Mets acquire Phil Maton from Rays to provide relief for bullpen

The Mets' beleaguered bullpen got a little bit of help Tuesday afternoon — likely signaling an intention to shore up its overtaxed relief corps as the front office decides its trade deadline strategy in the coming weeks.

The team announced that they acquired veteran righty reliever Phil Maton from the Rays in exchange for cash considerations or a player to be named later — the hope being that he can help right what has been a disastrous July for the bullpen thus far. They’ve pitched to a major-league worst 9.41 ERA this month, partially extinguishing the momentum the Mets built during a highly successful June.

Going into Tuesday night’s game against the Nationals, the bullpen had a 4.13 ERA this overall — 16th in baseball.

Maton is expected to join the team either Wednesday or Thursday, president of baseball operations David Stearns said. Joey Lucchesi was designated for assignment in a corresponding move.

Maton, who signed a one-year, $6.25 million deal with the Rays, was on the Mets' radar this offseason, and Stearns said he was encouraged by recent adjustments the pitcher has made. Discussions with the Rays had been ongoing for a few weeks, Stearns said.

“It’s an experienced arm who has pitched in the back of the bullpen in big games (with the Astros last year),” Stearns said. “He’s shown an ability to attack both handed hitters.”

Maton is 1-2 this season with a 4.58 ERA, with two saves, two blown saves and nine holds. He has, however, had much better results of late — pitching to a 0.75 ERA in his last 11 appearances. He has a five-pitch mix, led by an effective cutter, and when he’s on, can induce weak contact and plenty of groundballs.

The move comes as the Mets continue to navigate their Picasso-esque bullpen picture — one that became messier and messier as they navigated Edwin Diaz’s 10-day suspension for sticky stuff, season ending injuries to Brooks Raley and Drew Smith, a single lefty reliever in the mostly ineffective Jake Diekman, and overuse of lower-leverage arms in higher-leverage situations.

“I think bullpen performance can be very volatile and I think bullpen performance can change very quickly,” Stearns said. “We’ve seen that in our own team over the course of this year. Our bullpen performed among the league best…in the first month of the season, had a really rough May, performed much better in June again and clearly, over the last week, it hasn’t performed at a high level.”

He added: “I think we have a group that was thinned out by injuries. We have a group that had some significant usage on certain guys who had pitched pretty well. And we have a group that has the talent to be pretty consistent.”

Stearns said he was heartened by how Maton is “throwing a few more strikes, some usage adjustments have led to a few more strikes and we’re happy to bring him into our pen.”

Although Stearns wouldn’t definitively say that the Mets intend to be buyers at the deadline, he indicated an openness to making moves that could get them there.

“It’s really just about trying to do what we can to put the best team on the field that we possibly can and I think we’ve tried to be as proactive as possible throughout the course of the year, incrementally upgrading where we can and this is another example of it,” he said.

Going into the day, they were one game under .500, 2.5 games behind the third wild card spot, and in a distant third place in the NL East, at 13.5 games behind the Phillies. They did, however, post a 16-8 record in June, performing as one of the best teams in baseball during that stretch.

“If we continue to play well, we’re a playoff caliber team,” Stearns said. “That’s certainly exciting and certainly I prefer where we sit today and the types of questions I’m getting today than what I got six weeks ago.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.