Steven Matz has short, up-and-down start vs. Nationals

Mets starting pitcher Steven Matz walks to the dugout against the Nationals at Citi Field on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The beginning was awful. The ending was great. The outing was way too short.
Steven Matz turned in a performance against Washington on Wednesday night at Citi Field that’s a little hard to encapsulate. The lefthander put the Mets in a 3-0 hole in the first, when he allowed Howie Kendrick’s infield single and a walk to Bryce Harper before surrendering Ryan Zimmerman’s three-run homer to leftfield. But he ended the inning by striking out Michael Taylor and then set down the next nine Nationals.
“I am so excited the way he settled in and started attacking hitters because he’s going to have a lot of success when he does that,” manager Mickey Callaway said.
In one of the odder wrinkles in the game, Matz was lifted for a pinch hitter in the fourth. The Mets already had scored two runs to cut the margin to one and had runners on first and second with one out. Callaway didn’t let Matz — who has been a pretty decent hitter with only 21 strikeouts in 89 plate appearances — try to put the ball in play and get the tying run home.
The Ward Melville product slammed his bat into the bat rack as Brandon Nimmo took his turn at the plate and reached on a hit-by-pitch.
“I definitely understand,” Matz said of the move. “I think Mickey would understand that I wouldn’t be happy. As a competitor you want to go out there and go as deep in the game as you can.”
“If it weren’t for the 33 pitches he threw in the first inning, we wouldn’t have even contemplated it because he would have been around the 60-pitch mark,” Callaway said. “He got to 75 pitches or so and the most I could see him going was another inning.”
Matz got a no-decision. He allowed the three runs, three hits and a walk and struck out six, throwing only 74 pitches. That he did get on track is not a surprise given his track record against Washington; he had a 1.85 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 34 innings against the Nationals coming into the game.
Matz was exactly the guy the Mets need him to be after Zimmerman’s homer. He gave up a single to Moises Sierra, fanned Taylor and then picked Sierra off first. He needed only 41 pitches to get the next nine outs.
In one stretch he struck out three straight, all looking.
“To just attack their guys, give them what you’ve got and that’s kind of what I did,” Matz said of turning things around. “Just puff your chest out and believe you’re better than them and just have conviction in your stuff.”
In a way the outing sort of embodied how things have gone for Matz during the season. He has struck out 23 in 18 1⁄3 innings. But allowing homers has been a problem. Zimmerman’s was the fifth he’s given up this season.
“I’ve just been leaving the ball up in the zone,” he said of the home runs. “The changeup tonight [to Zimmerman] was up in the zone and I gave him a chance to get his barrel to it.”