Robert Stock missed with his first pitch of the game. Jake Mangum drove his second offering for a double. This, unfortunately for Stock and the New York Mets, would be the theme of the night.
“I think he found himself behind in the count pretty frequently and by the fourth inning he was out of gas,” manager Andy Green said after the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 9-0 win Saturday night snapped New York’s (51-67) four-game winning streak. “Had trouble commanding the baseball at that point in time.”
Stock earned the start Saturday after pitching well (one run on three hits in five innings) in his season debut against the Marlins on August 2. After Saturday night’s effort, Green said it was too early to say if he will get another turn in the rotation.
Stock gave up eight earned runs on nine hits, walked five, hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and was yanked after allowing six consecutive batters to reach to start the fourth inning.
“I experienced some bad luck early in (the outing), but that can always be overcome by striking people out,” he said. “So there’s some pitches I can execute better. And then by the fourth inning I’m looking up at the board just feeling my velo go down and my arm get tired. It wasn’t the pitch count total (80), I think it was the pitches per minute. It was pretty quick.
“I need to be more resilient to getting fatigued and not start losing the counts. Two things, if I execute pitches better early in the game then I don’t have to deal with the fatigue. And even when you get fatigued, it’s going to happen, you still need to fill up the zone.”
Stock felt like he let the team down not only because of the runs he gave up, but also by not pitching deeper into the game. Xzavion Curry and Luis Torrens combined to throw five innings of one-run ball in relief.
“Falling behind in the count late in the game is inexcusable … even though your team is losing, now the manager is looking at you to eat innings so you can not have to go to the pen. And that was the worst part of tonight was that when I got fatigued, I didn’t battle through it. I kind of gave into it so that’s on me.”
