Biggest Mets concern from the road trip looks resolved with fastballs leading the way

A 7-3 road trip for the New York Mets couldn’t have gone much better. The fact that each loss is easily remembered shows how few there were and what could have gone differently to give them the W. We, of course, had the first day when the Mets season ended when Joe Musgrove helped shut them down in a shutout in the second game against the San Diego Padres. Then there were the two days when Edwin Diaz looked like he was going down and taking the team with him.

Back-to-back losses for Diaz against two teams the Mets are chasing in the NL Wild Card standings had many suggesting the Mets were finished. It absolutely felt like it. Subtract Diaz from the equation and the Mets bullpen is rubble.

How has he responded? Diaz reached deeply and decided to stop messing around. He was going to start relying on his fastball more. Starting from scratch by using it almost exclusively, it took him three games to properly believe in himself again.

Mets closer Edwin Diaz is trusting his fastball and easing back into using his slider

Diaz’s slider wasn’t working and just one day after his ridiculously bad day against the Arizona Diamondbacks, he returned to the field throwing 17 fastballs among his 18 pitches. The result was a perfect inning with 2 strikeouts.

It continued the next day with fewer pitches to get the same result:

Diaz had the day off on Saturday then came out on Sunday for the final game against the Chicago White Sox. This time striking out the side, he returned to using his slider in an effective way.

Sunday included 5 sliders and 9 fastballs. As Pitching Ninja pointed out, he used the fastball to set up for the slider away. Who better to experiment against than the Chicago White Sox lineup?

In 2022, Diaz threw his slider more than any other pitch for the first time in his career. Batters had a .114 batting average against it and a 54.7% whiff rate. He has more evenly distributed his fastball and slider in 2024, in large part because the slider hasn’t been nearly as effective. Batters are hitting .209 against it with a slugging percentage of .407. The whiff rate is down to 35.5%. Of the 7 home runs he has allowed, 5 have come against his slider.

There are plenty of numbers to look at. For Diaz, it seems to be trust. He lost his in the slider recently only to regain some faith on Sunday. Our biggest concern seems to have fixed itself. It only takes two miracles to become a saint. Three perfect innings with a whole lot of strikeouts doesn’t make Diaz a saint, but it feels like a miracle.