Bargain Mets trade for Paul Blackburn is looking artful after another satisfying start

In his encore performance on Wednesday, Paul Blackburn essentially hit the repeat button from his first appearance last Friday. Another 6 innings, 2 walks, and 6 strikeouts for the New York Mets trade deadline addition. One fewer hit and one more run (unearned) was aided by 12 groundballs. Blackburn, who has been a groundball pitcher for much of his career, is now at over 50% after two starts with the Mets with a limited exit velocity of only 81mph.

Facing the Los Angeles Angels and Colorado Rockies playing for nothing more than bragging rights and maybe some schadenfreude, it’s the kind of beginning to his Mets career that we needed to see. Absent a true ace-level pitcher capable of putting together strings of starts where you know the team will have a chance to win whenever he takes the mound, Blackburn has taken a page from the army reserve and been all he can be.

Paul Blackburn will continue to have an easy opening stretch with the Mets after this

Blackburn gets to skip familiar foe, the Seattle Mariners, this weekend and is instead slated to start the first game when the Mets return home to Citi Field on Tuesday August 13. The opponent will be his former club, the Oakland Athletics. He’d then get a chance to pitch against the Miami Marlins the following Sunday while missing the Baltimore Orioles.

This is just how things lined up. You can only play who is on your schedule. In Blackburn’s case, it’s about who you play five days later.

Easy street will eventually come to an end for Blackburn who’d currently get to face the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks at the end of the month. The Mets play them back-to-back on the road so avoiding those tougher opponents will be impossible.

Expectations for Blackburn coming to the Mets weren’t great. They just need a Tylor Megill upgrade. He hasn’t been masterful while at the same time he has been an improvement and what the back of the rotation required. Credit goes to him and the front office—at least so far—for snatching up an under-the-radar trade deadline acquisition like him. If you have any left, toss some Francisco Alvarez’s way.