Is the Mets pitching their most significant question mark?

The critique the Mets faced entering the 2019 season was would they have enough offense from their younger players to back up their excellent pitching staff.

The offense has been great, scoring 5.23 runs per game which is 10th in all of MLB and having a team average of .261, good for 7th in the league. The pitching has been the real dilemma of this Mets team that is 14-13 through their first 27 games. The Mets total ERA is 5.45, which is last in the National League, and ranked 27th, only ahead of the Rangers, Orioles, and White Sox.

Although the Mets sit in second place in the National League East, their run differential stands at – 19, which isn’t conducive for consistent winning. Let’s take a look at Mets pitching to see whose struggling and who is having success.

The Good

Edwin Diaz

W-L	ERA	IP	SO	BB	SV	AVG
0-0	0.84	10.2	20	2	8	.179

Edwin Díaz was the prize piece in the Robinson Cańo trade, and he has been as shut-down a closer as advertised. 8 for 8 in save opportunities with 20 strikeouts in 10.2 innings has created some stress-free ninth innings. Diaz’s K% is at a whopping 50%, and 26.9% swinging strike rate. He is missing bats, leaving opposing batters the inability to cause late-inning rallies. One thing to keep an eye with Díaz is when hitters do make contact; they make it count. Opposing hitters batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .375 and Díaz hasn’t produced much soft contact. He has produced 0% soft contact. He has yielded 41.2% medium contact and 58.8% hard contact. These numbers haven’t affected Diaz’s performance this season but isn’t a trend you want to see continue as the season progresses.

Seth Lugo

W-L	ERA	IP	SO	BB	SV	AVG
1-0	4.32	16.2	22	4	0	.224

Seth Lugo’s overall numbers aren’t spectacular on paper, but when you look further into it, he’s starting to be the Seth Lugo we all know and love. Lugo dealt with an illness to begin the season, and his numbers reflected his fatigue, as he started the season with a 12.27 ERA in 4.2 innings pitched. Hitters were batting over 500 when they put the ball in play and gave up eight hits and three walks over that span. Since then, he’s 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA with a .172 average when the ball is put into play. This shift is trending up, as Lugo has found the similar success he had in the past two seasons.

Steven Matz

W-L	ERA	IP	SO	BB	SV	AVG
3-1	3.68	29.1	29	8	0	.220

The most impressive stat in Matz’s line is that his ERA is a 3.68 after an outing that lasted 0.0 innings, with six earned runs. If you take that start aside, Matz’s line is excellent, going 3-0 with a 1.86 ERA in 29.1 innings. Matz has moved to the left side of the rubber and has pitched effectively outside, whereas he used to pitch on the right side of the rubber and would come into hitters which led him to miss over the plate. If Matz can continue this trend, it would be a massive boost to a struggling rotation.

The Bad

Jacob deGrom

W-L	ERA	IP	SO	BB	SV	AVG
2-3	4.85	26.0	43	10	0	.257

Let me preface this with saying, deGrom will be fine. The early season returns for deGrom has been puzzling. Battling illness, a broken routine, and arm discomfort, deGrom’s season following his contract extension has been a struggle. His walks are up, and opponents have been making excellent contact off of him with a 47.5% hard contact rate, which is 16% more than his previous highest rate. All of last year deGrom gave up ten home runs, this year he has already given up 5 through 5 games.

Other trends in the wrong direction have his BB/9 the highest it’s ever been at 3.46, and he’s allowed runners to steal at alarming rates. deGrom has been noticeably frustrated and hasn’t found anything mechanically that he can point to that’s causing the ineffectiveness, stating that he’s just not executing pitches.

Noah Syndergaard

W-L	ERA	IP	SO	BB	SV	AVG
1-3	6.35	34.0	39	10	0	.299

Syndergaard may be the most concerning out of all the players on this list. His stuff is seemingly there, and his pitches have good movement, he just hasn’t put batters away. He often finds himself in a 3-2 count when getting ahead 0-2, causing his pitch count to raise limiting his ability to go deep into games. The 26-year-old has an o-swing% of 65.1% which is the highest of his career. What this means is that pitches thrown outside of the strike zone that is being swung at are being hit at over a 65% rate. More alarming is when hitters are making contact they are batting .376. Like deGrom, there isn’t one thing that’s causing Syndergaard’s struggles, as Callaway explained in his post-game conference, Syndergaard just isn’t executing the pitches he needs to make and to get quick outs.

Jeruys Familia

1_LSyxLEGi9jAKM8MvNSPavA.0.jpg — Getty Images

W-L	ERA	IP	SO	BB	SV	AVG
2-0	6.17	11.2	12	10	0	.267

Familia was resigned as a free agent to be a dynamic duo with Edwin Diaz to create a shutdown back end of the bullpen. Díaz has lived up to the billing, but Familia is still trying to find himself. He’s been consistently wild, walking way too many batters, 10 in 11.2 innings. Familia has been in 12 games this season, and has given up runs in 6 of those games and has only had four appearances where he retired the side in order. Familia will have to be more consistent to be the consistent bridge to Díaz.

The Mets pitching has been a strange development as the season begins, and hopefully, this isn’t a season-long trend. The offense is legitimate and sustainable. If the pitching can perform to its ability, this team can contend, if not this team will struggle to remain over 500.