Stat Line: 4 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 1 K, 1 BB
Dillon Gee made his return to the New York Mets last night against the San Diego Padres to mark the beginning of the much anticipated six man rotation. Gee showed inconsistent command in all four pitches and the stat line further reiterates Gees struggles. There were three positive attributes and points to consider when grading Gee’s outing such as his pitch movement, lack of hard contact by opposing hitters and the Padres offensive execution.
Pitch Movement
There was no hiding that Gee lacked command in all four pitches but given his two year MLB history in commanding his repertoire of pitches, his lack of command can be attributed in part to this being his first MLB start in a month. However, Gee did show strong 10 to 4 movement on his two-seam fastball which resulted in Padres hitters swinging over the baseball which induced many groundballs. Additionally, Gee was throwing a nice 12 to 7 curveball as well as a sharp breaking slider.
Gee didn’t have much sharp movement on this changeup but that has always been an average pitch that he can throw against lefties to induce strikeouts and pop-ups.
Lack of Hard Contact by Padres Hitters
The Padres scored seven runs off of the following eight hits:
First Inning – Matt Kemp – Groundball single up the middle
Third Inning – Yonder Alonso – Line-drive single to right field for a single
Fourth Inning – Cory Spangenberg – Decent contact made on single up the middle to center field
Fourth Inning – Alexi Amarista – Decent contact made on single up the middle to center field
Fourth Inning – Will Venable – Broken bat poorly hit single to right field
Fifth Inning – Justin Upton – Bloop single to center field
Fifth Inning – Matt Kemp – Line-drive single to left field for a single
Fifth Inning – Yonder Alonso – Hard groundball back to Gee
Notice that only two of the eight hits were line-drives and none were extra-base hits. Gee did hurt himself with the first inning walk to Upton and hit-by-pitch to Alonso but Ruben Tejada’s two fielding errors also contributed to Gee’s unsuccessful outing. Not very often do teams score seven runs off of eight singles.
Padres Hitting Approach and Execution
The Padres offense does deserve credit as well. The Padres were coming off of a strong hitting performance against Noah Syndergaard on Tuesday night which helped boost their confidence coming into last night’s game. This was evident as the Padres hitters were more aggressive and in turn took advantage of nearly all of Gee’s mistakes over the plate.
Additionally, James Shields executed a perfect sacrifice bunt in the fourth inning to move two runners into scoring position which allowed them to score on the timely broken bat single by Venable.
Closing Thought
This article is not to suggest that Gee will be a front line starter or perform close to our plethora of aces. Whether or not you believe in the six man rotation, the Mets did place Gee in the correct spot within the rotation. After the opposing team gears up to face deGrom and/or Syndergaard during a three four game series throwing 97 mph, Gee’s finesse repertoire of pitches will help produce opposing hitters that are ahead of his pitches at least once through the batting order.
Based on the above details and Gee’s past resume of MLB success, he should be able to contribute six to seven innings while giving up one to four runs on a consistent basis.
Stat of the Night
Dillon Gee threw 32 of his 43 fastballs for strikes (74% strike rate).
