Breakout Mets reliever Reed Garrett strikes up some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: How would you feel if you got to represent the New York Mets in the All-Star Game?
A: Oh man, that’d be a dream come true. It’d be awesome. I would love that. It’d mean a lot to me.
Q: Do you feel like an All-Star on the mound?
A: I feel like myself. I’m trying not to look at the big picture, especially when there’s another guy in the box and the game’s on the line, I’m trying the best I can.
Q: Do you like the big moments?
A: Yeah. It’s something different about the adrenaline and the feeling that you get when you do your job and help the team win. I think that feeling is huge.
Q: How do you explain striking out so many guys now?
A: (Chuckle) You can’t strike guys out when you’re 2-1 and 3-0 on everybody.
Q: Which pitch has made the biggest improvement that has led to your success, and how did it happen?
A: I think all my pitches made some improvement over the offseason. My sweeper shape is much more consistent than last year. The cutter I’ve been able to throw in all counts. I’ve been getting swings-and-misses on my split, but I believe that’s because I’ve been able to set it up much better than in previous seasons. It came together with the use of data and video this offseason. I had a great group of people that I trained with this offseason and all the resources available from the Mets.
Q: You and former Mets closer Jesse Orosco are the only Mets relievers to win five games in a calendar month.
A: I wish I could take full credit for that, but I can’t. We’ve played some great games. To be with a legend like that in the Mets’ history books, it’s cool.
Q: Describe your mentality on the mound.
A: Like a calm aggression is the best way to think about it. I’ve done some mental skills work where I try to have like a certain performance number, and what best describes me was calm but aggressive. If things get out of whack that I’m able to remind myself, “All right, I know what I need you to be at, and I know how to get back to that.”
Q: What does mental skills work mean?
A: So I worked with Josiah Igono, he was the mental strength and like peak performance coach when I was with the Texas Rangers. He’s been instrumental in my career. We’ve done a lot of work together, and I’m thankful for walking my path with him for a while.
Q: Describe the difference in your mentality now that your confidence level is where it’s at compared to where it used to be.
A: The end of the season last year was great, and I had some confidence that was built from results, but I think that came from the turn in my mind of focusing more on preparation and process rather than grading myself strictly on results, because there’s a lot of things that are out of our control and stuff like that, so I think that one of the biggest things in my mind was going back and being like, “All right, what can I control every day, and how can I prepare to be the best that I can?”
Q: What was it like for you on the mound when you did not have these tools?
A: I think that I was not being as aggressive towards pitching in the strike zone. I was trying to nitpick and be too fine, and it ended up getting me in bad situations, which in turn made it easier for the hitters to hit rather than just going right after people, and I feel like that was kind of the biggest thing was that change of like, “All right, I’m just gonna go out there and I’m gonna attack guys in the strike zone and see what happens.”
Q: Your ERA is among the best. Could you ever have imagined this?
A: I think I have imagined it, and I think that some visualization and putting myself in those scenarios, it helped — where you visualize it and you see it in your head before it happens and then you know how your body’s gonna react to it.
Q: When did you start this visualization?
A: 2021. I remember having a tough stretch where I was just really like missing home and I wasn’t excited to go to the field. I wasn’t really happy. I remember talking with Josiah about it. We started talking once a week. So once a week we’d get on a Zoom call — he’d be in America, I’d be in Japan — and we would go through exercises about, “All right, how can we get through this situation? Then, how can we get back to where you have that love and desire?” That’s when it really started is when we really started to dive into peak performance and into skills.
Q: How often do you visualize now?
A: I try to do it before I leave the clubhouse every day as I’m getting dressed to go out to the field. So just kind of like go through my mind about situations that may come up and where I’m at. It’s nothing too specific, but it’s just like where I am in my mind, I always tell myself to throw strike one, and I can visualize myself on the mound throwing strike one.
Q: How do you like pitching in New York?
A: I love Citi Field. I’ve gotten an opportunity to play in a majority of major league ballparks, and I feel like Citi Field is my favorite personally, so I love it.
Q: What do you love about it?
A: From the bullpen, like you look out, there’s the big stands and there’s the light boards everywhere, everybody’s invested in the game. I feel like it’s a fun atmosphere. When things are going right, it’s awesome.
Q: Your best moment was striking out the side last month against the Dodgers. What was your worst major league moment?
A: The day that I got designated for assignment by the Tigers in 2019. I just couldn’t get anybody out, and I was falling behind, I couldn’t throw strikes … maybe was afraid of getting hit. That was one of the lowest points where I was just like, “I don’t know what I’m doing out here, and I don’t know how to get out of it.” I felt like I was on an island.
