New York Mets starter Clay Holmes wants to go deeper into games, and he's using a key pitch to reach his goal.
New York Mets starter Clay Holmes is having some solid initial success this season, and it’s been fun to watch. The Mets are getting some good contributions from the back end of the rotation, but Holmes knows there’s still work to be done.
That work is about getting quicker outs, and in his last start in St. Louis he used the pitch that has “defined his career,” according to Tim Britton of The Athletic.
The sinker he threw to left fielder Nathan Church generated a fly ball to center, and the one he threw after that to catcher Pedro Pages earned him a convenient 6-4-3 double play. That got him through the fourth inning, and it helped lead to a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night.
“I felt really good. The stuff was good,” Holmes said. “I was able to settle in and get my sinker down and my off-speed in the zone.”
Last year was Holmes’ first season as a starter, and Britton described it as a “classroom.” He’s adding just one new pitch this year rather than the three he added last year, so his learning curve shouldn’t be as steep now that he has 165 innings under his belt.
The Mets got a lot from Holmes last year despite all the tinkering. He pitched to an ERA of 3.50, and the question now is whether he’s reached his ceiling. If he can work consistently into the sixth and seventh, that would be a top-of-the-rotation performance.
Leadoff walks have been another Holmes bugaboo, and he issued two of those on Monday. He did that 17 times last year, which was tied for 15th in MLB. Traffic on the base paths is a lot harder to clean up when it happens with right out of the gate in a given inning, so Holmes is working to cut that down, too.
Britton also noted that the best sign for Holmes on Monday was how often he got ahead. Out of the 23 hitters Holmes faced, 11 saw first-pitch strikes, which happened just 28 percent of the time last year for the Mets starter. That helped him shut down a Cardinals offense that isn’t all that potent to begin with, and St. Louis hitters were 0-for-11 when the first two pitches from Holmes were strikes.
“That’s part of their strength as an offense. They do a good job of putting the ball in play, and they make contact,” Holmes said. “Sometimes you’ve got to take a shot and get back in the zone. Early, I was staying out hoping for chases, and I probably could have gotten back in the zone a little sooner. I made the adjustment and was more efficient at the end.”
A lot of this comes down to simple math, but it’s also hard to execute. Going deeper into games could make Holmes nearly as potent as Nolan McLean and Freddy Peralta, and it would change the makeup of the Mets rotation as their season continues to evolve.