PHILADELPHIA — A season ago, Seth Lugo routinely would not feel like himself. There were good days and bad days, and often he wasn’t sure how his arm would bounce back.
“I felt like I was cut open last year,” said Lugo, whose throwing elbow literally was cut open shortly before the campaign began to remove bone spurs that had bothered him for years.
A season later, Lugo is throwing a bit harder and a bit freer, even if the immediate taste in his mouth following Monday’s bullpen meltdown was not pleasant.
The Mets righty will be just fine and so will the bullpen, he said, after a four-run lead in the eighth inning vanished in a 5-4 loss to the Phillies.
Trevor May, in a second inning of work that prompted an injury scare (he’s day-to-day with a low-grade triceps strain), began the collapse with a walk. Joely Rodriguez struggled and allowed two runs before passing the ball to Lugo, who allowed a walk and two doubles as the Phillies leapt ahead. He was most upset about the walk.
“I was trying to get him to expand the zone,” Lugo said of Nick Castellanos. “Probably should have stayed a little closer to the zone. I made good pitches to [Rhys] Hoskins and Didi [Gregorius], but they just got me. That walk right there, that’s a bad spot for a walk.”
The results were not there, but the stuff was. After three appearances this season, the first two scoreless, Lugo was averaging 94.7 mph with his fastball, the hardest of his career. His curveball, too, has seen an uptick in drop, both of which Lugo credits to an arm that is feeling as good as it has in a long while.
“I’m getting better extension. So I think that’s the increase in velocity right there,” Lugo told The Post before the Mets played a second game against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday. “It feels like it’s a lot smoother and less effort. [It] feels cleaner than it has in a few years.”
The Mets emerged from their first five games of the season with a total bullpen ERA of 3.44, and the unit might become particularly important because of the injury concerns hounding the rotation. Edwin Diaz has returned from the bereavement list. Lugo hoped to find the zone more often, with two walks in his first 2 ¹/₃ innings, but he believes in a group that also includes Adam Ottavino and Chasen Shreve as important arms.
“I think we have been showing that [we are a good group],” Lugo said. “Aside from a couple pitches [Monday] night, we’ve been throwing lights-out.
“As far as me, some days you get by with pitches, some days you don’t. You can’t dwell on it.”