New York Mets: Inning caps won't effect playoff push

Inning caps have become a painful necessity in this day and age of Major League Baseball. Anytime a starter is deemed too young to throw over 200 innings or is fresh off of an operation, a cap becomes a must to ensure his health. We have seen caps of questionable success used on Stephen Strasburg in recent memory and the Houston Astros’ are currently employing one on youngsters Lance McCullers and Vincent Velazquez.

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The New York Mets are engaging in the same as they are nearing the time when an innings cap must be used on their young aces Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.

Matt Harvey is the perennial ace of the club but he is fresh off of Tommy John surgery but his inning limit of 195 is quickly approaching as he has thrown 148 already. That leaves it impossible to for him to finish out his remaining 10+ starts this season. However, as baseball writer Will Carroll states via Forbes: “They’re guessing. There’s no science to an innings limit.”

Harvey is good. As the ace of a tremendous, young New York Met’s pitching staff, he has gone 11-7 with a 2.61 ERA. While his SO/9 and H/9 are not as good as his pre-procedure self, that can be chalked up to a side affect of the surgery. In fact, the more Harvey pitches, the better he gets, as he has now gone two starts, for 15 total innings, and not given up a run.

Jacob deGrom has the stuff to be an ace as well, but you can’t really argue with Matt Harvey. However, Carlos Gomez would be one to argue, as he stated that deGrom was the best pitcher in the game “hands down,” via CBS Local.

According to the New York Daily News, the New York Mets have put a 215 inning limit cap on deGrom and he has already thrown 146.2 of those.

Statistically speaking, deGrom is even better than Harvey, as he has gone 11-6 with a 2.03 ERA. He has not given up more than three earned runs since May 11th. That is not the kind of pitching that can just be replaced.

And finally, the newest addition to a stellar rotation, Noah Syndergaard. Syndergaard is supposedly about 50 innings away from his limit and he too, has been phenomenal, going 7-6 with a 3.07 ERA in his maiden voyage in Major League Baseball.

While it would seem near-debilitating to have to limit the appearances of these three supreme pitchers, the Mets’ have a bit of an embarrassment of riches in the pitching department. While Bartolo Colon has not been up to what he started the year at, he is still an innings-eating monster. Although he has been subjected to some rough games of late, he still has the capabilities to put his team in a winning situation.

The same can be said of Jon Niese, who has given up more than three earned runs just once in his last eleven starts. While the old New York Mets would have needed more, the Yoenis Cespedes-clad Mets are run-producing machines, outscoring opponents 67-29 this month. The New York Mets still lead all of baseball in runs scored since the trade deadline.

But what about the rotation? Well, it’s simple really. The Mets have Steven Matz and Dillon Gee ready to prolong the rotation as needed so as to sustain the best possible form of Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard.

Matz suffered a partially torn left lat muscle after two starts with the Mets but New York Mets’ GM Sandy Anderson indicates that they expect the 24-year old lefty to return when rosters expand in September, giving them another viable, talented young arm.

In two games with the New York Mets, Matz went 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and 14 strikeouts in just 13.2 innings pitched. Hard to do much better than that.

Dillon Gee figures to be in the mix as well. Despite having lackluster results this year, he has a history of being fairly successful at the professional level. In the previous two season, Gee went 19-19 with a sub-4.00 ERA. Again, not eye-popping, but quality.

This year may have been a different story but if he can keep opponents to three or four runs a game, the now-hammering New York Mets’ offense is fully capable of winning.

And then there is Gabriel Ynoa. Ynoa may only be in Double-A and his stats may not look like anything that is MLB-ready, 8-7 with a 3.66 ERA, but the guy has mad control. And I mean mad control. He has never walked more than 1.7 per nine innings and anyone that has control like that can find a place in the Majors.

So while Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard are crucial to the New York Mets’ success, they will still be a part of their playoff run, even if they are now going six or seven games between starts.

Next: Mets becoming MLB powerhouse

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