Q: Pick it up from there.
A: I got taken out of the game. I came inside, the game was over. I got told that I was being designated for assignment, and then I packed up my apartment and left. I drove back home to Richmond, Va. Silver lining of everything, I went to my brother’s wedding. And then like two days later, I got a phone call saying, “Hey, you cleared waivers, you’re going back to the Texas Rangers.” I packed up all my stuff, me and my wife drove to Nashville and got an apartment there. … I felt like I lost my opportunity to pitch in the major leagues at the time. From there forward, I feel like I’ve been building myself back up. It got to the point where I was tired of stinking (laugh) and went out there and just said, “I’m gonna 1 just kind of say forget about everything else around me and focus on my preparation.”
Q: How long were you in Triple-A in Nashville?
A: Until September of 2019, and that offseason I signed to go to Japan.
Q: What do you remember thinking during that drive from Detroit to Richmond?
A: I was mad, angry, upset. I just kind of did the best I could to just listen to music or a podcast or something to distract my mind. But I can remember just being down and upset with myself for not performing to the ability that I believe that I could have.
Q: It was your emotional low point?
A: I remember our pitching coordinator, Danny Clark with the Texas Rangers, where he pulled me into like an office and was just like, “I understand that you’re upset, and I understand that you feel like you let yourself down, but this is just the first step along the way. It’s gonna happen. A lot of guys go through it, and we believe in you and we want you to continue to push forward, and we’re gonna get things back on track.” And I remember just having kind of a heart-to-heart with him. It really got things going.
Q: What is it like facing Aaron Judge?
A: I got up 0-2 on him, I tried to throw a fastball at the top of the zone, I missed and he hit a double off the wall (smile). That was my second major league career appearance [with Detroit in 2019].
Q: How about Juan Soto?
A: I played with him in ’22 [with the Nationals]. Will be one of the best hitters in our lifetime. … Awesome. Good teammate. The attitude he brings to the field every day. Even when things weren’t going right in Washington, he was doing everything that he could.
Q: He seems oblivious to pressure. Do you feel as if you are?
A: I feel like if you’re not prepared that pressure gets to you. And I feel like the things that I’ve been focusing on in my preparation and the work that I’m doing, I know in my heart that I am as prepared to succeed as I can be. So if it doesn’t happen, then I am able to say, “You know what? I gave everything that I could to make it happen,” and there’s nothing that I can say, “Well I wish I coulda done this,” or “I wish I woulda done that.”
Q: There was a story that you almost quit baseball.
A: Last year in spring training I was talking to a guy about … I went to Japan for two years. My wife had our son January 29th of 2020, I left February third of 2020, and I didn’t see them again until November the 10th. And then I went back the following year thinking it was gonna be different and it wasn’t — my family was still here in America and I was in Japan. It got kind of taken out of context as like, “Oh, I’m gonna be done with baseball,” or whatever. I still always have had the love for baseball and always had the drive to succeed. I missed my family a lot, and it was really hard to get through that time rather than me walking away from baseball. I tell everybody that I’m gonna play until they rip the jersey off my back or the cleats off my feet. This is what I love doing.
Q: Did you pick up any Japanese over there?
A: I know a couple of things. … I can say like “good morning, good evening, good afternoon, see you tomorrow.” Just a couple of things.
Q: Any funny experiences?
A: I think the biggest thing was I used to put my phone over food menus. … I’d hold my phone, like Google translate app on my phone over the food menu in order to just see what it said in English so that way I can tell the waiter, “Excuse me,” and like point to what I wanted rather than try to say it (smile).
Q: Do you eat sushi?
A: I do. I love it.
Q: How’s the sushi over there?
A: Incredible. There was a little sushi spot where I lived at, and in the train station it was like maybe a 5 foot by 5 foot room, and this guy was just in there making sushi all day, so it was incredible.
Q: Did you FaceTime with your wife?
A: Every day, yeah. So I would wake up in the morning and I’d call my wife and son before they went to bed, because it was a 13-hour time difference, and then at night I would stay up and talk to them for as long as I could.
Q: So you left for Japan when your son Beau was 4 days old.
A: It was tough. My wife is the strongest person I know, and to be able to do that and raise our son without me, it was incredible. She’s awesome.
Q: On a scale of 1-10, how homesick were you?
A: Ten. I could still see my son and like hear his voice and see the things that he was doing. I couldn’t imagine without that what it would have been like.
Q: He watches you on TV now.
A: My wife has come to like almost every weekend home series. Being able to spend time with him out on the field, bring him out on the field, in the clubhouse, he loves it.
