Saturday was a good day for starting pitchers in MLB. Yesterday, 14 different starters pitched at least six innings, including Kodai Senga. For a comparison, only four pitchers did it on Friday, two on both Wednesday and Thursday, and three on both Monday and Tuesday. And the previous Saturday, only one pitcher in MLB went at least six innings. It’s a different world.
You probably know that the Mets have a terrific record when their starter gives them at least six innings. Senga went seven yesterday and the Mets broke a seven-game losing streak. After that win, the Mets are now 17-1 when their starter goes at least six. The good news is that’s an incredible .944 winning percentage. The bad news is that works out to just 28% of the starts this season.
But as mentioned in the first graph, it’s a different world here in 2023. And that makes it more important than ever to give some context. Thru Saturday, MLB teams have combined to play 1,938 games. And starters have gone at least six innings in 760 games. That works out to 39% of the starts this season.
An average team here in 2023 should theoretically have 25 starts of at least six innings, while the Mets have 18. Senga leads the team with five starts of at least six innings. Meanwhile, 43-year-old Rich Hill, whom the Mets picked up a few years back to give them a guy to throw four or five innings, already has seven games where he’s gone at least six innings. Zack Wheeler has eight of those starts, Chris Bassitt has 10 and Marcus Stroman has 12.
But if we’re going to look at how many times an MLB club has their starter pitch at least six innings, we should also look at how many times they won the game when that happened. Turns out that teams are 495-265 when their starter goes at least six, which is a nifty .651 winning percentage. But well short of the Mets’ .944 winning percentage in these games.
Would it be worth it for the Mets to have an average number of these six innings or more starts if they came with the average winning percentage? The MLB average of 25 starts at a .651 winning percentage would be 16 wins. The Mets with their winning percentage at six or more innings have 17 wins.
Of course, that’s ignoring what the Mets do when their starter fails to complete six innings. The team is just 14-33 in those games. That’s a .298 winning percentage. MLB as a whole is 474-704 when the starter fails to complete six innings, which is a .402 winning percentage. The Mets fall far short of reaching league average in those games.
The starters have to take a big portion of that blame. But we can’t let either the offense or the bullpen off the hook in those contests. The offense has definitely shown signs of life in the last five games. And maybe if the starters went longer the bullpen would be better, too. But that’s not going to happen unless more than three relievers pitch well.
Still, the first step is getting the rotation to deliver quality and quantity on a much more regular basis. The Mets need Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to give these types of outings 80% of the time, like they did in 2022 (Scherzer 19 times in 23 starts, Verlander 22 times in 28 starts) rather than the 41% of the time they’re doing so far in 2023 – Scherzer four times in 10 starts, Verlander three times in seven starts.
Carrasco only went 4.2 innings today. He only threw 81 pitches. Of course, less than six innings, and we lost. Really anemic today and another series loss. If we pitch well, we score just enough to lose. If we score a lot of runs, like the other day with ten runs, the bullpen implodes and we lose.
Cohen said he is not going to react and make changes, but I sure bet in private, he is pounding his desk.