Steven Matz stepped on the mound on Friday in hopes of helping to pick his team up after they suffered a depressing defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals just minutes before from the suspended Thursday night game.
The southpaw kept his team in the game but again it was the bullpen that imploded, sinking the hopes of another Mets victory as the team dropped the second game of the makeshift doubleheader by a score of 9-5.
Matz, 28, tossed six innings against St. Louis, allowing four runs, three of which were earned. The southpaw gave up just three hits on the night while walking two and striking out six.
Steven spoke on the team’s second loss of the day with beat writers, Friday night.
“Losing two games today is tough,” Matz said. “We’re all pulling on the same end of the rope. We’ve still got a lot of games up, and we’ve got to keep our heads up.” (MLB)
Things were going pretty well for Matz in the early parts of the game as he just surrendered a run on a Matt Carpenter sacrifice fly. It though would all unravel in the fifth for Matz. After striking out Harrison Bader to begin the inning, Matz would walk Dexter Fowler.
From there a fielding error by third baseman Todd Frazier would lead to a three-run home run off the bat of Jose Martinez. Steven spoke of that pitch that Martinez drilled after the game.
“It really wasn’t that bad of a pitch,” Matz said. (NY Post)
Matz would though get some retribution in the bottom half of the inning as he greeted Tyler Webb to the game rudely with his third career home run.
It took Matz 113 pitches to get through his six innings of work, 72 of which landed for strikes. It was Steven’s fifth consecutive start of lasting six innings, dating back to May 23.
Matz has struck out 72 batters over a span of 68.2 innings pitched this season and has thrown to an ERA of 3.93 with a WHIP of 1.33 and a FIP of 4.61.
