Blue Jays' Matz keeps 'outstanding' spring going with strong outing

It’s a stretch to say the Toronto Blue Jays have been hiding Steven Matz. But with his last scheduled outing having fallen on a day when Toronto was playing the New York Yankees, the club decided it made sense to have him throw a simulated game on a backfield rather than give a division rival an advance look at an arm they could be facing when, less than two weeks from now, the two teams open the season with a three-game series in the Bronx.

“It’s just the way it lined up — and who it lined up against,” Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker said. “But he actually threw extremely well his last outing. The velocity’s still there in the mid-90s. Tremendous movement on his pitches. His curveball, changeup, secondary stuff has been outstanding. Better than expected, to be honest with you.

“And we’ve adjusted some things in his approach. He’s on top of his game right now. I think from a confidence standpoint, it’s really where it needs to be. So, he’s excited about where he’s at. And we are, too.”

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Not that there’s any secret-keeping in baseball these days, anyway. With Trackman systems installed long ago at every MLB ballpark — and throughout more and more minor-league facilities over the past several seasons — organizations have access to an encyclopedia of data for scouts and analysts to pore over. Velocities, spin rates, arm angles, release points, pitch usage, pace — you name it.

To that end, the Yankees know exactly what Matz likes to do. They know he’ll try to establish a 93-94 m.p.h. sinker on the plate. They know right-handers are getting changeups in two-strike counts; they know left-handers will see more curveballs. They know both those pitches have a ton of horizontal break, while the cutter-slider will sit up for a hitter if Matz doesn’t locate it on the edges. They have all the video they could ever want to try to identify cues in his delivery that might offer hitters a shred of information about what pitch is coming.

Still, there’s something to be said for standing in the box, seeing it with your own eyes, and trying to hit it — which has evidently been a great challenge for just about every batter Matz has faced this spring. Through 10 innings over three starts, Matz has allowed only a run on seven hits with 12 strikeouts and no walks. Add in the club-reported stats from that simulated game last week — one hit, no walks and seven strikeouts against 15 hitters — and Matz is putting up one of the best spring pitching performances at a camp that hasn’t been short on them.

“Man, he has been outstanding. He’s throwing strikes with all of his pitches. His changeup has been really, really good,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo. “He’s been impressive.”

Missing Batz @Smatz88's spring: 10 IP, 1 ER, 12 Ks! pic.twitter.com/ZsJWRKLeiQ

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) March 20, 2021

That would be the same Steven Matz who allowed 33 runs over 30 2/3 innings last season, registering the third-worst ERA (9.68) of any pitcher to throw at least 20 innings in the majors and flirting with the league lead in exit velocity and hard contact allowed. The same guy who battled a shoulder impingement throughout 2020, pitched his way out of the New York Mets’ rotation and was ultimately traded to the Blue Jays this winter in exchange for a couple edge-of-40-man-roster arms, a 22-year-old high-A pitcher and salary relief.

It’s difficult to rectify, and spring performances being what they are, possibly a mirage. But beneath the surface, some very legitimate adjustments appear to have been made — in approach, in pitch usage and in sheer conviction. And Matz displayed them all Saturday, facing hitters wearing a different uniform for the first time in 11 days and spinning five innings of one-run ball against the Philadelphia Phillies.

“It’s definitely good to get results in spring training,” Matz said. “The big thing for me early is just commanding all the pitches. When you can command all your pitches, you just feel more confident — because you can throw any pitch in any count. So, I definitely think I’m confident.”

A look at Matz’s pitch chart on the day confirms that command, as he was working up in the zone with fastballs and down with changeups, while pounding sinkers on the inside edge to right-handers and locating his off-speed arm-side:

Playing those changeups off fastballs and vice versa is how he’ll predominantly pitch during the regular season. He also features a curveball with above-average movement and will mix in a hard cutter-slider every now and then. But the pitch he needs in order to be most effective is that changeup, and Matz had it working on Saturday.

Of the 22 changeups he threw, 16 were swung at, which produced four whiffs, seven fouls and five balls in play. What was interesting from a process perspective was that Matz threw eight of them to left-handed hitters, inducing three swinging strikes and a pair of foul balls.

Matz threw only 30 changeups total to left-handed hitters last season, but a focus this spring in his bullpens with Walker has been incorporating the pitch more to that side of the platoon. And so far there’s no arguing with the results.

