Coming off a two-game sweep against the Minnesota Twins, Noah Syndergaard and the New York Mets looked to keep the good times rolling in San Francisco. Despite losing a hard-fought game in the 16th inning, the Mets couldn’t have asked for much more from their 26 year-old flamethrower.
Despite getting into some trouble early on, Syndergaard fired seven strong innings, giving up only one run on six hits, and collecting eight strikeouts. The one run given up was on a sacrifice fly by Kevin Pillar in the fourth inning.
“Everyone today showed a lot of heart, a lot of fight,” Pete Alonso said to reporters after the game. “Sometimes you don’t come up on the winning end of it.”
Syndergaard himself was not available for comment.
In the first inning, Syndergaard looked sharp. He sent the Giants down in order, but he yielded a leadoff triple in the second by Alex Dickerson. Syndergaard proceeded to punchout Brandon Crawford and Mike Yastrzemski, and he retired Pillar to escape the inning without any damage.
“…Syndergaard did a great job of pitching out of some jams early and their guys did too,” Mickey Callaway said to reporters. “There were a lot of baserunners at third with less than two outs and nobody got in. It was a tough night to score runs.”
Syndergaard would again run into trouble in the fourth inning. Pablo Sandoval, Crawford and Yastrzemski would each hit singles to load the bases. While the Giants managed to score one run, the damage could have been more severe.
Pillar scorched a ball to left field that almost went over the head of J.D. Davis. Davis, a natural third baseman, made a tough leaping catch to make the second out. Syndergaard then retired Joe Panik on a groundball to end the inning.
With his electric fastball and sharp breaking pitches, the Mets’ right-hander set down the next six batters he faced. Syndergaard made it through the seventh inning where he would again work around a leadoff triple – this time from Yastrzemski. He struck out Madison Bumgarner, a dangerous hitting pitcher, and got Brandon Belt, the Giants’ OBP leader, to fly out to end San Francisco’s threat.
Coming off of the All Star Break, Syndergaard has taken two big steps in the right direction. In the two starts, Noah has pitched seven innings in both, giving up less than three runs in both of them, and collecting a total of 17 strikeouts.
Syndergaard has now lowered his ERA to 4.36 on the season. He also owns a 7-4 record in 119.2 innings through 19 starts. Syndergaard will look to keep building off his momentum in his next outing, which will likely come against the Padres.
