By Tim Ryder
New York Mets right-hander Marcus Stroman is clearly getting better acclimated to his new surroundings.
After pitching to a 5.05 ERA with 37 strikeouts, 14 walks, an uncharacteristic 44.2% groundball rate, and 1.77 home runs allowed per nine (seven dingers, in total) over his first seven starts with the Mets (35.2 innings), the 28-year-old Medford, Long Island native came into the team’s road finale in Cincinnati on Sunday on a bit of a hot stretch.
The one earned run Stroman allowed over 13.1 combined innings of work versus the Diamondbacks and Rockies in his last two starts certainly allowed the fan base to exhale a bit after the team sent off two solid prospects to Toronto in Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson to acquire him at the trade deadline.
Heading into Sunday, with the Mets’ postseason hopes nearly dashed but a faint heartbeat still detectable, Stroman did all he could to keep his team alive.
Dealing with a reported bout of nausea, the right-hander was handed a four-run lead before he even took the mound at Great American Ballpark courtesy of Robinson Cano‘s RBI double and Michael Conforto‘s three-run Scooterbomb in the first.
Back-to-back one-out singles via Joey Votto and Eugenio Suarez in the bottom half of the frame, followed by Aristides Aquino’s sacrifice fly, would cut the Mets’ lead to 4-1, but that would be all the action Stroman would allow on the basepaths over the next few frames.
After striking out Tucker Barnhart to end the first, the Stro’ Show kicked off, with the right-hander retiring the next 11 Cincinnati batters he faced (13 in total; two strikeouts and eight groundouts over that span) before Kyle Farmer‘s two-out solo shot in the fifth, making it a 4-2 game.
Three consecutive walks to Trevor Bauer, Phillip Ervin, and Joey Votto would be all the evidence Mickey Callaway & Co. needed to see. Stroman’s day was done after 4.2 innings of two-run ball, allowing three hits, striking out two and walking one.
Brad Brach inherited Stroman’s bases-loaded jam, but kept his staff mate’s line in good standing, inducing a Suarez pop out on the first pitch he threw.
Despite picking up just three swings-and-misses over his 86 pitches (53 strikes), Stroman racked up 17 called strikes — 12 on 40 cutters, alone, drawing weak contact on the 15 offerings that were put into play (81.8 MPH average exit velocity).
Over his last three starts (18 innings), Marcus Stroman now owns a 1.50 ERA with 15 strikeouts, eight walks, a more in-line 54.2% groundball rate (his 53.6 percent groundball rate in 2019 and 58.6 percent career clip scream revert), and has given up just one home run.
If this is the level of production we can expect from Stroman in 2020, this Mets’ rotation, with or without Zack Wheeler, will still have a heavy aura of intimidation attached to it.
