So to what can these Amazing 2015 Mets attribute their remarkable early success and their uncanny 11-3 start to? As is always the case in matters of baseball dominance, “it’s the pitching, stupid.”
Pitching, pitching, pitching… It’s what wins divisions, it’s what wins World Series championships. And it’s what’s driving these incredibly fun to watch New York Mets.
The biggest reason for the streak, writes Big League Stew, and the reason it seems sustainable, is their pitching staff. The motley crew includes a doughy 42 year old junk-ball thrower in Bartolo Colon, the reigning rookie of the year in Jacob deGrom, and Matt Harvey, at 26 already once an All-Star and Tommy John survivor. And they’ve all been great.
“Putting value in pitching wins may be a fools game, but it’s worth noting the Mets starting five are a combined 10-2. They’re going deep into games and making things easier on their bullpen. Mets pitching has the fourth best earned-run average in the majors, and the second fewest walks.”
The chart below compiled by MetsBlog, shows that the five of the top ten pitchers in the National League are Mets including Bartolo Colon at the top spot.
Mets starting pitching in particular has thrived so far this season achieving great heights with such relative ease. Yes Mets starters are 10-2 as BLS pointed out, but more than that they sport a 2.72 ERA, a 1.151 WHIP and in 86.0 innings pitched they’ve walked just 15 batters and struck out a whopping 79 batters. Put your calculators away, that’s a 5.27 K/BB ratio.
One pitcher who seems to get a lot less love than he should be is last night’s winning pitcher, lefthander Jon Niese.
As is usually the case with Niese, he battled for the win and delivered a gutsy performance pitching 6 2/3 innings and allowing just one run on four hits and four walks while notching five strikeouts. The four walks were unusual for Niese and it ended a streak of 22 consecutive starts in which he walked three batters or less.
Nevertheless, as always, Niese was his own worst critic. “I’m walking too many guys,” Niese said afterward. “I feel like in certain situations I am executing pitches. But, like I said, the walks need to come down. And they will.”
No need to be so hard on yourself, Jon. After all, it’s not everyone who can say that they’ve allowed no more than two earned runs in each of their last six starts. And during that span, Niese has an incredible 1.62 ERA.
Anyway, it’s been so much fun watching and rooting this team on this season, and in return we’ve been rewarded with some of the most dominating starting pitching that hasn’t been seen since Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Bobby Ojeda and Sid Fernandez were ruling the roost.
Damn, I did it again… another 1986 reference…