Q: Your daughter Lucy is 2. Which one has your personality?
A: I think my son. He is determined, but he cares about the people that he loves. It’s fun to see that he genuinely wants other people to be happy.
Q: He’s a spitting image of you?
A: I would like to think so (smile). My wife tells me that all the time. So I’m just relaying her message.
Q: What is Lucy’s personality like?
A: She is strong-willed, she’s gonna do things the way that she wants to do it. But she’s fun, and just enjoys life. I think she’s a blend of both of us.
Q: So how would you describe fatherhood?
A: Fatherhood is the greatest, but hardest thing in the world. Seeing my kids and wanting them to be good kids and wanting them to do the right things and just be good people, it’s hard but it’s fun to see it. Like when you’re looking and they don’t know that you’re around and they’re doing something the right way. … It’s awesome.
Q: What would you say drives you?
A: I want to be somebody that my son can look up to. I want to be successful, but I think that in my mind successful is providing for my family and giving them the best opportunity that we can, and I think just being able to be there for them and provide opportunities for my kids to grow up, and I think that’s the biggest thing.
Q: What is the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?
A: Obviously being away was tough those two years, but I went to a military school [VMI], had to do a bunch of military things, and seeing all my friends and stuff in college out partying and messing around, and I was in my dorm room with three other guys in a small room and didn’t necessarily get the opportunity to go out. That was tough, but it also provided me the opportunity to meet some of the best people that I’ve ever met in my entire life.
Q: That must have been culture shock for you.
A: Yeah (laugh).
Q: Give me an example.
A: Day 1, my parents dropped me off in college, and we had to line up by companies in the middle of the basketball arena, and we marched from the basketball arena up in the barracks, and then the next nine days they proceeded to yell at us and teach us how to march and wear our uniforms right. We couldn’t use our cell phones, we couldn’t use our computers to talk to anybody. I think that was probably the biggest like hey, this isn’t your normal college experience (chuckle).
Q: Five years in the minors. What kept you going?
A: So I spent three years in Double-A. … I had my first big-league camp in 2018. … I always believed in myself that I would be able to do it. Maybe I’m stubborn, maybe I’m strong-willed, whatever you want to call it, but I never wanted to really give up.
Q: What is the worst minor league bus ride?
A: In the Texas League it was tough, because we would do eight hours from Frisco to Corpus Christi, and then we’d go another seven hours from Corpus Christi to Midland and then five hours back, and that was our road trip majority of the time.
Q: When did you grow the beard?
A: I pretty much have had a beard ever since I left college, just because I had to shave every day in college (laugh) and I just wanted to grow it out.
Q: Are you recognized around town?
A: I actually am probably more recognized as Jake Diekman. Everybody thinks that I look like him.
Q: Describe your no-hitter against Lafayette?
A: To be honest, I did the best that I could to not look at the scoreboard. I knew that something was going on because I had walked a guy, but I didn’t think I’d given up a hit so I was just trying to remind myself just to stay in the moment and not get caught up in everything else that was going on.
Q: Boyhood idols?
A: My favorite pitchers as a kid growing up were Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz. And then Brett Favre, Tom Brady, football.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Tiger Woods, Nolan Ryan, Michael Jordan.
Q: Why Nolan Ryan?
A: I feel like Nolan Ryan was the blueprint of the people that I watched growing up. He made high-velocity pitcher a thing, and then everybody else kind of followed the blueprint that he laid out for everybody else.
Q: Favorite movies?
A: “Sandlot,” the Marvel “Avengers” series.
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Christian Bale.
Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?
A: Garth Brooks.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Steak.
Q: Why aren’t you on Twitter /X?
A: One of the best things that I’ve done in my career is to get rid of Twitter. When things are going good, you’re looking at what people are saying about you, and then when things are going bad, you’re doing everything that you can to not see what people are saying about you. … But they started bringing my family and stuff into things that they were saying, and I didn’t want to handle that, I didn’t want any opportunity for somebody to say anything about my wife and kids.
Q: Goals?
A: I just want to be there and give my team the best opportunity to win, and not take any days off. Not have those days where I’m not necessarily mentally all there, or physically kind of checked out.
Q: What do you hope Mets fans say about you?
A: That I was a competitor. That I wasn’t afraid of any situation. That I went out there and truly laid it all out on the line to help the team win.
Q: What are you most proud of?
A: I would say not giving up. I’m proud of myself for sticking to who I am and what I believe and the belief that I had in myself.
Q: You seem comfortable in your own skin.
A: I think that’s when you go through adversity you learn a lot about who you are. And I feel like that I am comfortable with who I’ve become and what I am doing.
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