Noah Syndergaard delivered an electrifying performance on Tuesday night, tossing 8.0 shutout innings against the San Diego Padres and allowing just three hits while striking out nine.
Thor, who took a perfect game into the seventh inning, became the first Met to toss at least eight shutout innings in one of his first 14 career starts since Jon Niese did it on September 13, 2008.
Over his last six starts, Syndergaard is 2-1 with a 1.28 ERA. Amazingly, he has allowed one earned run or less in five of those six starts.
“I don’t think any of us could have predicted the rise to where he’s at this fast,” Mets manager Terry Collins said after the game.
“All the reports we got on him were: good arm, command needs to be helped, secondary pitches sometimes are ineffective. I gotta tell you something, this guy has not shown any of that here.”
Syndergaard has been particularly more impressive when he’s pitching at home. He improved to 5-1 with a 1.46 ERA in seven starts at Citi Field this season, and is the first Met to toss 8.0 innings in three straight home starts since Al Leiter did it in 2001.
“I feel like from the moment I made my debut in Chicago and where I’m at right now, it’s just been a huge transition,” Syndergaard said.
“I’ve learned so much from pitching coach Dan Warthen and Harvey, deGrom and Bartolo, even with the language barrier there.”
Syndergaard now has 91 strikeouts through his first 14 career games. That’s something that’s been bested only by Dwight Gooden (107), Nolan Ryan (103) and Matt Harvey (102). Pretty darn good company, wouldn’t you say?
Between Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz, I just can’t believe how blessed we are. It truly is an embarrassment of riches.
And like Terry Collins said last night, “If we keep going and we can really, really play well the next couple of months, I don’t know of too many teams that would want to face this staff in a playoff situation.”
Amen to that…
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