Matz must get better to help Thor, deGrom
THIS will be the defining issue of this Mets season, so even if Steven Matz had either pitched a perfect game or allowed 10 runs without recording an out, the needle would move only so much this first day out of, let’s say, 100, optimally.
Hence Sunday afternoon at Citi Field went down as a day of more symbolism than substance. The initial defeat recorded by these 2018 Mets and by Mickey Callaway, 5-1 to the Cardinals, nudged the needle in the wrong direction.
For this marked the Mets’ maiden voyage into non-Noah Syndergaard, non-Jacob deGrom territory, and the leadoff audition, Steven Matz, lasted just four innings as he got tagged with the loss. “The main thing was, maybe I was trying to do a little too much out there,” said Matz, who gave up three runs and four hits while walking three and striking out four. “I was really smooth and easy before the game. I was really feeling confident going in there. Then, when a hitter steps in, I try to make my pitches better. And that’s when I get in trouble.”
“He just couldn’t get the ball over the plate consistently,” Callaway said of Matz. “Really deep counts, falling behind, things like that. ... It didn’t look like he had the confidence to throw it over.”
Matz, making his first start since Aug. 17, needed 89 pitches expended to record those 12 outs.
“The one thing he did do was battle,” Callaway said, and the skipper’s early hook meant the Mets’ lineup, down 3-1, still had a chance to bail out the lefty. That didn’t happen, as Cardinals starter Luke Weaver and three relievers didn’t allow a Met to reach second base after the fifth, and a modest Easter Sunday crowd announced as 22,486 filed out quietly.
Matt Harvey gets his turn Monday night against the Phillies and then Seth Lugo follows Tuesday night to complete this first turn through the rotation. As no less an authority than Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said on Opening Day, “Obviously with Syndergaard and deGrom, we have a top two in the rotation that can match up with anybody in the game. The key for us will be three, four and five, six and seven.” Figuring that Syndergaard and deGrom would start 31 games each in the best-case scenario, that leaves 100 games’ worth of keys.
As Matz noted, even though he did fall behind eight of 18 hitters, most of the Cardinals’ damage occurred when he got two strikes on guys. Paul DeJong’s second-inning homer, his first of two on the day, came on a full-count fastball. Marcell Ozuna’s third-inning, runscoring double traveled into the left-field corner off of an 0-2 curveball. And Mets-killer Yadier Molina’s fourth-inning blast happened on a 1-2 sinker that didn’t sink enough.
“[The] fastball was just up,” Callaway said. “Up, up, up. Waist-high the whole time.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Matz said in agreement. “That’s where it starts for me. I was leaving the ball up a lot and I was giving them a chance to get their barrels to it. That’s really what I’ve got to be better at.”
Matz underwent left elbow surgery in August, and he secured his job by recording a 1.96 ERA in his final four Grapefruit League starts. The Mets are banking on last year’s ghastly 6.08 ERA being a byproduct of bad health and on Matz looking closer to his 2016 (3.40) or 2015 (2.27) self. His velocity (average 93.7 mph on the four-seam fastball, as per Brooks Baseball) and his nine swings and misses offered optimism. Now the results must come.
“We have plenty of arms to get the job done,” Callaway vowed after this game, and the jury remains very much undecided on that. The sooner the Mets can get the needle pointed in the right direction, the better they — and their fans — can feel about this redemption season.