USA TODAY Sports

Even when he got on base, Tim Tebow couldn't avoid looking like an athlete who has not played competitive baseball for a long, long time.

Tebow, the telegenic former Heisman Trophy winner making a run at a baseball career, struck out on four pitches against reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello in his first spring training at-bat with the New York Mets on Wednesday. The results did not get much better from there.

In his second at-bat, with the bases loaded against reliever Noe Ramirez, Tebow worked a five-pitch at-bat before grounding into a 4-6-3 double play. He did, however, get the tying run home, as the at-bat came with nobody out.

Tebow did manage to reach base in his third plate appearance, when fellow Florida Gator Brian Johnson plunked Tebow with a breaking pitch on a 1-1 count.

However, Tebow was erased moments later when L.J. Mazzilli hit a bases-loaded line drive to second baseman Deven Marrero. Tebow hasn't played a full season of baseball since 2004, his junior year of high school, and he violated one of baseball's oldest axioms - freeze on a line drive. He wandered too far off first and was easily doubled off.

Tebow's day finished with another strikeout looking - all on three nasty breaking pitches from Brandon Workman, a Red Sox reliever who hasn't pitched in the major leagues since 2014 and is coming off Tommy John surgery.

That was the capper to a day that began with a predictable overmatch against Porcello.

Wearing No. 97, Tebow swung at one Porcello offering and was well behind on a fastball. Porcello followed with a fastball on the outside corner that Tebow let pass. Home-plate umpire Ryan Additon rung him up for strike three, and Tebow offered just a couple sheepish words of protest.

The result was much to the chagrin of the large crowd for the Mets' Grapefruit League game against the Boston Red Sox at Port St. Lucie; a large number of fans pulled out camera phones to capture the occasion.

Tebow batted .194 with 20 strikeouts in 62 at-bats in the Arizona Fall League against top pitching prospects. He's expected to be assigned to one of the Mets' Class A affiliates in April.

According to the Mets' broadcast team, the last time a former Heisman Trophy winner faced a Cy Young Award winner was 1989, when Bo Jackson faced Frank Viola.





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