Just Mets

The time may be getting close for Noah Syndergaard for his big league debut.

Syndergaard turned in another excellent performance for Triple-A Las Vegas on Thursday, going eight innings while allowing two runs on five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks.

Syndergaard induced nine groundouts and threw 95 pitches, 70 of which were strikes.

He allowed a run in the sixth inning, snapping his scoreless streak at 20 innings.

Syndergaard also went 3-for-4 at the plate, falling a triple short of the cycle.

Over his last three starts, Syndergaard has a 0.82 ERA in 22 innings, having allowed two earned runs, 11 hits, and just two walks with 27 strikeouts.

He did a fantastic job today. He was throwing gas, was incredibly efficient, he mixed in all of his pitches and had command of every pitch in every count. His fastball looked like it got better and more electric as he threw more pitches today, as it gained more electricity and movement as time went on. His curveball was particularly nasty today moving down with fantastic velocity – it looked like a 30 pound medicine ball falling out of the strike zone, and the Isotope hitters had a hard time making any kind of contact against it.

With this latest performance, Syndergaard is doing everything he can to convince the Mets front office he’s deserving of a call-up to the big leagues. He appears to have finally figured out how to “pitch” and effectively use all of his pitches at Triple-A, something they wanted to see from him before being considered for a promotion.

The Mets are going to use a spot starter at least once during their stretch of 20 consecutive games, which starts tomorrow. My best guess would be the spot start comes on May 23 in Pittsburgh. That way, Matt Harvey makes two starts on regular rest, then the spot start would bump him to May 24, and he would get an extra day of rest again with an off-day on May 28.

With Rafael Montero now on the disabled list with a sore shoulder, all signs are pointing to the Mets using either Syndergaard or Steve Matz getting that start.

It seems logical Syndergaard would get it first. He has the innings at Double-A and higher (150-plus) whereas Matz still needs a little more than 40 innings to reach that threshold. And, Syndergaard’s  performance warrants a promotion at this point. That doesn’t mean Matz doesn’t deserve it, but his time will come anyway if he continues to pitch like this as well, sooner rather than later. Remember, the 35 1/3 innings at Las Vegas are the only innings he’s thrown about Double-A.

It’s not a question of if these guys will be promoted. It’s when, and what the Mets will do with them once they’re here. As is the case with Kevin Plawecki and Dilson Herrera, it doesn’t do them any good to be buried in the minor leagues when they’re ready to be here and play full-time.

It’s worth noting both Matz and Syndergaard have roughly the same innings limits this year (between 160-170). Matz may be a bit higher, but in any case that should play a role in how they are used as both a spot starter and maybe permanent fixtures down the road in 2015 as well.