PORT ST. LUCIE — There is a little more Eric Orze this season, though his arsenal is perhaps smaller.
The Mets relief prospect said he played at 195 kilos last season, and after an offseason of strength work, the righty is as much as 209 kilos.
He hopes the additional weight will help him last through a protracted season that might feature his major league debut and can include an entire lot of splitters.
Orze, who’s a resilient, two-time survivor of cancer, hopes that throwing his best pitch more often will lead to raised results.
Orze was a fifth-round pick in 2020 who has overcome greater than most. He was diagnosed with and beat testicular cancer while on the University of Latest Orleans.
Within the immediate aftermath, a physician examined him and saw a mole that soon was revealed to be cancerous. So he fought off skin cancer, too, before reaching the Mets.
He skyrocketed through the system in 2021, touching Triple-A Syracuse, but his rise has stalled since.
Orze’s low-to-mid-90s fastball velocity will not be a calling card, and he contains a slider and a cutter that can be recent this season. But his splitter — a bottom-drops-out pitch that induces consistent whiffs — can be his ticket to the majors.
Orze said he was throwing his best weapon about 30-35 percent of the time for the vast majority of last season, which became a struggle. The flexible reliever, able to taking down an inning or two or three, was walking a variety of batters and allowing a variety of hard contact through Aug. 29, when he sported a 6.48 ERA with Syracuse.
He then ran off 11 scoreless, two-hit innings wherein he struck out 22. Through the season-ending span, he said, his splitter rate spiked to 60-65 percent, together with his slider, particularly, working well in tandem.
“It’s something that’s unique,” Orze said about his splitter. “Let’s use your best weapon. Let’s not overcomplicate this.”
In looking back at his upper-minor struggles for parts of the past two seasons, Orze has seen a variety of damage has been done against his lesser offerings. In 2022, he struggled with the long ball — allowing 11 home runs in 50 ¹/₃ innings — and located that his splitter was rarely the issue.
“While you return and have a look at video, all of the home runs are like middle-middle fastballs in pretty neutral counts,” Orze said. “My fastball’s not my best pitch, one. [Two], I’m in a count where a hitter’s probably going to be waiting for a fastball. And I went, ‘Oh, here you go.’”
Now, he hopes, leaning more heavily upon his splitter could help him reach Citi Field, where the Mets surely will need relief help at times this season.
Prospects Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, who’re the front-runners for the third-base job, will see a “probably 50-50” split of reps on the position through the Grapefruit League, manager Carlos Mendoza said.
The 2 shared reps at third base during drills Friday alongside the remainder of the team’s starting infield. Joey Wendle got the reps behind Francisco Lindor at shortstop.
Shintaro Fujinami is flying home to Japan to are likely to a private matter, the Mets said. The club believes the righty still can have time to ramp up and be ready by Opening Day.