“It’s been a great pitch. It’s going to be my out pitch. I’m definitely feeling confident and comfortable with it,” Matz said. “I think that’s the thing — just having that conviction that it is your out pitch.”

On Saturday, four swinging strikes came with the changeup, while four others came with the sinker. Everything was in or around the zone as Matz threw 53 of his 74 pitches for strikes. He went three up, three down with 13 pitches in the first; he worked around a soft-struck leadoff single with 11 in the second; he struck out the side with 12 in the third.

Roman Quinn led off the fourth with a bunt single. And after a quick out, Matz made his most glaring mistake of the day, leaving a full-count changeup middle-in to Bryce Harper, which is a really good way to watch a line drive go screaming back up the middle. Harper cruised into second with a double, while Quinn crossed the plate with a run. It happens. But what happened next is more important.

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Matz located his next pitch to Alec Bohm — a 94.5 m.p.h. sinker away — for a swinging strike before inducing a ground-ball out. And he got an inning-ending grounder from Didi Gregorius three pitches later with another well-located sinker. Matz didn’t let his mistake to Harper compound. He arrested the damage.

“I was kind of waiting to see what was going to happen,” Montoyo said. “Because he’d been so good the whole time. I thought, ‘OK, a little struggle there, let’s see how he’s going to react.’ And he reacted well. He did a nice job coming back and getting people out.”

For a pitcher who last season had three separate innings in which he allowed four runs or more, that’s important. Those 33 runs Matz allowed in 2020 weren’t scattered — 40 per cent of them came within those three innings. The damage came in bursts. The 27 batters Matz faced with runners in scoring position hit .455/.519/.909 collectively. Only four pitchers in baseball gave up more two-out homers than Matz’s five. And no pitcher gave up more homers after getting ahead, 0-2, than Matz’s four.

When things went bad for him in 2020, they often quickly got worse. A lead-off single and a one-out homer could lead to another runner reaching and a subsequent homer later in the inning, like it did during an early August outing against the Washington Nationals. A one-out walk with a runner on begot a two-strike double, a two-strike homer, another walk and a wild pitch, as it did during a September start against the Atlanta Braves.

Or take Matz’s last outing against these very Phillies in mid-August, when he cruised through four innings having allowed a walk, a solo shot and nothing more. Back out for the fifth, he surrendered back-to-back singles and walked Bohm on a full-count pitch to load the bases. A lineout got Matz within an out of escaping, but then he walked in a run and gave up back-to-back doubles — the second to Harper — which ended his day.

For one reason or another, things tended to spiral on him. And when Harper crushed another double off the wall Saturday, you couldn’t blame Matz for having bad flashbacks. But this time he settled in, turned the page, and returned to locating with conviction. That’s the kind of encouraging early-season process gain that underlies Matz’s spring training results.

“That’s big for me — having to pitch with guys on second and getting out of there by throwing really effective pitches,” Matz said. “Executing those pitches in those big spots is everything. So, I got some good work today there — I was happy with that.”

It’s a great sign for a guy who was already an intriguing 2021 bounce back candidate, considering his above-average strikeout rate (25.4 per cent) and walk rate (7 per cent) in 2020, his unsustainable BABIP (.340) and HR/FB rate (37.8 per cent) and the fact he had MLB’s seventh-highest difference between his actual wOBA (.432) and xwOBA (.370).

Not that a .370 wOBA would’ve been a good one. But with stuff like his, better health behind it and the benefit of a full season to let his numbers normalize, there were plenty of reasons to believe Matz could pitch much closer to the guy who posted above-average wOBA’s of .325 in 2019 and .317 a year prior.

And yet, an improved approach and increased resiliency in the face of baseball’s inevitable adversity could be the secret sauce that ties it all together. That materializes in first-pitch strikes following runs allowed; more strikeouts and ground balls with runners on; fewer disaster innings spinning sideways out of control. Every MLB pitcher’s going to make mistakes, miss locations, surrender damage. But containing that damage can be the separator between the kind of above-average season the Blue Jays are expecting in 2021 and the dreadful one Matz had in 2020.

In less than two weeks, Matz could find himself standing on the mound in the Bronx with one out and a runner on second, looking in at Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton in the box. The Blue Jays can endeavour to hide Matz from the Yankees this spring. But there will be no hiding in that moment. And if Matz can carry over the improved approach he’s demonstrated this spring, he might just carry over the phenomenal results, as well.

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