Does anyone remember Kodai Senga? Since his pre-season departure to the injured list on what was then a minor shoulder issue, there has been very little said about Senga except for a brief time when he tried to start throwing again. He was moved to the 60-day IL on April 10th, which puts him out in late May for a return in the best scenario.
Until Senga returns, the Mets continue to struggle through a starting rotation that has great difficulty pitching more than five innings. The dearth of quality starts is alarming. As many of us have stated, this puts enormous stress on the bullpen, and when the pen gets fatigued, the team’s ability to close out ballgames is compromised. It doesn’t matter that you have Edwin Diaz for the ninth inning if you can’t carry a lead into the ninth.
We have already seen the roster fluctuations as the team tries to keep fresh arms in the pen. Michael Tonkin was signed twice and DFA’ed twice. Poor Grant Hartwig has flown back and forth from Syracuse to the west coast more often than a United Airlines pilot. There are others that also have yo-yo strings attached. This is not a healthy routine.
A few things can be done to help this situation.
First, the Mets are going to have to encourage their pitchers to start pitching to contact. That may hurt their wonderful ERA a bit, but there have been way too many walks. As of Tuesday night, Mets pitchers have walked 101 batters in 205 innings, which equates to almost four and a half walks per game. This implies too much emphasis on attempting to get strikeouts, and less on just getting outs.
Theoretically, the pitching lab data in spring training should have improved characteristics like RPM and pitch movement, so take advantage of throwing in the strike zone to induce light contact instead of pitching to the black and letting disciplined hitters walk.
Second, the analytics guys are going to have to accept the notion of pitchers facing a lineup for the third time. To save the bullpen and maybe the season, we need to get length out of the starters. If they take suggestion number one, then they are throwing less pitches and they have some gas left for the sixth (and maybe seventh) inning.
Logan Webb did that against us Tuesday, pitching eight. Mets hitters did not fare better on their third trip to the plate. What ever happened to encouraging pitchers to “trust their stuff”? Do we not trust it once batters have seen it twice? Even if they start swinging at the first pitch because more strikes are coming?
Third, the Mets have to consider going to a six man rotation. Don’t wait for Kodai Senga to come back before implementing a practice that will allow more rest/recovery for all the starters. There are two guys, Christian Scott and Joey Lucchesi that are pitching very well at the AAA level. I don’t see much difference between that and what we are getting out of Adrian Houser, so it is worth a shot.
This will take some adjustment on the part of the pitchers. There is no better time to do that than now. Once the adjustment is made to routines and pitch locations, guys can throw 110 pitches over 7 innings, rest for five days, and come back stronger. With the number of pitching prospects coming up through the minors, you could even consider using the same practice at AAA which would establish the right habits before they get called up.
10 comments:
I'm just waiting until they make a "quality start" 4 innings giving up 3 runs or less because it's all just crazy. Lowering the bar isn't the answer and the pitching lab should be figuring this out. It will be very interesting to see how DS handle's this because we could be a playoff team with the right decisions made.
We sure need starters to go deeper into games. Maybe a 6 man rotation works, but only if they get 6 innings or more a lot.
Or, maybe we don't pull a guy after 101 pitches.
The Phillies lead MLB in innings pitched by their starters at 147, in 25 games. Next best is the Royals at 140 innings in 25 starts. That’s less than six innings per start. The Mets have 119 innings in 24 games, or about five innings per start. Yes it’s low, but I don’t see what expecting an extra inning per game will do. The Mets need a second long man in the rotation to team with Reed Garrett. As for the walks per nine innings from their starters, the Mets are last at 4.90. That is the concerning part because those have the ability to blow up games. Plus, the defense has been leaky, so we all can see that the Mets recent success is a bubble that can burst at any time. Severino at 3.00 is tolerable. Then, beginning with Quintana at 4.91 and going up is inexcusable. Butto: 4.96; Manaea: 5.18; Houser: 6.52; Megill: 6.75.
You would hope these veteran arms like Quintana and Houser can figure it out, but both of them are batting practice pitchers so they keep trying to avoid the heart of the zone and miss the corners. Manaea has always had some control problems, but not this much. Mendoza may have wanted to send a message by removing him at 4.2 innings leading 6-0, and I applaud Mendoza for that.
My point is the innings aren’t too different from the rest of MLB and expecting the pattern to change is useless. How effective those innings are, however, is the problem.
Gus, I think teams are scared poopless over ending up with the next Strider, so early on, they baby their starters. Now that temperatures are normalized and these guys are more broken in, I think we will see more guys going up to 110 pitches. No higher than that. But that could add average starter inning. If the pen has one less inning to throw, lots less stress.
I agree with you on Houser and Quintana. Both may be headed to the bullpen in the next month or so, as reinforcements heal up.
I too applaud Mendoza on puling Manaea. 101 pitches in 4.2 IP is too much. You want 5 innings for the win? Be more economical. If Manaea was at 90 pitches, he would not have gotten pulled.
I like the idea of sending a message to the starters that they have to "earn" the win by pitching effectively, but Manaea was pitching a shutout despite the walks and high pitch count. Maybe a different day would have been better to send that message. This may have been just one of those things where he exceeds a number (100), so next batter he is out regardless of the situation. I think that is way too much reliance on analytics and way too little gut.
By the way, it took one pitch to close that fifth inning. One.
Tom, this isn’t a trend, it’s the new normal. Last year teams averaged less than six innings per start. Get used to it. Expand rosters for pitchers; that’s next.
I think we need to be grooming more long relievers to help us out. If this is our new norm, we should be preparing three relievers that can go two innings and lean into the long relief that is now required from our bullpen. Crazy to see Ottavino has not gone to a 2-0 count this year. I am hoping some warmer weather improves ball placement from our starters - but then it will get too hot, and without sufficient tackiness, they will continue to throw outside the zone.
Yes I've been screaming from the rooftops! We need pitchers who can throw 3 to 4 innings twice a week. How have the powers that be not figured this out yet? Needing 5 or 6 pitchers a night is nuts. Long relievers have to be the anwser because they will continue to baby starters for fear of losing them to TJS.
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