Noah Syndergaard dominated Miami Marlins hitters during the New York Mets 2-1 loss. Syndergaard has 14.54 strikeouts per nine innings 1.38 walks per nine innings through two starts this season.
Noah Syndergaard: (ND) 7.0 IP, 1 R, 7 H, 12 SO, 1 BB
Syndergaard’s fastballs and sinkers were 99 mph bullets. His 92 mph slider (Yes, 92.7 mph average with slider) and curveball broke so sharp and south they knocked out the devil. Let’s not forget his 90 mph changeup producing a 36.4% whiff/miss rate. His mechanics appeared fluid with great rhythm. He jumped ahead of hitters with a solid 70% first pitch strike rate and stayed ahead, getting to a three ball count only twice, both against Giancarlo Stanton. Simply, Syndergaard is electrifying and attacking hitters fearlessly.
Regarding the one run allowed, credit aggressive Marlins hitters their second time through their lineup, swinging and making contact with Syndergaard’s first pitch. The Marlins intelligently realized the further in the count hitting against Syndergaard, the more guessing they would do resulting in a far greater chance of becoming overwhelmed by Syndergaard’s dynamic repertoire of pitches.
Jim Henderson: 0.1 IP, 1 R, 1 H, 0 SO, 2 BB
In previous outings, Jim Henderson was effectively wild, throwing first pitch strikes and inducing hitters to chase fastballs later in at-bats. Henderson threw first pitch strikes against two of the four Marlins faced but got behind in the count against all of them. Couple the average command with a sixteen pitch at-bat from Dee Gordon and two 3-2 count walks from Christian Yelich and Giancarlo Stanton and what’s left is a tough situation for Jerry Blevins to deal with.
Henderson’s stat line looks worse than his performance. Every reliever has tough outings were a key pitch or two don’t go their way and their stat line looks tremendously worse. Henderson shows nice arm-side run on this 95 mph fastball, hiding the baseball from hitters very well. Henderson will bounce back successfully
Yoenis Cespedes Seeing the Baseball Well
Yoenis Cespedes showed three traits of a great hitter during his three at-bats:
- Swinging aggressively at all three fastball’s thrown in the strike zone while taking all four fastball’s thrown outside the strike zone for a called ball.
- Did not swing or chase any pitch out of the strike zone.
- Ability hitting an off-speed pitch behind in the count with power (see third inning at-bat behind 1-2, Cespedes hit what would have been a home run into the second deck if not for the extreme wind blowing in from left field. ).
Stats of the Night
- Syndergaard’s ERA is 0.69 despite a .370 batting average with balls in play (BABIP), exceptionally higher than the MLB average at approximately .300 and his .279 in 2015.
- Syndergaard’s twenty-six whiff’s/misses (26.26% whiff/miss rate) induced is a Mets single game record.
Follow Chris Zaccherio on Twitter @ziography for more Mets insight going beyond statistics.
