{"id":37968,"date":"2025-03-02T09:18:18","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T09:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=37968"},"modified":"2025-03-02T09:18:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T09:18:18","slug":"mets-prospect-blade-tidwell-just-riding-the-wave-after-impressing-in-spring-training-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=37968","title":{"rendered":"Mets prospect Blade Tidwell ‘just riding the wave’ after impressing in spring training start"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘I feel like I can stack up with the best of them if I\u2019m commanding the ball’<\/h2>\n
\n

With all eyes on top pitching prospect\u00a0Brandon Sproat<\/strong>\u00a0this spring, it’s easy to forget some of the\u00a0Mets’ other talented young pitchers who are in major league camp trying to establish themselves as potential call-ups this season.<\/p>\n

One of those pitchers is\u00a0Blade Tidwell<\/strong>, a second-round draft pick in 2022 out of Tennessee who got the start for New York on Saturday against the Tampa Bay Rays. In his second start this spring, the 6-foot-4 right-hander threw two perfect innings — including an immaculate inning — with five strikeouts and topped out at 99 mph with his fastball.<\/p>\n

It was a rather impressive outing for Tidwell, who was excited to see how he “stacked up against a big league squad.” Evidently, quite well as he struck out big leaguers\u00a0Josh Lowe<\/strong>,\u00a0Eloy Jim\u00e9nez<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Caballero<\/strong>\u00a0on nine pitches in the second for an immaculate inning — something Tidwell didn’t even realize he had done until after he got back in the dugout by way of social media.<\/p>\n

“I thought it was gonna be fun and gonna be a challenge, and it ended up being both,” he said after the game.<\/p>\n

Needing just 16 pitches over his two innings of work, Tidwell showed pinpoint accuracy as well by throwing 16 strikes on the afternoon. Even more impressive is that the 23-year-old threw all five of his pitches (four-seam, two-seam, changeup, sweeper and gyro slider) on Saturday, meaning he had his entire arsenal working for him.<\/p>\n

Tidwell recently ditched four of his pitch grips to go down from nine to five in an attempt to command his stuff better.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s easier to control,” he said. “It\u2019s like the saying, \u2018it\u2019s better to have five mastered pitches than it would be to have like nine average pitches.'”<\/p>\n

The right-hander also credited his performance to his body “moving a little faster now than it was maybe last year at this time” and said when everything is synced up like it was on Saturday, it feels nice.<\/p>\n

Ranked No. 9 on SNY’s Joe DeMayo’s\u00a0Top 30 Mets prospect list, Tidwell spent last season between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Syracuse and finished with a 4.86 ERA across 122.1 innings. However, in 19 games (17 starts) with Syracuse, Tidwell struggled to find his footing and went 1-9 with a 5.93 ERA (1.56 WHIP) with his biggest issue being home runs (17) and walks (53).<\/p>\n

So, coming into camp this year, Tidwell is doing his best to work on his command and trying to get ready for his season, which will most likely start at Triple-A.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I can stack up with the best of them if I\u2019m commanding the ball and that\u2019s just what I\u2019ve been trying to work on day in and day out,” Tidwell said.<\/p>\n

His ultimate goal is, of course, making it to the big leagues, but whatever happens until then, Tidwell is “just riding the wave.”<\/p>\n

But like\u00a0Christian Scott<\/strong>\u00a0did before him last year and what Sproat and several other pitching prospects are trying to do this year, the blueprint for a major-league call-up is there. And if Tidwell continues to have outings like the one he had on Saturday, his number will be called sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘I feel like I can stack up with the best of them if I\u2019m commanding the ball’ With all eyes on top pitching prospect\u00a0Brandon Sproat\u00a0this spring, it’s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\nMets prospect Blade Tidwell 'just riding the wave' after impressing in spring training start - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=37968\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mets prospect Blade Tidwell 'just riding the wave' after impressing in spring training start - 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