MATZ THE TICKET!
Lefty takes advantage of ample strike zone
WASHINGTON — Steven Matz’s painting of the corners of the strike zone — and the generous way home plate umpire Marty Foster was calling the game — drew the ire of the Nationals on Saturday afternoon.
The Mets lefty took advantage by striking out eight over five innings, with ejections of third baseman Anthony Rendon and manager Dave Martinez as collateral damage, to help set up a 3-2 win at Nationals Park.
“I don’t look at them getting frustrated at them, I just look at them not hitting it, or taking it,” said Matz, who recorded half of his punchouts on called third strikes. “So I’m going to keep attacking that until they show me something.”
Matz got the no-decision, but it was the first time the Mets had won a game he started since July 21 of last season. He had just five more starts after that before having season-ending surgery to reposition and decompress the ulnar nerve in his left elbow.
The first five outs Matz re- corded Saturday all came by way of the strikeout — a career-high in consecutive strikeouts — with a strong command of his fastball, something that was missing in his last start, when he left too many of them up in a loss to the Cardinals.
Matz was much more effective this time around despite having to use 93 pitches to get through five innings. He allowed just three singles (one on a bunt), two walks and one unearned run.
“There was a lot more confidence,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “Total conviction on most of his pitches. You could see it in the way he released the ball. He did a great job of making an adjustment.”
Matz said pitching coach Dave Eiland saw something in his delivery, and they worked on it between starts to improve his command.
“It was just a minor adjustment, something I was doing in spring training as well early on, just not having that last bit of conviction with my pitch,” Matz said. “Mentally and physically as well, just finishing.”
Before allowing an unearned run in the fifth inning, when a throwing error by Todd Frazier led to an RBI single by Pedro Severino, Matz had extended his scoreless streak at Nationals Park to 19 ¹/3 innings. He got some help in the second to keep that going, when Juan Lagares fired a strike to catcher Travis d’Arnaud to throw out Brian Goodwin at the plate.
“We’re here, we want to win, we want to win the World Series,” Matz said. “I think it starts right now, it starts early in these series, getting ahead.”