For the second time this season, Noah Syndergaard worked seven innings for the Mets. Why? Simple, according to the right-hander.
“I just kind of took a deep breath, relaxed and focused on making quality pitches as opposed to focusing on my mechanics,” Syndergaard said. “Today was just a lot of fun. Great win, great sweep. Happy Sunday.”
Forgive the Diamondbacks if they didn’t share Syndergaard’s zest for life after managing one run and six hits while striking out seven times against him in the Mets’ 4-1 victory that completed a three-game sweep at Citi Field.
“I was trying to keep the hitters off balance, trying not to get too fastball happy,” Syndergaard said after his 102-pitch effort. “Curveball felt really nice today, slider was coming along nicely as well. The ability to mix in a lot of two-seam and four-seam fastballs, that was really effective.”
Still, the game had its share of “anxiety,” to use manager Mickey Callaway’s terminology. Syndergaard’s troubles holding runners is a fact of life. And Arizona’s Jarrod Dyson, a top-10 base stealer, got on three times.
But didn’t steal.
“I kind of shocked myself a little bit,” Syndergaard (4-1) said after his eighth straight start of at least five innings with no more than three runs allowed. “I continued to throw pitches and Dyson hadn’t taken off yet. [I was] holding the ball pretty well and varying my times so that’s encouraging.”
Chris Owings did steal once — but no harm was done. And Syndergaard picked off Paul Goldschmidt in the sixth, which technically became a caught stealing. But mainly, there was that whole focus-on-the-good-pitches thing. So Syndergaard stayed in beast mode and went after the hitters.
“He just did a good job of attacking,” Callaway said. “He mixed his curveball in a little bit more, which I thought was always necessary for him to slow guys down, especially. He was using it against their lefties early and then later on he started using it against the righties as well so they couldn’t just sit hard.”
After surrendering a second-inning run, Syndergaard survived all trouble. In the fifth, Syndergaard saw Jeff Mathis reach on an error, opposing starter Clay Buchholz sacrifice, David Peralta single with Mathis cut down at home, and Owings thrown out at first by catcher Tomas Nido — all on four pitches.
“He was aggressive. We were attacking every hitter. Not staying back with pitches, being too careful. Just going after them and he made really good pitches,” Nido said.
“That four-pitch inning really helped his pitch count [so] he could go seven. He was terrific,” said Callaway, who liked Syndergaard’s control of the running game. “He did a pretty good job. Even the one [they] stole on, he was a 1.28 to home, which is probably about the lowest time we’ve ever gotten on him.”
And all that adds up to working seven innings.
