Mets Marcus Stroman, Steven Matz team up a decade after HS rivalry

Marcus Stroman will join fellow Long Island product Steven Matz on the New York Mets starting pitching staff a decade after their high school rivalry. Let’s take a look back at when they faced off in a pitching duel for the ages ten years ago.

After the New York Mets shockingly acquired Marcus Stroman from the Toronto Blue Jays, plenty of questions emerged. No matter how you look at it, Steven Matz and Stroman coming from Long Island and now being teammates on the same pitching staff in New York is pretty cool.

The Mets also happen to be a pretty popular team on Long Island for those that may not know.

But, well before Matz and Stroman became MLB pitchers, they once faced off in high school baseball game for the ages back in 2009.

MLB.com put together an interesting article back in 2015, recapping the time the two high school stars faced off against each other in a Long Island baseball matchup. Now that Matz and Stroman are joining forces in Queens, it seems appropriate to take a quick look back at this famous Long Island duel.

With Matz (Ward Melville High School) and Stroman (Patchogue-Medford High School) being two highly touted high school prospects, of course, there was plenty of anticipation leading up to this matchup.

According to the article, there were at least 54 scouts in attendance for this game in front of a packed house at Patchogue-Medford High School.

The final score of this game is not surprising. Matz led Ward Melville to a 1-0 victory. The one run Ward Melville notched against Stroman was on a dropped third strike, as the article points out.

For the game, both pitchers impressed. Matz allowed just one hit, struck out 12, and walked four. Stroman allowed just three hits, struck out 14, and didn’t walk any batters.

Following this pitching matchup, their journies were quite different after high school on Long Island to get to this point.

Matz was selected in the second round of the 2009 MLB Draft out of high school by the Mets and has been in the majors since 2015.

As for Stroman, in the 2009 MLB Draft, he was selected in the 18th round by the Washington Nationals, but he opted not to sign and decided to play college baseball at Duke University.

Playing college baseball certainly helped Stroman’s draft stock, as he was later selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the first round of the 2012 MLB Draft. He made his MLB debut in 2014.

Here we are ten years later, and this story has come full circle. Matz and Stroman, two Long Islanders, are now members of the same pitching staff for one of New York’s teams.

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That’s a storyline that could come straight out of a movie.