If someone told you before Opening Day that the New York Mets’ saving grace to the season at this point would be the bullpen, would you believe them?

For those who said yes, stop lying.

The Mets’ relief corps has been projected to be a productive unit a number of times in recent years, but they’ve consistently fallen flat — until this year. While they’ve been overworked on many occasions for plenty of reasons, they’ve performed admirably throughout 2021. As top relief arms kept getting signed last winter, it was easy to get frustrated since upgrading the bullpen — after signing Trevor May — was still a necessity.

The biggest blow was watching Brad Hand sign with the Washington Nationals. Four days after that happened, the Mets found their lefty in Aaron Loup. It certainly felt like second place, but it turns out his $3 million deal was one of the steals of the winter.

Loup’s 38 innings pitched are sixth-most in New York’s bullpen, yet his 1.4 fWAR ranks second among the group. In fact, if you add up his season-long fWAR between 2015-20 (1.4), it equals what he’s done for New York so far this year. That’s what a 29.1% strikeout rate, a 5.4% walk rate, and a 1.18 ERA will do.

With all this in mind, let’s take a peek at a few areas where the southpaw has excelled for the Amazins.

Getting Ahead and Staying Ahead

As with any effective reliever, it’s important to throw strikes. That’s especially the case for pitchers who enter games in high-leverage spots. This concept seems like an obvious one, but as we’ve seen over the years, it’s been a tough one for some Mets relievers to grasp on a consistent basis.

For Loup, though, it’s something he’s been able to do. He’s thrown a first-pitch strike at a 66.9% clip in 2021, which is on track to be a new career-high mark for him. And, if he can maintain his 11.5% swinging-strike rate, it’d be just the second time he’s finished with double digits in this category after a full season. Loup’s strikeout rate has also risen to heights we haven’t yet seen from him during his big-league career. Entering 2021, his career strikeout rate sat at 21.9% (along with a 7.0% walk rate). So, seeing a rise of nearly eight percentage points while he’s generally maintained his walk rate from previous years is a wonderful sight.

I also found this interesting — check out how opposing hitter wOBA varies by pitch count against Loup this season.

It’s not surprising to see Loup being in control when he’s ahead in the count or be at a disadvantage in three-ball counts. What caught my eye was the stuff in the middle where at-bats can go either way: 2-0, 1-0, 2-1, and 1-1. When he finds himself in a suboptimal position or a crucial spot to make a pitch, he’s limited the damage more often than not.

Eliminating Home Runs

Loup has never been one to give up a ton of home runs throughout his career, but he’s done a terrific job of making it as non-existent as possible for opposing hitters this year. Entering 2021, the lefty’s homers allowed per nine innings rate sat at 0.72, and since he’s yet to allow a dinger while coming out of the Mets’ bullpen, that number has only improved.

Although he hasn’t generated as much soft contact as he has in the past (20.6% career soft-hit rate, 16.0% in ’21), he’s limited hard contact quite well (24.3% career hard-hit rate, 23.4% in ’21). It’s also helpful that his batted-ball profile has taken a drastic turn for the better from last season with the Tampa Bay Rays. After producing a 39.7% ground-ball rate (a career-low mark), it’s back up to 52.2%. After allowing fly balls at a career-worst 31.3% clip in 2020, it’s currently settled in at a career-best 19.6% rate.

What best describes the work Loup has done in the quality-of-contact department lies in some of his Statcast numbers. While his 87.8 mph average exit velocity is right on par with his career numbers (86.2 mph), opposing hitters have barreled up a pitch from him 2.1% of the time, which would be his lowest number since 2015.

Using All His Pitches Well

The 33-year-old has typically been heavy on the usage for his sinker and cutter over the years. But over the past two seasons, he’s used his changeup and curveball enough (~10% usage for each) where they can be a weapon for him. From the standpoint of how opposing hitters have produced against his arsenal, he’s giving himself a chance to do something he hasn’t yet accomplished in a full big-league season.

Here’s what each of Loup’s pitches has produced in walk rate, strikeout rate, OPS, and wRC+ allowed so far in 2021:

If these numbers hold, it’ll be the first time Loup has produced a wRC+ allowed under 100 for all four of his pitches in a single season. It’s been quite the journey over the past few years, too. Back in 2018 — which was his last full season of work — none of his pitches produced a wRC+ allowed under 100. Loup’s sinker continues to be his most used pitch, and if he can maintain his current performance, 2021 would be the first time he’s held hitters under that magical mark of 100 in the wRC+ department since his rookie year in 2012.

The lefty has been valuable to the Mets in many ways, and with his fWAR at its current level, FanGraphs is putting a value of $12.1 million on his performance. Needless to say, he’s earned the right to be one of the first relievers Rojas calls upon in big situations, and not necessarily discounted for because of lefty-righty matchups (like on Friday against the Dodgers when Jeurys Familia was called upon in the 10th inning instead of him).

Any way you slice it, though, he’s earned all the Busch Lights he can handle for the rest of the year and into the offseason.