Montgomery blanks Amazin’s over 5 frames

Jordan Montgomery didn’t leave it all out on the field, and in this case, that just reflected how well he performed Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.

As the Yankees’ sluggers put on a laser show en route to a 6-0 beatdown of the Mets, with five balls leaving the yard (two by Aaron Judge), Montgomery matched his teammates with bats by putting on a mound clinic. The left-hander pitched so effectively, requiring only 59 pitches to complete five shutout innings, that the Yankees — who wanted to make sure reliever Jonathan Loaisgia and Jonathan Holder got in their work — assigned Montgomery to the bullpen to throw a few more pitches in his final spring training 2.0 outing.

“Yeah, I feel good,” Montgomery said in a Zoom call. “[My] timing was good. Executed all my pitches. Got some weak contact and expanded the zone when I needed to. I felt good about that.”

“For as good as he was in spring and then again so far here in summer camp, I think he even put it all together for his entire outing,” Aaron Boone said of Montgomery. “You saw everything, and that’s a good lineup over there.”

Montgomery, who underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2018 and made two brief bigleague appearances at the tail end of last season, allowed only two hits while walking one and striking out six. As he’s likely to start the third or fourth game of the season, he appears poised to pick up where he left off in his encouraging rookie season 2017, when he tallied a 3.88 ERA in 29 starts totaling 155 ¹/3 innings, or even exceed that.

“I’m really proud of Monty, of where he’s at,” Boone said. “Not only how he came in shape and ready to go in spring training, but clearly continued to work over the break and put himself in a great spot coming in.”

The manager praised Montgomery for integrating a cut fastball into his repertoire of fastball, curveball and changeup.

“I feel like I’ve worked as hard as I could during the hiatus of everyone going home and I put myself in the best position I could,” said Montgomery, who spent the shutdown in his native South Carolina with his family. “So I’m proud of myself, all the work I’ve put in. I’m excited to compete with the guys.”

It’s time to complete against some other guys, for real, and the 27-year-old sure looks ready.