Jeurys Familia Jr. may be more important to the Mets holding onto future ninth-inning leads than any of their coaches. After all, the young boy who was born last June is the tonic for the team’s closer following a bad night.
“As soon as I see my son and my family, I forget what’s happened,” Jeurys Familia said. “He’s amazing.”
That short memory seemed to help Familia on Monday. After consecutive rocky outings — he allowed a combined six runs Friday and Sunday against the Dodgers — Familia was able to move on and record a perfect ninth to close out the Mets’ 1-0 victory over the White Sox on Memorial Day at Citi Field.
Familia is now 17-for-17 in save opportunities and hasn’t blown a regular-season save since last July 30, a span of 33 chances, which is a franchise record. His shaky outing Sunday, when he took the loss after giving up two ninth-inning runs, wasn’t on his mind because it was gone by the time he got home that night.
His son isn’t the only reason hiccups don’t get him down. He’s learned from veterans such as Bartolo Colon and LaTroy Hawkins not to get hung up on poor performances and let them mushroom. Perhaps more importantly, Familia’s manager, Terry Collins, has complete confidence in him.
“To be honest it was that get-back-on-the-horse thing [with Familia], and I thought we had to go to him and there was no hesitation on my part,” Collins said. “I don’t know how anybody else felt, but when we got there I just said, ‘This has got to be his time, because we’re going to need him. If we’re going to continue to achieve what we want to achieve, he’s going to be a big part of it.’
“If you’re going to have confidence in anything you do, you better have people around you that believe in you also, so I thought he was the right guy.”
The first batter was the biggest hurdle. After getting ahead of Dioner Navarro 0-2, the pinch hitter worked the count full, Familia missing badly with his next three pitches. But he fanned Navarro with a 97 mph sinker, got Adam Eaton on a comebacker, and also struck out Jose Abreu.
“For me, it’s very important,” he said of getting Navarro to start the ninth. “I was struggling the last two outings. Getting the first out gave me more confidence to get the last two outs.”
Familia said he was happiest with his hard sinker Monday, the pitch that had gotten away from him lately. It was flattening out, staying straight. He worked on not rushing his delivery, staying back, and the results were sharp, biting sinkers the White Sox could do very little with.
“My sinker is right now where I want [it to be],” he said.
