Noah Syndergaard’s debut an up and down affair

Yesterday Noah Syndergaard threw what he and manager Terry Collins considered his finest major league game to date. It’s hard to argue. He cruised through eight innings, walking none and striking out five, while needing only 89 pitches to do it. He touched 98 mph as late as the eighth inning and used his off-speed pitches very effectively. It was quite the performance.

Of course, in his previous appearance against Atlanta he lasted only four innings while giving up four runs and six hits on 88 pitches. That’s been the story so far with Syndergaard: generally up and down. That’s to be expected of a 22-year-old prospect in his first stint in the majors, even for one of Syndergaard’s pedigree. He’s gone from struggle to dominance and back again. In his game against the Blue Jays on June 15th, the start before his struggles in Atlanta, he held a potent lineup to just one run over six innings with eleven strikeouts.

Fortunately there’s been more up than down, as evidenced by his overall stat line. In 52.2 innings of work he has an ERA of 3.59, a FIP of 2.76, a WHIP of 1.22, and a SO/9 of 9.1. Those are debut numbers any Mets fan should be happy about. Of course we’re talking about averages over nine games here, so small sample size caveats abound.

Still, there are certainly aspects of his performance that he’ll need to improve on moving forward. He’s giving up a bit too much contact right now, as evidence by his H/9 of 9.2. Interestingly, only 12 of the 54 hits he’s given up were for extra bases and even then they mostly occurred during his worst performances. He’s done a pretty good job of limiting the damage. Also, his 1.37 ground ball to fly ball ratio and slightly higher-than-average BABIP of .329 suggest that the below average infield defense behind him may have taken a toll, especially considering how well his FIP has outperformed his ERA.

Speaking of off-speed pitches, Syndergaard really needs to mix them in more, particularly his curve. According to FanGraphs, he’s used his hard stuff nearly 65% of the time. His bread and butter is obviously his fastball, but it should come as no surprise that in his three most dominant performances (Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Toronto) he threw the curve about 30% of the time.

Additionally, he’s only averaged 5.8 innings per start this year. To be fair, that’s been dragged down by a few short starts. His shortest outings have consisted of a 5.1 inning effort and a couple of four inning starts. Other than that, he’s pitched at least six innings. He’s only pitched more than six innings twice: yesterday and his May 27th game against the Phillies. His four other starts have been literally 6.0 innings. You’d ideally like for your starters to get you into the seventh, but at this point averaging six innings a start is just fine.

All of that being said, Syndergaard’s debut has been solid, further spoiling a Mets fan base in terms of starting pitching quality. It remains to be seen how things will ultimately turn out, but if he continues making adjustments the monster rotation Mets fans dream about will move closer to reality.