What a ride for Dillon Gee.
Out of the rotation, in the rotation, racing for his job in the rotation, winning the job, and then racing for his job in the rotation, again.
In the latest chapter of Gee’s saga of the unknown future, he turned in another solid, albeit bumpy performance, pitching into the sixth inning and allowing only one run on six hits with five walks and five strikeouts.
He pitched in and out of trouble thanks to the five walks he allowed, the most he’s allowed in a start since July 9, 2013 in San Francisco. But he managed to pitch his way out of several jams on Sunday afternoon – which has merit – and certainly gave the Mets plenty of chances in his five innings of work. He was helped in the sixth inning by Alex Torres, who bailed him out of a bases loaded, nobody out jam, but all in all he gave the Mets what they needed from him on Sunday.
His five innings of work set a franchise mark of 51 straight starts of five innings or more – it’s the longest such streak currently in the Major Leagues.
Gee is still seeking his first win of the year, but his last three starts have been impressive – he’s allowed only four earned runs over 19 2/3 innings over that span, improving his ERA to 3.86 for the season.
Generally speaking, he’s handled the turmoil, instability and uncertainty extremely well. It’s hard to complain about his overall body of work to date, all things considered.
Early in the year, Gee was critical of himself for not using all of his pitches, specifically when he got into trouble. He knows his stuff isn’t good enough for him to become one-dimensional, and he’s gotten back to using his slider and change-up and burying it down in the zone, which has helped him find success lately and get him out of jams yesterday specifically. He threw 23 of his 34 sliders and change-ups for strikes, the Nationals swung 19 times at them, and Washington was unable to put 24 of those pitches combined in play.
Right now, Gee looks very much like the pitcher who went 13-6 with a 2.72 ERA between May 31, 2013 through May 10, 2014, and that’s a great sign for him.
It’s not entirely clear what the Mets are going to do in their rotation in the coming weeks with Noah Syndergaard or Steven Matz getting closer, but Gee has certainly done himself no harm with his performance over the last two weeks. He could very well lose his job to one of those guys in a short span of time, but he has certainly exceeded the expectation of a fifth starter and has shown the Mets and the industry he can be a valuable part of the back of a big league rotation right now.
Just Mets 