The New York Mets made a cool, rainy day look beautiful, hitting four home runs en route to a 8-0 shellacking of the last place Atlanta Braves. The Mets hit more home runs during this series than the Braves have all season.
Steven Matz fell short of his first complete game shutout, dominating Braves hitters with his fastball all day.
Steven Matz (W, 4-1) 7.2 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 8 SO, 0 BB
Matz showed the blueprint on pitching against a poor hitting team. Attack! Attack! Attack! Simply, Matz continually attacked the strike zone, particularly with fastballs, allowing the Braves Four-A (AAAA) hitters to get themselves out, with quite a few strikeouts along the way.
Here are three stats highlighting Matz’s presence in the strike zone:
- Matz threw first pitch strikes to 19 of the 26 Braves batters faced, an above average 73% first pitch strike rate
- Matz threw 78 of his 106 pitches for strikes, an above average overall strike rate of 73%
- Matz got to only one three ball count out of the 26 Braves batters faced. Tyler Flowers made it to a full 3-2 count during the fifth inning, eventually striking out on a called strike three.
Let’s focus on number one, the importance of first pitch strikes. The main reason first pitch strikes are important is summed up in one statistic. Braves hitters are batting .418 in 1-0 counts compared to an abominable .282 batting average in 0-1 counts.
Some analyst will de-emphasize the importance of first pitch strikes, stating one pitch in the at-bat doesn’t define the outcome of an at-bat and will show some teams do not have as drastic batting splits as the Braves example above.
These analyst miss the understanding each pitch sets up the next pitch. Getting ahead 0-1 allows the pitcher freedom to throw more off-speed pitches or throw a fastball an inch or two off the outside corner in hopes it’s either incorrectly called a strike or the hitter chases the pitch out of the strike zone. Pitchers at a 1-0 count are forced to attack the strike zone because no pitcher ever wants to get to a 2-0 count. Ever. Currently, there are twelve MLB teams with slugging percentages over .700 in 2-0 counts. For a point of comparison, Chris Carter leads the MLB in overall slugging percentage at .681.
Additionally, getting to 0-1 rather than 1-0, puts the pitcher ahead in the count and closer to a strikeout than a walk. This season, Braves hitters are batting .297 when ahead in the count (1-0, 2-0, 2-1 etc.) but a mere .164 when behind in the count (0-1, 0-2, 1-2 etc.).
Matz One Negative
Simply, Matz left some of his off-speed pitches up in the strike zone, around belt-high. These pitches, particularly his changeup, will be exploited against better hitting teams.
Stats of the Night
Last night, the Mets led MLB in hard contact percentage at 59.1%.
Currently this season, Michael Conforto leads MLB in hard contact percentage at 50.8%. Who’s second? David Wright at 49.0%
Follow Chris Zaccherio on Twitter @ziography for more Mets insight going beyond statistics.
