Steven Matz made his scheduled start today against the Chicago Cubs after leaving in the fourth inning of his last start with a strained left middle finger.
Matz, 26, delivered one of his best performances of the season, despite receiving the loss. Matz pitched seven innings (100 pitches), in which he allowed only two runs, five hits, and two walks. He also managed to strike out seven batters.
However, both runs, arguably, should never have happened. With runners on the corners (Willson Contreras at first, Javier Baez at third), Matz threw over to first and caught Contreras in a pickle.
That was a designed play, though, as Baez was racing home and scored as the throw from Adrian Gonzalez was late.
While Mickey Callaway obviously knows this type of play is a rarity, he did say that Matz needs to get better at throwing his pickoff attempts with more authority and believes that might have been part of the reason that play was executed to perfection by the Cubs.
“It really has to do with how hard he throws the ball over to first with his picks. We’ve been working a lot with him to try and really get something on the ball over there, not only for cases like that since it’s so rare, but just to give runners more anxiety when they try to steal.
“He’s actually throwing over there harder than he has in the past, but it’s still pretty slow and I think they took advantage of that.”
Contreras later ended up on third base. Ben Zobrist came to the plate and popped out to shallow right field, but Luis Guillorme called off Jay Bruce and had to make a tough catch which allowed Contreras to tag up and score to give the Cubs a 2-0 lead.
After today’s outing, Matz moved to 2-4 on the season with a 3.42 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 48 strikeouts in 52 2/3 innings pitched spanned over 11 starts. 
