{"id":182598,"date":"2026-03-07T23:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T23:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/182598\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T23:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T23:36:07","slug":"craig-kimbrel-is-doing-everything-he-can-to-make-the-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/182598\/","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":182599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[77015,3817,12193,171,173,172,110,45912,45911,20253],"class_list":["post-182598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-craig-kimbrel","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-sports-plus","tag-spring-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}