The mighty Noah Syndergaard wielded his hammer and his brute arm in the Mets 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers Wednesday night. The norse god did it all, carrying his team to victory.
Thor pitched eighty innings against the Dodgers and allowed just two runs. He gave up six hits while walking one and striking out six. Syndergaard picked up his third victory of the season, improving his record to 3-2 and lowering his ERA to 2.53.
As great as his pitching was in last night’s victory, it was not the story of his amazin’ night. Syndergaard homered twice, accounting for all of the Mets four runs. He became the second pitcher in Mets history to homer twice in one game, joining Walt Terrell. Kenta Maeda, who has been fairly dominant through most of his rookie season thus far, would be the victim of Thor’s hammer. Noah himself could not believe what he had done.
“Is this a dream?” Syndergaard said. “This is not real. I don’t think I ever hit two home runs when I played Little League. To hit two home runs in a big league ballgame especially with a pitcher like [Kenta] Maeda up there, it’s an awesome experience.” (Newsday)
Syndergaard’s first homer came off the very first pitch he had seen from Maeda and it was crushed. In his second at-bat he was given the duties to bunt in order to move the runners into scoring position. He though was unsuccessful. Manager, Terry Collins gave him the okay to swing away and he did just that, crushing a three-run bomb.
“When you’re supposed to bunt, you’d like to see the bunt down,” Collins said. “But if he doesn’t get the bunt down, you might as well hit a homer.”
Last night marked the 66th multi-homer game by a pitcher since 1913, according to Baseball Reference. The last pitcher to produce such a game came in 2007 from Micah Owings of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
It is only fitting that Syndergaard’s good pal, Bartolo Colon, will be on the mound in tonight’s series finale against the Dodgers. Even after a two-homer night, Noah is still envious of Colon’s mighty blast.
Tonight was a direct result of Bartolo inspiring me to be a better man. #histrotwasbetter
— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) May 12, 2016
Update 10:00 PM
Last night during his postgame press conference, Terry Collins told reporters that Noah Syndergaard underwent an elbow exam on May 2.
Collins mentioned it after he was asked asked why he didn’t let Syndergaard pitch the ninth inning of last night’s game despite having thrown only 95 pitches.
The good news was that the exam was clean and showed nothing to be concerned about, although there was no word as to what prompted the exam in the first place.
According to beat reporter Marc Carig, Syndergaard acknowledged the exam but offered few details. Was the test prompted by discomfort or tightness? He wouldn’t say. Said Syndergaard: “It was just all precautionary.”
Something to keep an eye on considering how hard Syndergaard throws. He has the highest velocity on fastballs, breaking balls and changeups in baseball.
Credit Collins for keeping all that in mind and proceeding with caution as to how much wear and tear he puts on Syndergaard’s arm in any particular game.
