Steven Matz made his Spring Training debut against the Miami Marlins today in which he fared pretty well.

Matz, 27, lasted two innings in which he allowed one run and two hits while striking out three batters and walking none on 32 pitches.

In the first inning, the left-hander struck out JT Riddle to start the game, but then proceeded to allow a single to Brian Anderson. The latter would steal second and advance to third due to an errant throw by Tomas Nido.

However, Matz didn’t let the runner at third with only one out inning bother him, as he went on to get a sharp groundout from Isan Diaz that Anderson couldn’t score on and then struck out Peter O’Brien.

At the start of the second inning, the Stony Brook native had a 1-0 lead, but that immediately went away as Lewis Brinson hit a towering solo home run to left-center field to tie the game.

Matz would then get Monte Harrison to ground out and strike out Pedro Alvarez. Austin Dean would reach first on a hard ground ball to Gavin Cecchini that he wouldn’t be able to corral and would get charged with an error for.

Bryan Holaday would get a single right afterward to put runners on first and second with two outs. Matz would get out of it, though, as Riddle would hit a line drive that came off Matz and went straight to Amed Rosario who threw to first to end the day for Matz.

After the game, Matz spoke with the media and expressed optimism in how he pitched today.

“I feel good about it. Attacking the strike zone, that’s my main focus right now. It’s to attack the strike zone with all my pitches and I felt like I was able to do that today. So, I’m pretty pleased.”

Matz went on to talk about a specific tip he took from Jacob deGrom this past offseason regarding his workout and pitching regimen that he thinks made a significant difference for him so far in camp.

“One thing that I was able to do, that I’ve kind of taken from, really deGrom, is just continue to throw the whole offseason. Don’t take off too much time as you’re lifting and stuff, and I felt like, coming into Spring Training, that I was more ready than I’ve ever been.”

It will certainly be interesting to see what the young southpaw has in store for the rest of Spring Training and the 2019 season as the team’s fourth starter.

Here’s what Steven Matz told reporters after the game, audio provided by Rich Coutinho: