Photo by Ed Delany, MMN
Tuesday afternoon, Mickey Callaway said that Anthony Kay, one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects, is “on the radar” for a prospective major league call-up.
By Tuesday night, Kay had pushed the radar into overdrive.
The southpaw continued his fantastic Double-A campaign, tossing seven no-hit innings for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in Bowie, Maryland. He was pulled after reaching 88 pitches, with 90 being his typical threshold.
Here are Anthony Kay’s 7 strikeouts from his 7 no-hit innings last night for Binghamton.
He’s waking up to a 1.07 ERA through 9 starts. I can’t imagine a promotion to Triple-A is far-off. #Mets pic.twitter.com/B8FIA5d8th
— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) May 21, 2019
The effort lowered Kay’s ERA to 1.07, which ties him with San Diego Padres top prospect Mackenzie Gore for the second-lowest mark amongst qualified minor leaguers.
“We do feel that he still needs further development, but we love what we’ve seen from him so far. He’s been outstanding,” Callaway said.
Kay, the 24-year-old Stony Brook, New York, native, has allowed more than one run just once in nine starts. Since then, he’s been simply dominant:
Anthony Kay over his last six starts (including tonight):
37.2 IP, 14 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 11 BB, 40 SO, 0.48 ERA
Kay has not allowed more than 4 hits any one of those starts.#Mets #LGM https://t.co/5uqPCwOOdE
— Mathew Brownstein (@MBrownstein89) May 21, 2019
“(He has) command of the zone and is able to throw three pitches,” Binghamton manager Kevin Boles told Tim Britton of The Athletic. “But is it major-league quality command? We’ll see. We’ll see where this goes. He’s on the right course.
“The studying that he does in between his outings, he’s starting to get into the video work, the hot/cold zones, the heatmaps. He’s studying his craft. Talking with him about what he’s done in the past, he had not done that. That’s going to help him out.”
Kay is clearly too good for Double-A, so it should be a matter of days until he gets the call to drive up I-81 to Syracuse. That’s where the real challenge will begin. He’s still working on developing those secondaries — a changeup and curveball — while his fastball, which hasn’t topped 94 mph this year, will need to be sharp at all times. He’s also running an insanely low BABIP (.175, about 41 percent lower than league-average).
Should he perform even half as well in Triple-A, Kay will be in line for major league innings in late August or September. He will be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this winter, so an in-season 40-man add is not unnecessary.
