Mickey Callaway is not shying away from putting pressure on the back end of his Mets rotation.
But those starters have yet to consistently deliver.
A night after Callaway revealed he told starters not named Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard that how far the Mets go this season would depend on how they fare, Steven Matz was unable to pitch past the fourth inning for the fourth time in eight starts this year.
Before his teammates backed him up for a walk-off 5-4 win over the Diamondbacks on Saturday at Citi Field, Matz labored through four innings and got tagged for six hits and four runs. He had thrown 79 pitches before he was pinch-hit for with two outs in the fourth.
Matz ended the night with a 4.42 ERA while upping his innings pitched to 36 ²/₃ over eight starts — averaging just shy of 4 ²/₃ innings per outing.
“I got to show the manager that I can go out there and dominate,” Matz said.
Matz did not do that Saturday, particularly against the bottom of the lineup. He allowed a solo home run to cleanup hitter Paul Goldschmidt, but the rest of the damage was done by No. 8 batter John Ryan Murphy in a pair of two-out at-bats. The former Yankees catcher hit an RBI single in the second inning and then cracked a two-run homer in the fourth — both times with pitcher Patrick Corbin waiting on deck.
Matz said he was not pleased with the location of his changeup that Murphy hit out of the park, but Callaway pointed more toward pitch selection. He did not want to intentionally walk Murphy that early in the game, instead wanting Matz to pitch smarter.
“When you’re a starting pitcher, you have to be able to get the eight-hole hitter out and be able to pitch around him when that calls for it,” Callaway said. “You don’t throw — in my mind — changeups to pitch around guys. You throw your fastball because you know you can get it where you want to.”
The Mets have largely been able to depend on deGrom and Syndergaard (who have combined for a 2.45 ERA), but their other starters — Matz, Zack Wheeler, Matt Harvey, Jason Vargas and P.J. Conlon — have combined for a 6.37 ERA.
“Most teams know what they’re going to get out of their first couple starters,” Callaway said. “The season is going to depend on how the guys behind them do their job, whether they’re adequate or not. I think that you can have Clayton Kershaw and [Max] Scherzer in your rotation, but if the other guys in the rotation don’t get the job done, then your team’s not going to be successful.”
