Mets’ Brandon Waddell has near-storybook ending in first MLB outing in nearly four years

Until the Mets bullpen blew it, Brandon Waddell’s Mets debut had all the pieces for a storybook ending in Queens.

He entered in the third inning — working behind opener Huascar Brazobán — for his first MLB appearance in nearly four years, the culmination of a journey that started with a July 2021 cameo with the Cardinals and included stints in the Korea Baseball Organization, the Chinese Professional Baseball League, the KBO’s Doosan Bears for a second time and, to start 2025, Triple-A Syracuse.

He then exited 4 ¹/₃ innings later to a standing ovation, and before Ryne Stanek surrendered the lead, Waddell was positioned to earn his first MLB win after striking out four and scattering just three hits while not allowing a run in he eventual 4-3 loss to the Diamondbacks Wednesday at Citi Field.

“It was awesome,” Waddell said. “It’s good to be back.”

Waddell wanted to return to MLB to prove he could still pitch at this level, he said.

While pitching internationally, he learned to pitch aggressively and induce weak contact, and that translated into his outing Wednesday.

He became the first Mets reliever — and just the 15th Mets pitcher — to throw at least four innings in his team debut, and it also marked the longest appearance by a Mets reliever since Nelson Figueroa (4 ¹/₃) in 2009, per the team.

“You learn a lot of over there,” Waddell said. “You learn how to pitch. You learn how to use your stuff. So it’s just taking those lessons and refining things.

“As you go along in your career, pitches get better. Maybe adjust a couple things, but it’s really just trying to learn every time you’re out there.”

Eventually, with the Mets needing someone to take the bulk of the innings Wednesday, that all led to Citi Field, where Waddell mixed a four-seam fastball, a slider, a sweeper, a cutter and a changeup to keep the Diamondbacks off-balance.

They didn’t manage an extra-base hit against him.

His night ended when he struck out Josh Naylor on a slider to start the seventh, and as manager Carlos Mendoza took the ball and waited for Stanek to enter from the bullpen, that’s when the standing ovation began.

This could all be fleeting for Waddell.

At 30, he’s still searching for his first win, still searching for consistent chances on the sport’s ultimate stage that evaded him even earlier in his career with the Pirates, the Twins, the Orioles and the Cardinals — stops where he collectively logged 11 appearances after originally being a fifth-round pick in 2015.

But for one night, for one spot when the Mets needed an extra member of their rotation, he was “unbelievable,” Mendoza said.

“It’s something I definitely didn’t expect,” Waddell said of the standing ovation, “but you can feel it as a player. It means a lot to have that support and something that we always really cherish.”