Stat Line: 7 IP, 2 R, 5H, 6 SO, 1 BB
Despite the loss, Noah Syndergaard put together another strong performance last night against the National League leading St. Louis Cardinals. Syndergaard stuck to his strengths by commanding his fastball low in the strike zone but he also displayed two characteristics not seen before.
In this article I will talk about two changes Syndergaard made last night in the way he threw his curveball and the use of his changeup.
Curveball Movement and Velocity
So far this season, Syndergaard threw a 12 to 7 curveball at 74 mph to 77 mph. Last night, Syndergaard threw a harder and sharper curveball at 79 mph to 81 mph which looked more like a slider than a curveball.
The 80 mph sharper version of the curveball is more difficult to hit than its slower counterpart. Although this version of the curveball doesn’t move as much over the total 54 feet that the baseball travels to home plate, it does break more in the last five feet to the hitter. That last five feet of quick movement is what the adjective “sharp” refers to. This late movement makes the pitch more deceptive to the hitter since the hitter cannot see the curveball break earlier in the pitches trajectory.
Additionally, Syndergaard showed progression in the use of his curveball, throwing his curve “backdoor” to lefties (curveball that starts off the outside corner and breaks around the plate to the outside corner).
Use of Changeup
Syndergaard’s changeup successfully kept Cardinals hitters off balance. Although the changeup was only thrown nine times, Cardinals hitters took the change up for a strike six times and whiffed at it once. The fact that the Cardinals took the majority of changeups for strikes shows that Syndergaard threw his changeup in the right counts where the Cardinals hitters were expecting a different pitch.
Looking Forward
In my mid-season review of the Mets pitching staff I noted the last step Syndergaard needs to make to become an MLB ace is to command a third pitch in the strike zone. If he continues to throw his changeup ten times per outing at a 70% strike rate, we will see ace-like second half numbers.
Stat of the Night
Syndergaard had an extremely high whiff percentage of 21.2% with his fastball (percentage of swing and misses by opposing hitters to a particular pitch). For comparison, Aroldis Chapman’s whiff rate with his 100+ mph fastball in 2014 was 19.2%.
Follow Chris Zaccherio on Twitter @ziography for more Mets pitching insight that goes beyond statistics.
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