The Metropolitan: Walker beats the walkers
Mets out-duel wild Cardinals, fly home to host Arizona
Good Morning,
The Mets set a team record by leaving 17 men on base and somehow salvaged the series against the Cardinals, by walking their way to a 4-1 victory behind a lights-out performance by Taijuan Walker (who we will discuss much more in a bit).
Before the game, the Mets moved Carlos Carrasco to the 60-Day IL and pushed back his first minor league rehab start, which is a bit concerning, but may not be as big a deal as it appears.
Before we talk about that, dive deep into Walker’s performance and preview the upcoming homestand, let’s get you caught up on yesterday’s action.
⚾️ IN SHORT: As Taijuan Walker efficiently worked through the Cardinals lineup, St. Louis pitchers issued free pass, after free pass, after free pass in basically handing the Mets a 4-1 win in a game that saw Francisco Lindor finally break his 26 at-bat hitless streak in uneventful fashion, and Edwin Diaz return to action for the save. [Box Score]
🔑 KEY MOMENT: Unless you enjoy watching pitches out of the strike zone, there aren’t many key highlights to show from this one, as three of the Mets’ runs were the product of bases loaded walks. However, Dom Smith did come through with a clutch hit in the 8th inning to give the Mets an insurance run and to make their 3-for-15 performance with runners in scoring position look… I don’t know, a little less terrible?
3 TAKEAWAYS
❶ TOP-END DEPTH: On a day the Mets learned that Carlos Carrasco will be sidelined a few more weeks, Taijuan Walker’s masterful seven-inning performance in which he walked none (imagine that!), struck out eight, and didn’t allow an earned run was refreshing and a reminder of the depth — at least one through four — in the Mets’ rotation. If Walker continues to pitch like a top-end starter (he is now 2-1 with a 2.38 ERA), it softens the blow of having Carrasco out until at least June.
❷ MAY BE GOOD: We alluded to this yesterday, but Trevor May continues to look dominant out of the ‘pen, fanning two of the three batters he faced yesterday. After giving up two earned runs in his Mets debut, he has not allowed another one since (in 11 appearances). While the strength of the 2021 Mets is obviously their starting pitching so far, if Edwin Díaz (who returned for the save yesterday) is healthy and May is this dominant, add the emergence of Miguel Castro, the hold-your-breath, fingers-crossed possibility that Jeurys Familia has improved his command, with the eventual return of Seth Lugo, and you suddenly have a pretty good bullpen (given bullpens are about as temperamental as a five year old, so things could quickly change).
❸ A HIT! Yes, Francisco Lindor finally found outfield grass by pulling a clean single into right field in his final AB to break his 0-26 slump. It’s one hit. We knew it would eventually come. But it’s nice to have it out of the way, especially before he returns to Citi Field this weekend. Lindor reached base four times yesterday, as he hasn’t let his troubles finding hits get in the way of his ability to have a patient eye. Despite his .163 average, he has walked more than he has struck out, resulting in a walk rate that is well above his career average.
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: The last time the Mets drew 11 walks in a game was in 2018 against the Reds, winning 8-0 in a rare offensive outburst for Jacob DeGrom. The most walks they’ve ever received in a nine inning contest is 16 against the Dodgers in 1962, of all years. The lovable Mets, who would go on to lose 120 games, beat the Boys in Blue 10-4 when the Dodgers used three pitchers and issued seven walks in the first inning.
⏭ NEXT UP: The Mets flew home last night to host the 15-16 Diamondbacks for a three-game set over the weekend in Queens. They’ll have to face Arizona ace Zac Gallen (1-1, 3.48 ERA), a New Jersey native who’s put up impressive numbers in 31 lifetime appearances. The Mets will send lefty David Peterson (1-3, 4.81) to the mound, coming off a strong appearance against the Phillies. While Joey Lucchesi is technically in line to start on Saturday, it’s not official. And New York is hoping deGrom is healthy enough to return on Sunday.
🍪 COOKIE CRUMBLES: After it seemed as if RHP Carlos “Cookie” Carrasco was making progress toward returning in the next week or so, the Mets transferred him to the 60-Day IL to give themselves roster flexibility as the right-hander needs more time to recover from a hamstring injury that will end up having sidelined him at least three months.
PANIC? If you’re a Mets fan, we understand your natural inclination to panic. How often have the Mets told us an injury was minor, as days ticked away on the calendar with the player out of the lineup, only to suddenly drop the news that said player is out for months longer or the entire season? While Post-Mets Injury Overreaction Disorder (PIOD) is real, there doesn’t appear to be a reason to be too worried about this latest setback (or as the Mets are calling it, a “slow recovery”) for Carrasco, as of now.
MORE TIME: Manager Luis Rojas says Carrasco will only need to make 1-2 minor league starts to get back into game action. Mets officials indicated there is nothing new that has happened to cause concern (like a re-tear of the hamstring). Carrasco appears to just need more time to feel confident he can make quick plays off the mound. It’s only May 6, so if the Mets hold back Carrasco an extra week (or two) in his recovery, and then have him make two minor league starts, he should be ready to go by May 31, when he is eligible to return from the 60-Day IL. That’s only two weeks later than expected and within the original timeframe the Mets had originally scoped out when evaluating his injury.
🍩 SUGAR HIGH: Closer Edwin Diaz returned to action for the first time since nearly blowing a four-run lead against Philadelphia, and leaving with medical questions, on Sunday. He allowed two hits but no runs for the save.
