Mets wondering what to expect from Matz

The way he finished spring training, again looking like the can’t-miss kid from that memorable summer of 2015, Steven Matz had convinced the Mets he was over the hump, on track again to reclaim the dominance stolen from him by injuries. And now who knows. Was it merely a March mirage, the way he buzzsawed through the Astros’ “A” lineup a couple of weeks ago, seemingly discovering that pitching inside with attitude could do wonders for his overall effectiveness?

Baseball people preach all the time about the danger of buying in to spring training results, but in Matz’s case the Mets thought his turnaround from late-February ugliness to lateMarch dominance was an important sign the lefty had overcome lingering doubts about last year, about the nerve transposition surgery he had in August.

“He trusted his stuff more,” was the way Mickey Callaway put it before Sunday’s game. “He’s got such good stuff.”

Yes, there was a real sense of anticipation at Citi Field for Matz’s first start of the season. One person in the organization said flatly, “He’s our wild-card.”

With all of that in mind, the Mets obviously didn’t get what they were hoping for on this Easter Sunday, as Matz lasted only four innings in the 5-1 loss to the Cardinals.

His command was off from the start, as he walked the second and third batters of the game, and it took him 89 pitches to get through four innings.

By then he’d given up three runs, two on solo home runs by Paul DeJong and Yadier Molina, and could have given up more, as the Cardinals hit some other balls hard that were run down in the outfield.

As such Callaway decided not to push him any farther, and so the questions that dogged Matz last season, when a series of ineffective starts left him with a rather hideous 6.08 ERA, have now followed him into a new season.

In short, as much as injuries have been his downfall, it’s fair to ask whether Matz can ever be consistently dominant again even when healthy.

And if not, is it more about his confidence, which includes controlling his emotions, than the quality of his stuff?

Certainly it’s encouraging that health doesn’t seem to be any sort of issue now. In fact, Matz said a pain-free elbow has allowed him to throw bullpens between starts in ways he couldn’t last year, and as such he felt especially sharp heading into Sunday’s first start.

“That’s why it’s so frustrating,” he said, “because I felt really good, I felt really confident. I had the best bullpen I’ve had in a while, and when it doesn’t translate, like today, you start to try to find it, and that’s what I was doing.”

If anything, Matz said, he allowed his emotions to get the best of him, coming out so over-amped that his fastball was up all day — waist-high, Callaway said — and the Cardinals whaled away at it.

“Maybe I was trying to do a little too much out there,” he said. “I was really smooth and easy before the game, and then when a hitter steps in, I try to make my pitches better, and that’s when I get in trouble.

“Instead of staying smooth and finishing pitches, I was…I don’t know if it was overthrowing, but it didn’t translate from the way I was feeling before the game.”

If that’s the case, it’s surely an easier fix for Matz than what he was dealing with last season, trying to pitch through pain in his elbow to prove his toughness, knowing it had been questioned by some in the organization.

On the other hand, Matz isn’t a kid anymore, and he has to be able to control his emotions as well as maintain a level of confidence when things aren’t going well for him on the mound.

Callaway, for his part, said that while Matz had a good change-up that allowed him to “stay in and fight” for four innings, the manager said he saw the lefty stop trusting his fastball.

“It didn’t look like he had the confidence to throw it over,” Callaway said.

That seems a bit baffling, especially the way Matz finished in Florida. Yet the manager said he could understand it.

“Sometimes you just don’t have your best stuff,” he said. “He obviously was struggling from the get-go as far as getting his fastball where he wanted to, and I think that just kind of got to him a little bit.” ig picture, the Mets are glad Matz got through spring training with no arm issues, giving them reason to believe he’ll find his old form again, the form he showed only a couple of weeks ago against an Astros’ lineup as tough as any he’ll face all season.

But they had high hopes such form would show up in his first start of the season. That it didn’t leaves them scratching their heads, again wondering what they can expect from Matz. Even now that he’s healthy.

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