{"id":612632,"date":"2026-03-08T02:53:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/612632\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T02:53:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:53:31","slug":"craig-kimbrel-is-doing-everything-he-can-to-make-the-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/612632\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Kimbrel is doing everything he can to make the Mets"},"content":{"rendered":"

PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 Craig Kimbrel\u2019s former baby face is half-covered by his reddish beard, a symbol of his burning desire to keep playing this game<\/a>, to \u201ckeep getting outs,\u201d as he puts it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His arm, a gift from the gods, after 851 games and 16 seasons has lost some ticks on his once all-world fastball. But he\u2019s evolving, and he will keep evolving until someone rips that uniform off him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kimbrel, two months shy of 38, is working as hard as anyone in Mets camp, trying anything to make the team, his goal the past couple of years after a decade and a half of utter domination in a star closer\u2019s role. That\u2019s far from a given in this camp where he\u2019s on a non-roster contract, they have five relievers on big league deals, and the club might even begin the season with six starters. There are only a couple open spots, and he\u2019s desperately hoping to grab one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The days of blowing batters away with over 100-mph heat to build his 440-save r\u00e9sum\u00e9 are gone. But Kimbrel is endeavoring to boost a four-seam fastball that averaged 92 in his scoreless frame Thursday against the Marlins and, just as vitally, refine a repertoire that includes slider, curveball and nascent cutter.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 Craig Kimbrel\u2019s former baby face is half-covered by his reddish beard, a symbol of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,847,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,185,430,428,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-612632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-craig-kimbrel","10":"tag-mets","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkmets","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-columnists","18":"tag-sports-plus","19":"tag-spring-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116191297834929863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}