Up until Sunday night, Jon Niese had been able to successfully navigate turbulent waters during his first three outings of the season.
He had allowed 29 baserunners and only 11 strikeouts in his first 18 innings of the season, but had only allowed four of them to score during that span.
On Sunday, however, luck was not on Niese’s side, specifically in the second inning during which he allowed four runs to come across.
Niese allowed six runs – four earned – on eight hits in five innings, taking his first loss of the season and seeing his ERA rise from 1.50 to 2.74 for the year. He had allowed no more than two earned runs in any of his seven previous starts.
He allowed four doubles and a single in the second inning. Three of those doubles came against right-handed hitters: Gregorio Petit, John Ryan Murphy, and Alex Rodriguez. All three of the doubles came on cutters. He kept trying to dig the cutter deeper in towards the right-handers, but the arm slot prevented him from getting consistently on top of that pitch, instead leaving it over the middle of the plate too many times early in the game.
Niese seemed to have stayed away from the curveball last night, although the homer he allowed to Alex Rodriguez was a curve on the outer half. That effectively making him a two-pitch pitcher with no differentiation in speed.
“I just wish I could have a couple pitches back,” Niese explained.
Niese appeared to be using more of a three-quarter arm slot for most of his outing on Sunday. It almost looked like he was dragging his arm through his delivery, and his cutter was just floating over the middle of the plate throughout the course of the night. He might’ve had a similar result if he had mixed in his curveball more, but that would’ve at least given him a change of speed pitch to work with.
But because he didn’t have a true off-speed pitch in his arsenal, his cutter wasn’t particularly deceptive – the Yankees did not swing and miss at any of the 26 cut fastballs Niese threw, and he only recorded one out on a cutter.
He probably shouldn’t have allowed more than three runs to score in the second inning (thanks to a poor throw from Michael Cuddyer, he did), and he settled in nicely to give the Mets some length through the fifth inning (although he allowed another unearned run to score in his final frame). But that arm slot was concerning, specifically since it flattened out all of his pitches.
Terry Collins insisted after the game Niese was healthy, but considering the shoulder problems he’s had over the last couple of years and what has been on display recently, it’s hard not to be concerned.
Just Mets 