Must-win means Noah gets way

DENVER — The schedule and altitude are convenient excuses, at least publicly, for manager Mickey Callaway to give Noah Syndergaard a personal catcher Wednesday.

Callaway acknowledged before Tuesday’s 6-1 win over the Rockies that Rene Rivera is scheduled to start behind the plate for Syndergaard in the Mets’ series finale at Coors Field. Wilson Ramos was the catcher on Tuesday, a night after Tomas Nido started.

“We feel that is going to be the best thing with this night game/day game and this altitude,” Callaway said, referring to Rivera starting for Syndergaard. “We think that Noah is going to pitch well with him, but we’ll probably go that route tomorrow. There’s a lot of different circumstances: day game, night game, where we’re at we need Noah to pitch well.”

Syndergaard has campaigned to have Rivera or Nido as his catcher. In each of his past two starts — with Ramos behind the plate — the right-hander has struggled, allowing four runs in each outing. Included was four runs over five innings in a loss to the Dodgers on Friday.

“We needed him to pitch well last time and we thought that was going to be the combo that did it that day with the lefty starting [for the Dodgers] and everything,” Callaway said. “We try to do that every time, put ourselves in the best position to succeed and we feel that [Wednesday] given all the circumstances it will.”

Thursday’s day off affords Callaway a chance to skip Steven Matz on Sunday in Cincinnati — the lefthander has pitched to a 6.62 ERA on the road this season — but the manager said he plans to keep his rotation on normal cycle.