Steven Matz made his third start since returning from the DL on August 16 in today’s matinee against the Washington Nationals.

The 27-year-old started ran into some trouble early as he allowed a leadoff single to Adam Eaton and walked Ryan Zimmerman three batters later to put runners on first and second with two outs. However, he struck out 19-year-old phenom, Juan Soto, to end the threat.

That strikeout would be one of six in a row retired for the left-hander before Trea Turner singled with two outs in the third inning. Anthony Rendon would ground out on the next play, though, to make it all for naught.

Matz would allow a leadoff double to Ryan Zimmerman to start the fourth inning, but would once again escape the threat as he would get Soto to ground out, strikeout Michael Taylor, and get Wilmer Difo to fly out.

The fifth inning went quite smoothly as well as he retired the side 1-2-3 while striking out the opposing pitcher, Jefry Rodriguez, for the second time today.

It would start to get dicey for the Long Island-native in the top of the sixth, though, as he threw a first-pitch hanging curveball to Turner in the sixth that hit the top of the wall in left field and was ruled as a double upon review of the play.

Rendon would follow that up with an RBI single to center field to put runners at the corners with nobody out. Matz would proceed to strike out Zimmerman in the next at-bat, though, to set up the double play. However, he would fail to secure it as he got as Soto hit a slow-rolling groundball to Jay Bruce that Matz barely made it to the bag in time to record even one out. Turner proceeded to score the first run of the game in the meantime. Taylor would strikeout for the second time to end the threat, and Matz would then proceed to retire the side 1-2-3 in the seventh to finish his day strong.

All in all, this was Matz’ best start this month and his longest since June 26. Matz went seven innings (97 pitches) and allowed only one run, five hits, and one walk while striking out seven batters.

Despite this, the Mets managed to give Matz his 11th loss of the season as the team’s bullpen allowed 14 runs in two innings of work while their offense did not provide any support, getting shutout for the ninth time this season.

On the bright side, Matz lowered his season ERA to 4.36.

After the game, Matz spoke with reporters about his performance and said that he believes that the command of his sinker and changeup played a vital role in his ability to successfully mow down most of the Nationals’ lineup.

“I think I had a good sinker and good changeup. That pretty much sums it up. I was able to keep my sinker down and use the changeup to keep them off the fastball.”

Matz also said that he felt a lot better than he has recently and closer to the pitcher that had a 3.38 ERA after the last time he faced the Nationals, when prompted with the question about it from Steve Gelbs of SNY.

“Yeah, for sure. The ability to just keep running back out there has been very beneficial.”

Quick Hits:

Matz pitched a season-high-tying seven innings (third time) for the first time since June 26 vs. Pittsburgh. It was the first time he’s thrown at least seven innings and allowed one or no runs since July 3 at Washington (seven innings, no runs)…

The lefty has a 2.25 in his last two starts (three earned runs/12 innings).

Mets starters have posted a 1.39 ERA (nine earned runs/58.1 innings) in the team’s last nine games since August 18.

The team’s starters threw 20-straight scoreless innings from the fifth inning of Jacob deGrom’s start on August 23 vs. the Giants through the fifth inning today.

Matz’ start today was the Mets’ fifth-consecutive quality start, the team’s seventh in their last nine games, and 13th in their last 19 games.