After pitching five innings and giving up five earned runs in his last outing against the Brewers, Noah Syndergaard came back and dominated against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday at Citi Field in the Mets 1-0 win.
Noah came into the game with his hair down and a cleanly shaved face ready to deal, and needless to say he will never have a beard again.
Syndergaard made Mets history being the only Mets pitcher to give them a 1-0 win via a home run. This was Syndergaard’s second home run of the season and the sixth of his career. When asked about his new mark on Mets history, Noah mentioned that he didn’t know of that record until the reporter asked. He responded, “awesome.”
Along with that milestone, Syndergaard has surpassed Matt Harvey and Tug McGraw on the Mets’ all-time strikeout list after punching out 10 Reds. Syndergaard’s 632 strikeouts rank 13th on the Mets list, next up is Craig Swan at 671.
Syndergaard threw a complete game shutout on 104 pitches (74 strikes) giving up four hits, one walk and struck out 10 batters. @PitchingNinja on Twitter shared Noah’s 99 mph fastball that struck out Jesse Winker.
Thor, Unfair 99mph Front Door Two Seamer. 😯 pic.twitter.com/ePth9JaPDc
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 2, 2019
In Noah’s post game interview Steve Gelbs asked what worked for him in this start,”Just repeatability in my delivery… felt pretty in tune with my mechanics and trusted that.”
Syndergaard became the eighth pitcher since 1908 that pitched nine innings of shutout ball and hit a homer for the only run of the game. It was last done by former Dodgers right-hander Bob Welch in June of 1983.
Gelbs also asked what Noah did differently between starts this time around,”keeping things simple and trusting conviction in every pitch trying to win every pitch.”
In Mickey Callaway‘s post game interview he was asked that if things went south in the 9th inning for Noah, if there was a chance they would take him out to which he said, “…When you that deep and work that hard, you deserve to finish that and we would’ve let him attempt that.”
After an outstanding outing from Syndergaard, his ERA drops from 6.35 to 5.02 for the season. He has a long way before getting back to his alter ego Thor’s full potential, however Noah says, “I think things are just now starting to click for us and we’re really going to hit a run.”
