Former Mets Top Prospect Attempting to Resurrect Career

September will be a month of evaluation for the New York Mets. They'll use the final month of the regular season to see which of their young prospects could be franchise pieces for the future.

One player in particular is looking for a career turnaround after flaming out earlier in the season.

Once viewed as one of the top prospects in the Mets organization, rookie Jose Butto had a rough start to the year. Despite an ERA of 3.00 during his first three starts, the right hander only threw 12 innings and walked 11 batters.

He was demoted down to Triple-A and regressed at the lower level, recording an ERA of 7.39 in his first 13 starts in the minor leagues.

Butto made one more appearance with New York in August, coming out of the bullpen. He pitched 2.2 innings, allowing three earned runs on two hits. The 25-year-old was sent back down to Triple-A before being called up once again for the September evaluations.

In the most important audition of his career, Butto had his best performance as a major league starter.

The righty pitched a scoreless six innings before getting pulled after allowing two baserunners in the seventh. He finished his night with two earned runs after those runner scored, but flashed his stuff with six strikeouts.

"He was good,” manager Buck Showalter told Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. “I was looking at the balls-to-strikes, that’s about the only thing you could say negative about it. He stayed in attack mode. We were real proud of him."

His command was still an issue, throwing 50 strikes out of his 81 pitches thrown. However, he looked like a different pitcher compared to the one that struggled early in the season.

With the evaluations ongoing through the final stretch of the month, Butto kept his name in the running moving forward.

"He certainly did what it takes to be strongly considered for [another start] It’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world," Showalter said.