Eggs, chicken, broccoli and cauliflower. When Chris Flexen and his agent decided he needed to lose weight in the offseason, that’s what he ate. No ice cream or chips or fast food.

The Syracuse Mets’ 6-foot-4 right-hander tipped the scales at 262 pounds in his heaviest weigh-in a season ago. Flexen wanted to drop to 230 by Spring Training. His first measurement of the spring? 229.

“I really committed to it this offseason and really tried to get in better shape for my career,” Flexen said.

Flexen allows himself a cheat day now and then, but he’s maintained a “cleaner” diet with healthier portion sizes since the end of last season. A slimmed-down Flexen threw six innings with eight strikeouts on Monday night in his season debut, allowing just two runs. His fitter frame stayed strong through the whole outing, including a dominant sixth and final inning in Syracuse’s win.

“Other than (one home run), he dominated the game today,” Syracuse Mets manager Tony DeFrancesco said.

When Flexen was summoned from a clubhouse in Akron, Ohio to the major leagues in 2017, he became the first New York Mets pitcher to skip Triple-A in 11 years. The jump was quick. Flexen had been drafted out of high school by the Mets at 18, and as DeFrancesco put it, Flexen “all of a sudden” was getting time in the major leagues.

Hitters teed off on the inexperienced, not-in-shape Flexen, to the tune of a 7.88 ERA. He couldn’t decide on one fastball, throwing both a two-seam grip sinker and a four-seamer. Flexen gained big-league experience, but didn’t impress on paper.

“I had some success, minimal success along the way, got touched up every now and then,” Flexen said, “but learned a lot through that season, and even last year learned a lot as well.”

It was more of the same in 2018, a major-league ERA in the double-digits and a season ended early with a knee injury. Francesco said that another such season showed Flexen it was “time to do something different.”

Flexen took suggestions from anyone who gave them: His family, girlfriend, agent and the Mets organization. He described the beginning of his reshaping as “cold turkey”: Everything was taken away at once. Flexen had to alter lifelong behavior.

“You fall into bad patterns and sometimes it’s hard to come out of them,” Flexen said.

His approach worked, though. Flexen reached camp just below his goal weight, and although there wasn’t room in the vaunted Mets’ rotation, he caught DeFrancesco’s eye even before coming back north to Syracuse.

The focus is there pitch-to-pitch, Flexen’s manager said. A year ago, DeFrancesco would watch in Las Vegas as Flexen wore down in the 105-degree heat mid-game. While the International League won’t pose that same issue, Flexen almost strengthened as Monday’s game went on.

In the sixth inning, his last as he ended up with 91 pitches, Flexen threw a 93-mile per hour fastball up and out of the zone past a swing for out number one. Long-time big league catcher Rene Rivera kept calling for the high heat, and that’s what got five of Flexen’s eight punchouts.

Then, he induced an easy groundout on a pitch at the knees. And he broke off a curveball, maybe his best of the night, down in the dirt for a swinging strikeout to end the inning.

“Probably my fastball-slider combo today, was able to mix in a change, flip a breaking ball in every now and then,” Flexen said. “Fastball especially was pretty dominant today.”

The New York Mets have a vaunted starting rotation. Two chances in the majors and an MLB ERA of 8.45 could make the next call to Flexen less forthcoming than the first two. But he’s solved his diet and figured out his approach on the mound.

“Elevate and then spin ‘em out,” DeFrancesco called it. As hitters embrace the launch-angle trend and swing upward, a high fastball is harder to touch. And just when they want to get up and hammer it, Flexen can break off a sharp curve or slider.

For now, Flexen will keep taking his turn every fifth day, no matter whether he finds his Mets’ jersey in a Triple-A clubhouse or in the show. And while he still cheats his nutrition every once in a while, his win Monday wouldn’t be followed by anything special.

“Nothing in particular,” Flexen said of what he’d eat to celebrate. “Like I said, just trying to stick to clean eating. Got a long season ahead of us, and hopefully I can sustain that all year.”

Published on April 8, 2019 at 10:59 pm

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