Remember when Steven Matz made his 2015 MLB debut for the New York Mets and shut down the Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers in his first two starts? The entire baseball world raved about him and his future with the team.
But all it took was one bad outing against the Miami Marlins to kick off the 2016 season, and now he's all of a sudden no longer the phenom everyone thought he was. One scout even believes he should be sent back down to the minor leagues.
Yep, this is the world we are living in.
"He looks like a young guy who needs a month in Triple-A to clean up some things,'' one veteran scout at the game told Kevin Kernan of The New York Post. "That's the foremost thing on my mind."
If that's the case, why don't the Mets just send their entire lineup down to the minors considering the team is batting .185 with a .529 OPS and just 17 runs scored in their first six games?
Matz, 24, went 4-0 with a 2.27 ERA, 1.23 WHIP and 34 strikeouts in six starts (35-2/3 innings) during the regular season last year and then endured a decent postseason (3.68 ERA in three starts against the Dodgers, Cubs and Royals).
And now, after one bad inning against a talented hitting lineup, Matz needs to be sent down to the minors? Get a grip people.
The left-hander did have an awful two-thirds of an inning against the Marlins last night, but it was his first outing of the season in his first full campaign with the Mets. Matz ended up allowing seven runs on six hits and two walks in just 1-2/3 innings and got the loss.
How about we give Matz a couple more starts before we talk about demoting him to the minors? After all, this Mets team has yet to click, as the club has two home runs on the year and eight extra-base hits this far into the season.
Also, teams have more information and film on Matz considering he made a number of starts at the MLB level last year. He'll have to work around the adjustments other hitters have made in their preparations, and that'll just take a little longer than one start.
