NY Mets: 5 best Noah Syndergaard moments on the field

The Ejection

The player I can’t stand the most in all of my years of watching Mets baseball is Chase Utley. He tormented the Mets as a Phillie for many years and always seemed to be in the middle of drama.

What I remember Utley most for isn’t the home runs he hit as a Phillie, it’s the “slide” as a Dodger. In the 2015 NLDS Utley barreled into Ruben Tejada to try and break up a double play and ended up breaking Tejada’s leg and effectively ending his career as a full-time player in the MLB.

After this, Utley received some of the loudest boos I’ve ever heard. I was fortunate to be there in person for Game 3 of that series and join in with 40,000 other Mets fans in booing him.

Syndergaard didn’t pitch in that game, but he did pitch against the Dodgers at home in 2016. It was a packed house on a Saturday night with fans there booing Utley very loudly. Syndergaard struck Utley out his first at-bat igniting the crowd.

His second at-bat is when the real fun started. Syndergaard threw up and in against Utley which for whatever reason ended up in Syndergaard getting ejected without warning.

This was one of, if not the most memorable ejection in Mets franchise history. The Mets would wind up losing that game, but this was just another example of Syndergaard having his teammates back.

He only went 2.1 innings but this still was one of the more memorable Syndergaard outings in my opinion.

Power on the mound, power at the plate

Noah Syndergaard was known as a fireballer. He was the first starting pitcher at least that I ever saw throw 100 mph fastballs consistently. He was a force of nature on the mound and just gave me the impression that he was there to dominate with power.

He has power on the mound, but he also has power at the plate. In his career, Syndergaard has not been a very good hitter as he’s slashed .153/.206/.266 for his career, but, he does have six home runs.

Just days after Bartolo Colon shocked the baseball world with his first career home run, Syndergaard topped it. He hit two home runs in Los Angeles.

On this May night in Los Angeles Syndergaard was facing Kenta Maeda who is no slouch on the mound. In his first at-bat Syndergaard homered on the first pitch he saw from Maeda to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

In his second at-bat, Syndergaard was up with runners on first and second with nobody out. Usually, pitchers are asked to bunt in this spot. Syndergaard did square to bunt for the first four pitches and winded up in a 2-2 count. Instead of bunting with two strikes, Syndergaard swung away and launched a three-run homer into left-center field at Dodger Stadium.

This was a very impressive shot as the ball usually does not travel well at Dodger Stadium at night and Syndergaard who is a left-handed hitter, hit that the opposite way 400 feet away.

His second home run of the night gave the Mets a 4-2 lead. They would go on to win it 4-3 and Syndergaard threw eight innings allowing just two runs against a high-powered Dodgers offense.

He singlehandedly won this game against one of the better teams in baseball showing the world just how good he actually is.
With his two-home run game, he became the second Met pitcher to hit two home runs in a game, joining Walt Terrell who did it back in 1983.

Noah does it all

The game against the Dodgers was not the only time Syndergaard singlehandedly won a game for the Mets. In early May of 2019, Syndergaard had what in my opinion was his best all-around game as a Major Leaguer.

It was the final game of an eventful three-game series against the Reds at Citi Field. This series included a lot of drama. In the first game, Jeurys Familia blew a save but the Mets would rally and walk off on a Pete Alonso sacrifice fly.

In the second game, the Mets would lose 1-0 with the final out being caught by Mets villain Jesse Winker who waved at the fans at Citi Field in excitement. The rubber game of that series presented a matchup between Syndergaard and Tyler Mahle.

On this Thursday afternoon, Syndergaard would dominate on the mound and at the plate. In the third inning, Syndergaard launched a 407-foot opposite-field home run well over the left-field wall to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

This was all the scoring he would need on this day as he tossed a complete-game four-hit shutout in a 1-0 Mets victory. He became the first pitcher since Bob Welch in 1983 to hit a home run and pitch a complete-game shutout in a 1-0 victory.

Syndergaard was dominant on this day, striking out 10 batters including the aforementioned Winker three times. Syndergaard finishing what he started with the only run coming from himself sounds like something Jacob deGrom would do. It was quite the performance for Thor.

Wild Card Dominance

Noah Syndergaard is a fantastic pitcher and has had a lot of outstanding starts at the Major League level. He has three complete games and two shutouts in his career. The best game I’ve ever seen him throw, especially considering the circumstances, came in the 2016 Wild Card Game against the Giants.

The Mets rallied down the stretch in September while being very shorthanded to somehow land a postseason spot for a second consecutive year. The Mets were without Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, and Steven Matz. Syndergaard would’ve probably been the choice to start the Wild Card Game anyways, but being without those pitchers made things even easier for Terry Collins to decide.

Syndergaard and the shorthanded Mets were due to face the greatest postseason pitcher in my era and arguably ever in Madison Bumgarner and the Giants at Citi Field. The Mets were so shorthanded, they started T.J. Rivera at second base and he hit fifth for the Mets in a win or take all game. Rivera played in just 33 major league games prior to this.

A hot take of mine is that Syndergaard outdueled Bumgarner on this night. Is that me being a biased Mets fan? Maybe. But Syndergaard was lights out.

He threw seven shutout innings against the Giants allowing just two hits, three walks, and striking out 10. He threw 108 pitches and gave the Mets every chance possible to win this game.

Unfortunately for Syndergaard and the Mets, Bumgarner went the distance. He threw a four-hit shutout, striking out six and throwing 119 pitches, a number we rarely see nowadays.

Jeurys Familia gave up a three-run home run to Connor Gillespie in the top of the ninth to give the Giants a 3-0 lead, and Bumgarner closed the Mets out in the bottom half.

He didn’t win the game, but he definitely wasn’t the reason the Mets lost. Syndergaard once again shined bright on the big stage and dominated the Giants on this night.

World Series Victory

The 2015 World Series was extremely frustrating as the Mets had a late lead in every game and only proceeded to win one of them. The game they won was started by Noah Syndergaard.

In the first-ever World Series game at Citi Field Syndergaard got the ball for the Mets against Yordano Ventura of the Royals. The story of the first two games was the play of Alcides Escobar. He hit the first pitch of this series off of Matt Harvey into the gap in left-center field. Yoenis Cespedes misplayed it and Escobar ended up with an inside-the-park home run, giving the Royals an instant 1-0 lead.

Escobar was known to be a first-pitch swinger, so Syndergaard threw him a first-pitch that he could not hit. It was a 98-mph fastball up and in, forcing Escobar to get out of the batter’s box, making him a bit uncomfortable for a change.

Syndergaard then struck Escobar out to begin the night. While that strikeout was certainly great, he got off to a rough start allowing a first-inning run.

In the bottom half, a David Wright two-run home run gave the Mets the lead. That lead was short-lived as Syndergaard gave those runs right back in the top of the second.

After that inning, Syndergaard locked in and shut the Royals down. He retired the next 11 batters he faced, including five by strikeout.

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He was pulled after six innings allowing three runs on seven hits, striking out six on the night. He would exit with a 5-3 lead, and the Mets would win it 9-3 to cut the Royals series lead to 2-1. While the series didn’t end up going the Mets’ way, Syndergaard did his best to keep the Mets alive and his quality start is a huge reason why they won game three of that series.