Just Mets

It’s rather incredible to think that on May 9th, not even a full month ago, Jon Niese had a 1.95 ERA for the season.

Things have gone completely gone downhill for the Mets left-hander since, as he’s allowed at least four earned runs in each of his last four starts. He was pitching with incredibly good fortunes over the first month of the season, but those fortunes – along with the quality of his pitching – have completely turned around.

There’s no getting past it, tonight is an incredibly important start, not only as the Mets hope to keeping winning as they lose more and more players to injury, but even moreso for Niese himself.

Things have really gone south for Niese lately, as well, as in his last five starts Jon has pitched 27 innings (an average just above five innings per start), going 1-3 with a 6.67 ERA. As thing’s currently stand, Niese finds himself with a 3-5 record on the year, 4.42 ERA and 1.58 WHIP all while walking 2.46 batters per 9 and a .304 batting average against him this season.

Even with the Mets implementing a 6-man rotation – resulting in their pitchers being on the mound less frequently – neither Niese or the team can afford to let this continue.

This team is simply not built to withstand poor starting pitching, especially with the glut of injuries they’ve undergone on their offense. Also, it’s not as if the Mets don’t have a viable replacement waiting in the wings…

As Niese steps onto the mound in Arizona tonight, the man who could eventually force his way into supplanting him, Steven Matz, will be pitching for Las Vegas.

Matz is lighting up Triple-A right now, as he’s gone 6-3 with a 1.98 ERA in a league that doesn’t see much pitching. As the 24-year-old left-handed prospect continues to pile up impressive performance after impressive performance, it becomes less and less viable or reasonable that the Mets should keep him in the minor leagues. Pair that with the fact that Niese continues to pitch so poorly, and this team has quite the situation on their hands.

It remains unclear what would become of Niese if the Mets do in fact decide to make the move and call up Matz, but Jon can do himself a big favor and make that a moot point by going out there and pitching well starting tonight.