Jon Niese’s first two starts on paper have looked good. He has a 1.59 ERA in 11 1/3 innings, having allowed only two earned runs and four walks.
On Wednesday, Niese earned his first win of the year after allowing only a run on nine hits with two walks and four strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings. He improved to 4-0 with a 1.87 ERA over his last six starts against the Phillies, and has allowed three earned runs or less in 32 of his last 35 starts dating back to September, 2013.
There are some concerns with Niese, however. He has allowed 16 hits in his first 11 1/3 innings, and needed two double plays on Wednesday to help limit the Phillies.
Still, his ability to induce those double plays last night – and work around an error by Ruben Tejada in the sixth in doing so – throw strikes and limit the walks is a big reason he’s remaining effective, and that is a credit to Niese. He is more a groundball pitcher and he used his defense to get nine groundball outs on Wednesday despite not using his cutter or curve very much.
But, in watching Niese is the early part of the season, it seems he’s still struggling with an consistent arm slot. Only on rare occasions has he been seen throwing over the top, specifically when he throws his curveball. But he’s going with that three-quarter arm slot much of the time, which is limiting the effectiveness of his cutter and curve. On Wednesday, he only recorded two outs on balls in play on his cutter and curve, and didn’t get any swings and misses with those pitches.
As a result, Niese appears to be shying away from them and using his change-up more to off-set his fastball.
His fastball velocity has remained inconsistent in the early part of the year as well. He occasionally touches the low 90s but averaging 88.3 mph, according to FanGraphs. Perhaps the change-up is a part of the adjustment he’s making to his reduced velocity, and it’s mostly worked for him so far in the season.
Whatever his fastball velocity is at this stage of his career, three quarter arm slots and change-ups haven’t historically been the key to Niese’s success. Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen was seen during last night’s telecast emphasizing the over the top arm slot to Niese, so it’s clear the team is aware of this as well. He was using his over the top delivery throughout most of camp and was getting good action on his curve and cutter then, but he hasn’t done that consistently to date.
He says he’s healthy and that’s important, but these inconsistencies remains a mystery.
Just Mets 