In the second half of the 2019 season, Noah Syndergaard has been one of the best pitchers in baseball and that continued on Thursday night when he shutdown the Indians for six innings in the Mets 2-0 win.
Syndergaard had a perfect game going into the sixth inning when he allowed a single to Tyler Naquin with one out. He allowed a single to Francisco Lindor later in the inning, but got a fine defensive play by Alonso to end his only jam of the night.
The only thing that could hold up Syndergaard on Thursday was a rain delay that ultimately shortened a fantastic outing.
Syndergaard finished his night allowing only the two singles, no walks, striking out five, and throwing only 73 pitches in six scoreless innings.
It was the eighth consecutive quality start for Syndergaard and his 1.82 ERA (since July 13) in that span ranks eighth among MLB starters. During that span, his 2.2 fWAR ranks second behind only Justin Verlander.
Thor has thrown at least six innings, allowed two runs or fewer and thrown fewer than 100 pitches in a franchise record five-straight starts.
One the biggest changes you can see in how the 26-year-old has been pitching since July 13 has been his slider. His slider usage is up from 11.5% from March 30 through July 6 to 21.6% starting on July 13. His slider velocity since July 13 is up to 89.7 mph from 88.4 mph to start the season. In fact, all four of Syndergaard’s pitches have seen a velo bump during his recent stretch of success.
