When Noah Syndergaard went down with his lat injury, the Mets knew that eventually Steven Matz and Seth Lugo should be ready to pick up the slack. In the meantime, they tried Rafael Monetro, Tommy Milone, and Tyler Pill. It must have been awfully tempting to rush Matz back to plug a hole in the league’s worst pitching staff, but instead, the team let the young, injury-prone starter regain his strength. That decision proved wise Saturday as Matz threw seven strong innings in his 2017 debut as the Mets cruised to an 8-1 victory.
The evening game started at 6 p.m and the shadows between the mound and home plate kept the hitters quiet early, as neither team could get anything going offensively. Maybe it’s nice to let Matz and Atlanta starter Matt Wisler ease in to their first starts of the season. But we can’t tell if either pitcher is really being that good until they have to work from the same light as the hitters.
Matz put on a clinic, retiring nine straight batters before putting two batters on in the sixth inning. Matt Kemp stepped to the plate – Atlanta’s best hitter – with a chance to put some runs on the board. Matz got ahead with two quick strikes, then forced Kemp to expand his strike zone. Every pitcher wants to get two quick strikes then expand the zone, but we’ve seen one Met starter after another struggle to execute this fundamental game plan. Pitchers like Zack Wheeler and Robert Gsellman nibble or throw obvious waste pitches that hitters can ignore. The key to Matz’s success was that most pitches looked like they could be strikes. Matz had the command to execute his game plan.
It never looked like Matz was trying to throw the perfect pitch to rack up high strikeout totals. He was perfectly content to get weak contact out of the zone and trust his fielders to catch the ball. It takes some courage to trust this team’s defense, but the plan worked today. Matz gave up a run in the seventh, finishing with two strikesouts and six batters reaching base in his seven innings.
The Mets’ bats woke up in a hurry once they could see the ball. Michael Conforto drew a two-out walk in the fifth, Jose Reyes singled, Jay Bruce homered and all of a sudden it was 3-0. Wilmer Flores led off the sixth with a triple over Danny Santana’s head and later scored on a sacrifice fly. T.J. Rivera hit a pinch-hit homer in the eighth to make it 6-1, and the Mets tacked on two more runs in the ninth after challenging a close play which was initially called the third out of the inning.
Odds and Ends
· The last time the Mets won both halves of a doubleheader was 2013, when Zack Wheeler made his big league debut in Atlanta.
· Neither Yoenis Cespedes nor Asdrbual Cabrera played in the second game. Neil Walker played and was able to make a leaping grab on his bad knee.
· Eric O’Flaherty threw head high and inside to Conforto immediately after giving up the home run to Rivera. He was warned immediately. Neither team pushed the issue further as some sort of potential beef.
· T.J. Rivera was demoted after the game to clear room for Cespedes. This makes Flores or Reyes the only bench infielder.
· Tyler Pill mopped up in the 9th inning, then got demoted to make room for Seth Lugo. Neil Ramirez, who worked the 8th, stays on the big league roster.
What’s Next?
Seth Lugo makes his 2017 debut as the Mets look to take three of four from Atlanta. A few weeks ago, the Mets announced Lugo and Matz would stay in the rotation and Gsellman was off the the bullpen, but the team has instead decided to go with a six-man rotation.
Photo credit: Dane Zanine – USA Today Sports