The Mets know it. We know it. Hell, he knows it too. When people projected the future rotation for 2014 or 2015, Dillon Gee was never the first name that came to mind. Even Jeremy Hefner heard his name tossed around more because of his experience working out of the pen. Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jon Niese, Rafael Montero, Noah Syndergaard, Jenrry Mejia…yeah, those are the names — and Gee finds himself excluded, through no fault of his own.
Over his past ten starts, Gee is 4-2 with a 2.47 ERA over 69.1 innings pitched. So he’s averaging nearly seven innings a start with a Matt Harvey esque ERA while striking out a Dillon Gee-esque 35. So how is he doing it? Over his past seven starts, he’s allowed no more than two walks each time he took the mound, including two games where he didn’t walk a single batter. Outside of that, he’s just…pitching. He’s pitching inside, changing speeds effectively, locating all of his pitches for strikes when needed, and being aggressive on the mound. He’s keeping the ball low and inducing tons of ground outs — shown last night.
Dillon Gee has always been solid for us. Last year, before he went down with injury, he kept us in practically every one of his starts, and it went by the boards. This year, after two horrendous first months, his numbers from June on have been surprisingly ace-like — take a look.
June: 5 GS, 3-1, 2.73 ERA, 1 CG, 33.0 IP, 34 H, 7 BB, 28 K
July: 5 GS, 1-1, 2.88 ERA, 34.1 IP, 28 H, 1 BB, 17 K
August: 6 GS, 3-1, 2.14 ERA, 42.0 IP, 40 H, 7 BB, 25 K
With Harvey likely down for some time going into next year, Gee will definitely have himself a rotation spot in early ’14. It’ll be hard to push him out of it if he keeps pitching like that — and quite honestly, why mess with a good thing? It’s a good problem to have, I’ll say that for sure. Mr. Gee is certainly pitching for his job and is making an extremely convincing argument.
