Noah Syndergaard came into today’s outing against the Colorado Rockies having walked only six batters all season.

However, in today’s outing alone, he walked four more as he struggled to find command of his pitches and battled without his best stuff.

After getting through a clean first inning, Syndergaard came out in the second inning with a nice 2-0 lead. However, he gave one run back immediately as he allowed a solo home run to Ian Desmond, who would hit another off Hansel Robles later.

He ran into trouble in the third inning as well as he gave up back-to-back singles to Charlie Blackmon and David Dahl and then walked Nolan Arenado to load the bases.

Syndergaard then proceeded to walk Gerardo Parra to tie the game. That was the first time in his career that he allowed a bases-loaded walk, as noted by Tim Britton of The Athletic.

The right-hander managed to escape the jam from there, though, as he struck out Trevor Story and then got Ian Desmond to ground into a double play.

He got through the next three innings scoreless despite allowing at least one baserunner in each inning.

In total, he ended up pitching six innings while allowing two runs, six hits, and four walks to go along with five strikeouts to lower his ERA to 3.09 on the season.

Syndergaard thinks that his struggles might be related to something he is doing wrong mentally.

“I’m thinking too much out there about my mechanics and trying to miss bats as opposed to looking at the catcher putting their finger down and executing that pitch.”

The 25-year old believes his tempo was too slow today also, which he agreed is related to his mental approach on the mound.

“Oh yeah, for sure. The tempo wasn’t very good until the last inning which was when I started to feel the best. I started using my legs and driving towards home plate and I was just kind of falling which really affects tempo.”

Syndergaard went on to point out something that he really is going to try to work on.

“I think I just need to learn how to elevate in the zone with my fastball. I feel like hitters know that I throw strikes and that I work down in the zone with my fastball. I think the ability to elevate my fastball would just add another element to my repertoire and get more swing and misses instead of foul balls and an elevated pitch count.”

His next start will come on Saturday against the Philadelphia Phillies and he will be pitching with an extra day of rest with the team having an off-day on Thursday.