t work out. This year looks like it could be a different flavor.

Mets fans know full well not to go too nuts over just two starts. Carrasco’s first opponents also happened to be the stale Washington Nationals and Arizona Diamondbacks. They were two clubs he should have been able to beat around. Wait, that’s cakes.

Will fortune favor Cookie this year? If he stays healthy, he should be able to tagalong for a fun season. The occasional poor outing should get sprinkled around. At the moment, my expectations for him this year are raisin’.