Just Mets

It had been nearly two months sine Jon Niese could soak in a win on his ledger.

He went through one of the rockiest four starts of his eight-year career in the middle of May, when seemingly he was inducing more home runs than he was outs.

But once the calendar turned to June, he kicked his season back into gear, and he hasn’t looked back.

He pitched his best game to date on Monday night with eight shutout innings and only five base runners against the sleepy but World Champion Giants at AT&T Park.

“We executed the game plan,” Niese explained. “We knew coming into the game they were going to be aggressive.”

Indeed he did. He induced 14 ground balls against the Giants, and with the strongest possible infield alignment among those on the active roster, all four infielders played a part in soaking up the weak rollers around the infield.

Typically, Niese has relied upon his two-seam fastball for success this season. But it was his cutter which served as his primary weapon for success on Monday night. He managed to keep it over the inside corner to right-handers in particular which helped induce a ton of weak contact to the right side for countless easy outs.

“The plan was to pound the bottom of the zone with all the pitches, and we were able to do it,” Niese said.

Niece needed only 81 pitches in his eight innings of work. He threw 57 of them for strikes.

Niese was so efficient, he wanted to go back out for the ninth inning. But he credited his teammates for securing his first win since May 9.

“It was a good feeling. I was ready to go back out there, but it was good. [Johnny Monell] had a great at-bat. [Jeurys Familia] did a great job finishing up. Overall, it was a good win.”

Niese didn’t seem bothered pitching with six days of rest. Terry Collins said after the game when he spoke to Niese about the plan for the six-man rotation, Niese offered support with no hesitation.

When asked after the game about pitching in a six-man rotation, Niese didn’t seem to have any issues pitching under those conditions.

“It’s just another day,” Niese explained.

It’s happening for Niese at precisely the right moment both for himself and for the club. With the trade deadline about 3 1/2 weeks away and a never-ending hunger for pitching among contenders, the Mets should be able to get an understanding what the market might call for a pitcher of Niese’s caliber. In the end, Niese probably isn’t the pitcher who has a 2.41 ERA over his last six starts, but he was always better than the pitcher who posted a 9.00 ERA in his previous four starts.

That makes him a solid, mid-rotation veteran starting pitcher which plenty of teams can use.

Whether the Mets end up dealing him in the next few weeks is anyone’s guess, but is doing himself no harm in becoming an option for teams seeking to solidify their rotation for a pennant race down the stretch.