TORONTO – It was in his third start of the 2020 season that Steven Matz‘s year started to unravel.
After opening the season with two strong outings, he allowed five runs in just three innings against the Washington Nationals last Aug. 4, foreshadowing what would be an extremely disappointing finish to the year for the left-hander. From that day on, he would allow more runs than innings pitched for the Mets. Soon after the season ended, it became apparent the Mets were ready to trade him.
Three starts into his career with the Toronto Blue Jays, Matz is making a convincing case that his 2020 struggles are behind him. After a strong opening effort against the Texas Rangers and an equally impressive start against the Los Angeles Angels, Matz faced the Kansas City Royals in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader and allowed just one run on two hits over six innings as the Blue Jays won 5-1.
Like any team in win-now mode, the Blue Jays will take wins any way they can get them. But to determine how sustainable these early-season results are, it’s worth looking at how Matz is keeping runs off the board. On that front, the process is as encouraging as the results. His fastball velocity remains up — he topped out at 95.9 m.p.h. Saturday — and his change-up was particularly effective against the Royals, who walked twice against Matz while striking out five times.
Clearly, nobody expects Matz to keep his ERA at 1.47 all year. But with each passing start, he looks more like the pitcher who posted a 4.09 ERA over the course of 60 starts for the Mets from 2018-19. And that version of Matz would be a welcome addition to a Blue Jays pitching staff with few sure things in the rotation. It’s certainly more than they could have banked on when they sent Sean Reid-Foley, Yennsy Diaz and Josh Winckowski to the Mets back in January.
Even beyond Matz’s start, there were plenty of positives for the Blue Jays despite the absence of Cavan Biggio from the starting lineup (Biggio tested his injured right hand by playing some catch and hitting off a tee Saturday while Santiago Espinal got the start at third).
In the first inning, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. got the scoring started with a two-run double that nearly cleared Kauffman Stadium’s left-centre field wall. Considering how slowly Gurriel Jr. has started at the plate, that double was a welcome hint that better results await the Blue Jays’ left fielder.
Another struggling outfielder delivered a big hit in the top of the fifth inning, when Jonathan Davis homered off the left field foul pole. Later, Davis would single and steal his first base of the year before scoring on a Marcus Semien sacrifice fly.
One inning after Davis went deep, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a solo homer of his own. After that home run — Guerrero Jr.’s fourth of the season — he’s hitting .429 with an OPS of 1.268. It’s incredible production, and Guerrero Jr.’s advanced plate approach and elite exit velocity numbers suggest a lot of his success will be sustainable.
As with Matz, though, some regression is inevitable. And by that same line of reasoning, it’s fair to expect more from the likes of Gurriel Jr. going forward. The way Bo Bichette sees it, the important thing is staying focused on the task at hand.
“When you’re worried about the outcome, that’s when the process goes sideways, so for me just being more consistent with thinking about the process and not the outcome,” Bichette said before going hitless in four at-bats. “I’m going to get better at that as my career goes on.”
All things considered, Saturday afternoon went just about as well as the Blue Jays could have hoped. On the pitching side, Matz looks like a meaningful addition and Rafael Dolis closed things out after allowing the first two runners to reach. At the plate, Guerrero Jr. keeps hitting and some of his teammates are starting to come around too.
Of course with another game just hours away and 147 more on the schedule after that, there are plenty more tests ahead for the Blue Jays.
