Matz shows some moxie in victory
MIAMI — Three errors committed by the Mets might have been enough to sink Steven Matz earlier this season.
The Mets lefty now looks at such potential inning killers as an inconvenience, but nothing fatal.
On Sunday, the Mets booted three grounders — Matz himself was the culprit on one of them — but the pitcher reverted to his conversations with pitching coach Dave Eiland about handling adversity.
In the end, the Mets received 5 ¹/₃ innings from Matz in which he allowed one unearned run.
“When stuff starts to go out there in the past it would snowball on me,” Matz said after the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the Marlins. “But I sat down and talked to Dave about that, and it’s kind of a big step for me and what I have been working on pitching in those big situations, especially when stuff isn’t going my way is big for me.
“It’s still a little bit of a conscious battle, but it’s feeling more routine to me. When something goes necessarily not my way, it’s feeling a little more familiar. I am not really fighting as much.”
Matz’s road ERA dropped to 2.25 — two runs lower than at home — but the pitcher just shrugs when asked about the discrepancy.
“Hopefully I can improve my home ERA,” he said.
Matz credited his changeup and his willingness to pitch inside for his recent solid work.
“I think my changeup is just really becoming a good pitch for me,” he said. “When you can pitch inside and then show the contrast with the changeup, I think it makes pitching inside more effective because it gives them that different look.”
Said manager Mickey Callaway: “His ability to throw the fastball inside and run it back over the inside corner [is impressive]. You see it almost every time he pitches, the hitter is staring at the umpire trying to figure out where that is crossing [the plate], because he does such a great job of running that in there and on the inside corner.”