Regan reports Yanks’ German looks ‘great’
NEW YORK — Phil Regan, a 30-year veteran of coaching winter ball in Latin America, cut short his stay in the Dominican Republic this year for the same reason so much is different this year: the coronavirus pandemic.
Initially, Regan, 83, was as gung-ho as ever about getting to work. If the Dominican Winter League was playing, he wanted to be there, serving as the pitching coach for Toros Del Este — Bulls of the East. But when six players on his team tested positive for COVID-19 within the past week, he decided to leave.
The Mets’ senior adviser of pitching development was due to return to his home in Port St. Lucie on Sunday, he said.
“[After] the first three, I said I will still stay here,” said Regan, who intended to work remotely. “But two days later, we had three more test positive.”
Among those on the Toros’ motley crew of a roster: Yankees righthander Domingo German, Mets catcher Bruce Maxwell and former Mets closer Jenrry Mejia.
Entering play this weekend, German had allowed one run in nine innings (1.00 ERA) in two outings. On Opening Day, he tossed four innings in the team’s no-hitter — the first in a season opener in the league’s history, Regan said. Suspended for 2020 because he violated MLB’s domestic violence policy, German had not pitched in about 14 months.
“He started that game and he went four innings and he looked great,” said Regan, who isn’t quite fluent in Spanish but speaks enough to get by. “He’s throwing the ball really, really well. Sharp breaking ball, good fastball [96-97 mph]. He looks really good.”
Maxwell, who this month agreed to return to the Mets on a minorleague deal, caught the game.
Mejia, 31, hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2015.
He was reinstated from a purported lifetime ban — punishment for three failed performance-enhancing drug tests — by MLB in 2018 and still is trying to keep the dream alive.
“Mejia is throwing this year better than I’ve seen him in the past,” Regan said. “He doesn’t have the fastball he used to have, but he’s still [92-94 mph] with a great slider and great changeup.”
Rebuilding Steven Matz: As an early step in an attempt to overcome his terrible 2020 season, Steven Matz got back to basics.
He spent five days late last month at the Mets’ complex in Port St. Lucie, Florida, the professional baseball environment in which he has spent the most time, working with Regan, the coach he has known longer than any other.
They didn’t do anything dramatic. No major delivery changes or new pitches. Just reminders of what they did in 2012, when Regan was Matz’s pitching coach with St. Lucie, and the second half of 2019, when Regan was the major-league club’s interim pitching coach, and who knows how many occasions in between.
A l l a rd Ba i rd , the now-former assistant general manager, pitched the idea to them. Matz traveled from Nashville — where the Stony Brook native lives in the offseason — and Regan traveled from his home five minutes from Clover Park.
“Knowing him for a long time, we’ve always had a pretty.good relationship,” Regan said. “We thought we could refresh him and get him going into spring training in a positive attitude — that’s what I was really thinking — so that he wasn’t going in on the season that he had.”
With no minor-league season this year, Regan was tasked by Baird with watching the Mets’ games on television and reporting what he thought.
“Tough job, but somebody had to do it,” Regan said with a laugh.