Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

After sweeping the opposition or getting swept themselves in all four doubleheaders the New York Mets played in 2020, they kept the trend going on Tuesday night against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Taking both contests at Citi Field was the first semblance of this team getting on a roll. Heck, it appears that maybe they’ll gain some momentum from Jonathan Villar’s walk-off in game 1, followed by their first shutout of 2021 in the nightcap. A driving force behind completing this sweep was starting pitcher, Marcus Stroman.

He wasn’t even planning on pitching Tuesday until throwing to test things out the day prior. Still, the veteran right-hander looked terrific as he allowed just four hits with three strikeouts in six shutout innings. Had it not been for a long turn running the bases in the bottom of the sixth, manager Luis Rojas would’ve given his hurler a chance to finish the shortened game.

When comparing this impressive performance to his season debut against Philly at Citizens Bank Park, it’s interesting to see how different Stroman’s plan of attack was. And after seeing his results, it only means good things moving forward if he can continue finding different ways to be successful.

Just Getting It Done

The true measure of a pitcher shouldn’t be how they perform on days when everything is firing on all cylinders. Sure, one would imagine that MLB pitchers are at the top of their game more often than not every five days. However, it’s what they bring to the table on days when they’re not at their best that shows a team and its fans what kind of pitcher is taking the mound for them.

Jacob deGrom is terrific at finding ways to be successful without his best stuff, and Stroman showed us a glimpse of that Tuesday night.

During the SNY broadcast, Gary Cohen discussed how Stroman operates very much on feel and what his body is telling him in between starts. So, for him to feel that he wasn’t in the best spot following Sunday’s rainout debacle and to still find a way to shut the Phillies down is very exciting. That character quality is within each great pitcher, but some degree of it also has to be friendly internal competition among the Mets’ hurlers, especially with deGrom essentially being automatic with regard to his dominance these days.

A Tale of Two Starts

Stroman’s signature on the mound — outside of excellent K struts — is his ability to control contact of opposing hitters. After all, it’s not a coincidence that his 58.7% ground-ball rate ranked third when looking at qualified pitchers from 2014-19.

In his 2021 season debut, the Stroshow did what he does best: induced a ton of ground balls. Through six innings in his first start, he generated an 83.3% ground-ball rate, which was his third-highest rate in a start since debuting in 2014. He did this with a plan of attack that wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary for him — he leaned heavily on his sinker (44.7% usage) and slider (27.1% usage) to get the job done. Those two offerings generated ground balls more often than any of his other pitches in 2019 (61.1% and 49.3%, respectively). Stroman also benefitted from a 66.7% first-pitch strike rate, which allowed him to control matchups and post a zone percentage of just 38.8%.

Tuesday night was different for a few reasons. The broadcast booth mentioned on a number of occasions how it was difficult to get that low strike call, which meant it’d be more difficult to generate grounders in the way Stroman excels at. The results? He walked away with just a 41.2% ground-ball rate, which is obviously a lot lower than we’re used to seeing from the right-hander. This led to his line-drive rate allowed (11.1% to 35.3%) and fly-ball rate allowed (5.6% to 23.5%) to increase dramatically. He kept the opposition quiet despite allowing hard contact at a 52.9% clip, which is an impressive accomplishment all by itself.

But, with the adjustments he had to make because of the situation, it looked like his entire game plan shifted. With a first-pitch strike rate at just 55.0%, his zone percentage ticked up to 45.3%. And since it was more difficult to get a strike call lower in the zone, he leaned less on his fastball (39.5%) and more on his cutter (29.1%, nearly a 12-percentage-point increase from April 6th).

Moving Forward

We already know that Stroman isn’t afraid to evolve and grow as a pitcher each year, and it’s great to see such drastic adjustments being made between starts. There will be more days where it’s difficult to get that low strike or the sinker just isn’t working the way it normally does. Knowing he can easily pivot to other strategies to achieve success and getting proof of that after such a weird situation with Sunday’s suspended game has to be a huge mental boost for him.

This rotation has performed quite well behind deGrom in the early going, and it’ll only get more exciting when Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard get activated and join the party, too.