🚨 ON ALERT: Outfield prospect Khalil Lee has been told to be ready for a possible call-up to the Mets as soon as today, Anthony DiComo reports.
👀 MINORS WATCH: Third baseman Mark Vientos, one of the franchise’s top prospects, homered last night for Double-A Binghamton. Outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has four hits, five walks and a HBP, reaching base ten times in his first 14 plate appearances for Class A St. Lucie.
📚 ON THIS DATE IN 2016: Forty-two year old Bartolo Colon became the oldest player to hit his first home run, as Gary Cohen appropriately declared in the moment, “The impossible has happened!”
How Taijuan Walker fooled the Cards
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
It would be hard to find a starker contrast in command than what we saw yesterday between Taijuan Walker’s assault on the strike zone and the carousel of pitchers the Cardinals trotted out to the mound in search of someone (anyone!) who could throw a strike.
While the Cardinals walked 11 Mets, Walker (ironically named on this day) didn’t issue any free passes, as he consistently attacked the strike zone, before and after a rain delay, and through seven innings of work that saw him retire 18 batters in a row to close out his impressive performance.
Entering the game, Walker was 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA over five starts, but his underlying numbers were a bit concerning. While giving up hard contact, he was also walking over 13% of the batters he had faced.
But the Taijuan Walker we saw in the shadow of the Budweiser signs hanging over the field in St. Louis was a pitcher who was confident in his stuff and in his ability to throw multiple pitches for strikes. And it wasn’t just because Walker must have woken up on the right side of the bed or stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night, his success can be attributed to a deliberate game plan of mixing his pitches and attacking the zone.
Before yesterday’s start, Walker had thrown his two-seam fastball nearly 25% of the time. It’s a pitch he told David Laurila of FanGraphs that he added to his repertoire last season to “get in to righties without risking pulling a four-seam over the middle.”
Statcast quantifies it as a sinker, but it’s clearly not one when you look at its movement profile. It doesn’t drop like a sinker; it’s a tramp like us and born to run.
The problem is that when he throws it with his four-seamer, they share similar velocities, so there’s not enough movement or velo separation to really make it an effective pitch in the strike zone. In his last start against the Phillies, Walker gave up four hits, including a home run off his two-seamer. Opponents are hitting .381 off it this season, after mashing it to a .391 average last year.
It’s a pitch that you expect to draw contact, and it doesn’t have the characteristics to make it a chase pitch or one that can consistently induce weak contact, like a traditional sinker.
So what did Walker do yesterday? He kept his two-seamer in his back pocket and mixed his four-seamer with his breaking pitches to pound the strike zone while keeping the Cardinals completely off balance. He only threw one two-seamer the entire afternoon.
The Cardinals had two switch-hitters and one lefty in their lineup, so Walker used his curveball more liberally, but the key was his four-seamer had a distinct look from everything else he showed to hitters standing on either side of the plate.
As you can see in the graphic above, Walker throws his 4-seam, 2-seam, and split-change from a similar spin direction, even though the pitches take slightly different paths to the plate. However, when he throws his two-seamer in sequence with his other arm-side moving pitches, they start to cluster together a bit. Rather than a hitter being surprised by a fastball up in the zone, it merely looks like a slightly different version of the two-seamer they might have just seen.
By taking away his two-seamer, and throwing his split-change more often for strikes, it made his four-seamer better, and he might have fooled the Cardinals hitters into thinking the pitches they were seeing were something else. Instead of using the split-change as a chase pitch, he deployed it similar to a sinker, but with a velocity gap from his fastball and more drop than run, resulting in called strikes, foul balls, and grounders.
Cardinals hitters stepping into the box had to pay attention to a slider and curveball that could send them chasing out of the zone, a split-change that flashed a unique speed to upset their timing, along with a distinct break, and a four-seamer that averaged 94.5 mph on the gun and showcased decent rise. And Walker was able to throw all of them for strikes.
All in all, it was a day when Walker struck out eight hitters despite only getting eight non-foul-ball whiffs; but his ability to keep hitters off balance allowed him to earn called strikes, get ahead in the count with the aid of foul balls, and efficiently make his way through the Cardinals lineup.
⚾️ The Angels announced their plan to release future Hall of Famer and all-time great Albert Pujols. With the emergence of 1B Jared Walsh and DH Shohei Ohtani, there was no role for Pujols any longer.
⚾️ Speaking of Shohei Ohtani, he slugged his tenth home run, once again becoming the only player in history besides Babe Ruth, to hit 10 HR and strike out 30 batters in the same season. Both have now done it twice.
⚾️ Zack Wheeler threw a shutout, scattering just three hits and fanning eight, to beat the Brewers 2-0.
🔗 “Here’s why the Mets transferred Carlos Carrasco to the 60 day DL,” by Justin Toscano, Bergen Record: “The Mets don't view this as a setback, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Part of Carrasco's rehab process was to push the hamstring and then reassess the timeline, which is why the club provides the player with a range of when they could return. Carrasco's progress is leading him toward the later end of that timetable, the person said. But that's something the Mets understood could occur with Carrasco's hamstring strain, which might be why the organization doesn't seem concerned.”
📺 WATCH: Check out this short mini-documentary on Willie Mays by MLB Network and Tom Verducci, a day after the legendary outfielder (and one-time Met) turned 90 years old.
And… Albert Pujols may be approaching the end of his career, but this is a hell of a way to go out:
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PIOD - LOL we all have it