Steven Matz had a pretty bad first inning on Wednesday night when the New York Mets played the Washington Nationals and ended up winning 11-5. He threw 33 pitches and gave up a three-run home run to Ryan Zimmerman.

As bad as his first was, Matz settled down and got through four with a manageable pitch count. He has had an interesting season. Last season, Matz just struck out 16.1% of the people faced whereas this year, it is 30.66%. His stuff is clearly much better than last year and his HR-to-fly ball rate is a rather crazy 35.7%. Last year, the highest HR/FB rate in baseball was 21.2%. Essentially, I am suggesting Matz will be better going forward and his HR/FB rate should normalize.

In the fourth inning on Wednesday night the Mets had first and second, one-out with Matz due up trailing 3-2 to the Washington Nationals when Mickey Callaway decided to use his best pinch-hitter against a righty, Brandon Nimmo. Nimmo got on base to load the bases for Amed Rosario. Rosario grounded into a double play so the Mets did not score but Callaway explained the move after the game.

Paul Sewald and the Mets offense probably made this decision seem a lot less debatable following his impressive three inning outing. But had Sewald struggled in his outing or if the Mets offense did not pull away late, there might have been questions about the decision to pull Matz and force another long outing from the bullpen.

I believe that it was the right move for several reasons. The first being, it’s Steven Matz. With all due respect to Matz, he is not on the same level as Noah Syndergaard or Jacob deGrom. The Mets new coaching staff essentially views him as a five-inning pitcher and there is nothing wrong with that. His injury history is pretty difficult to gloss over and many pitchers who have problems staying on the field tend to do better when being limited. Rich Hill comes to my mind as someone who has benefited from this.

Could he have gone another inning and maybe get a couple outs in the sixth while not giving up anymore runs? Maybe. But I would not give you great odds on it happening as opposed to Syndergaard or deGrom trying the same thing.

The second thing, Matz’s spot came up in a pretty big situation. The previous night, the Mets left 11 runners on. Callaway was not able to pick a good spot for Nimmo largely because the Nationals had a lefty starting and have multiple lefties in their bullpen. Last night though, the Nationals were not going to pull Roark with no one warming up in their bullpen. Nimmo did his job and got on base while not making an out. Had Rosario come through in that spot, then it would have been hailed as a great move.

Matz was obviously a little upset after the game about the move, but also understood, “I think Mickey would understand that I wouldn’t be happy. As a competitor, you want to go out there and go as deep in the game as you can. … Thankfully, the bats came alive and we were able to get the win.”

The move probably would have been widely criticized had Juan Lagares made an out after Flores struck out. A lot of people would have wondered how Brandon Nimmo would have done with the bases loaded and one-out as opposed to Flores. Here is the thing though, many times, a manager leaves his closer (person who some feel is the best reliever) in the bullpen while the most important spot of the game is before the closer can come in and get the save.

An example: In the 2016 AL Wild Card Game, Buck Showalter kept Zach Britton in the bullpen because Britton needed to get the save. After a few close calls earlier in the game, Showalter still tried tempting fate by rolling out worse pitchers as opposed to his best one. It finally backfired in the 12th inning when Showalter used Ubaldo Jimenez, who subsequently let the first two batters reach and then gave up a three-run homer to Edwin Encarnacion. Buck was hammered by everyone after the game for not using his best reliever and he insisted that saving Britton for the save was important even though you can only get to the save if you don’t lose the game before it gets to the closer.

The logic applies here as well. What if the Mets went quietly in the eighth and Nimmo was not used in a spot where he gives you the best chance of helping the team. I would prefer that the manager does not mess with a hypothetical situation and he just uses his best players when he knows for a fact they can be useful to the team.

Those are the two big reasons why I feel this was the right move. If this was deGrom or Syndergaard getting pulled in the fourth when they could have gone another inning, then I think fans would have a gripe to hold.