Szapucki wild in forgettable debut out of depleted pen

Thomas Szapucki threw two pitches so wild they bounced back in his direction and two pitches so appetizing they might not have landed at all.

It was a strange MLB debut for Szapucki, who came out of the bullpen to a ninerun deficit in the fourth inning and recorded 11 outs but couldn’t get the bullpenstrapped Mets across the finish line in a 20-2 loss to the Braves. A moment years in the making for the No. 10ranked prospect in the organization became a game almost everyone else would like to forget as soon as possible.

“I was super excited,” Szapucki said. “I’ve been working for this a long time. Obviously not what I was looking for [in terms of results] but I was super happy I was able to give the team the innings they needed and now our bullpen is fresh.”

Szapucki’s butterflies had barely settled when his first pitch was chopped back to the mound. He looked to the third base line where a frozen Dansby Swanson would have been caught in a rundown, but he mistakenly threw to first base and allowed Swanson to score.

Szapucki’s second pitch bounced past catcher James McCann but hit off the brick backstop and bounced back to home plate. Because no runners advanced, it wasn’t officially a wild pitch. It had a once-a-year feel to it, but Szapucki did it again later in the inning and wound up using the friendly bounce to get the third out of the inning on the base paths.

“At first I had a little bit of nerves,” Szapucki said. “After that first inning, I think I settled in and slowed myself down.”

The oddities included an adventurous sky-high pop-up that required a stumbling catch and a just-foul could-be-hit by Szapucki before he struck out in his first career at-bat. He retired the great Ronald Acuna Jr. twice but surrendered 400-plusfoot home runs to Ehrie Adrianza and Ozzie Albies.

A starter in the minor leagues, Szapucki threw 82 pitches, showing the length that he could be a fill-in starter if the Mets need one after the latest injury to David Peterson. But he didn’t exactly inspire confidence as he ran out of gas in the eighth, leaving the game with the bases loaded and no outs.

“We probably asked him for too much there,” manager Luis Rojas said.

In his professional pitching debut, outfielder Albert Almora allowed all three inherited runners to score, closing Szapucki’s line at six runs allowed on seven hits with three walks and four strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings.

A fifth-round draft pick out of William T. Dwyer High School in Florida in 2015, Szapucki only threw 179 2/3 career innings in the minors before he was pressed into action. He was 0-3 with a 4.41 ERA at Triple-A this season but the Mets decided it was his time over veteran journeyman Jared Eickhoff, who was designated for assignment this week.