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Mets’ Syndergaard Leading the Surging 51s

By Wayne Cavadi

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The New York Mets are surprising and impressing everyone this season. They have a three and a half game lead on the National League East, sitting at 16-10. They have done it with a bevy of homegrown youngsters like Matt Harvey and Kevin Plawecki. It seems their best farm hand is starting to heat up himself. 

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Noah Syndergaard, the Mets No. 1 prospect and No. 10 on the Grading on the Curve Top 50, had a week for the ages, taking home the Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Week Award. The 22-year old righty had a rough go over his first few starts of the season. He allowed five runs in his first two starts and only lasted a combined 7.2 innings. He was being hit hard, and walking batters at an unacceptible rate (he walked five in an April 18th outing). He missed a few starts due to illness, and people began calling him out on Twitter, to which Syndergaard couldn’t control his temper and struck back.

Maybe it ignited a fire under the young pitchers cap, but Syndergaard was nothing short of sensational this week. His first start of the week was against the Albuquerque Isotopes and Grading on the Curve’s No. 20 prospect Jon Gray. It was the marquee pitching match-up of the week in the PCL, and Syndergaard would rise victorious. He would hurl a 7-inning, 2-hit, complete game shutout. He struck out 9 on the evening and walked none.

“I felt really good. I had excellent fastball command, probably the best I’ve had in my entire life,” Syndergaard told Ashley Marshall of MiLB.com. ”This was maybe the best performance I’ve had in my entire life. I’d never had a complete game, so that was definitely a highlight.”

Syndergaard followed his first career complete game with another 7-inning shutout performance against the Reno Aces. This time he struck out 10 and walked two.

“This is what he’s capable of doing,” Las Vegas 51s pitching coach Frank Viola told MiLB.com. “If it was somebody who’s a flash in the pan, you would say different, but this is just the beginning for him. He’s got that much more in the tank. I think the big thing is what he went through last year at the Triple-A level. That was the first time he’d struggled really in his life, and I don’t know if you can even call it a struggle. It was a learning experience because he’d never been in the position he was in last year, giving up hits, giving up runs. He had to take in a whole lot at 21 years old in the Pacific Coast League.”

The 51s have won 10 in a row, and Syndergaard is clearly established as their ace. It will be exciting to see how he, and the rest of the 51s, respond after an amazing week.

Joining Syndergaard as Pitchers of the Week were:

International League: Adrian Sampson
Eastern League: Ben Lively
Southern League: Jared Mortensen
Texas League: Colin Rea
California League: Blake Perry
Carolina League: Tyler Skulina
Florida State League: Will Anderson
Midwest League: Daniel Missaki
South Atlantic League: Carlos Polanco

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