Just Enough of Steven Matz

We need not mourn the departure of Long Island’s Own Steven Matz, traded to Toronto for younger pitchers Sean Reid-Foley, Yennsy Diaz and Josh Winckowski on Wednesday night. Nor need we celebrate his deletion from Met ranks. Sending Steven packing was just something that needed to be done.

Still, Matz, soon to turn 30, was no ordinary lefty coming off an 0-5, 9.68 ERA shortened season. He was one of us, from around here, having grown up with an affinity for the team we love before he ever pitched in its uniform. Steven couldn’t have started stronger, just as he couldn’t have ended worse. In between, he settled in as a familiar if ultimately frustrating figure. We wanted him to pick up where he left off on June 28, 2015, the first time we made his acquaintance. After seven-and-two-thirds innings we were standing in tribute to his maiden major league voyage and showering him with grateful applause. We’d done that multiple times that fun Sunday as he was not only defeating the Reds from the mound, but beating them silly with his bat.

When you get to the Blue Jays, Steven, maybe don’t set your bar so high.

LIOSM couldn’t follow up his first appearance with many remotely as scintillating, but I found his Met presence over time comforting. He was one of the last remaining 2015 National League champions. He was, in case you hadn’t heard, a local product. He was never unpleasant to listen to after games, lose or win. He supported causes it wouldn’t occur to you to oppose. There’s something to be said for your team having a foundation of players who are always there, who you don’t have to get used to, who you have absolutely nothing against when he’s not contributing to another defeat.

I liked Steven Matz a lot, albeit not enough to want him here forever. Not after 2020. Maybe not after six seasons that ceased amounting to much. Peering ahead to 2021 when I began mentally constructing April rotations — deGrom, Stroman, Carrasco, Peterson, maybe this Lucchesi fellow from San Diego — I realized I was already forgetting Matz before he was gone. That’s not a good sign for continued longevity.

All told, we probably got just the right amount of the lefty. Six years is plenty. Throwing key innings en route to a pennant was enormous. Occasional bursts of brilliance reminding you that maybe he will live up to the potential we projected for him presented an adequate case for preserving his parking space. Steven was a made Met for a while, intrinsic to the starting five we idealized in the middle of the 2010s. We’re the Mets. We grow pitchers. We grew or at least nurtured, in order of their debuts, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz. By the time we gathered them together on one active roster for consecutive outings, the dream dissipated before our eyes.

Harvey, first up in 2012, was altogether done as a Met by 2018. Wheeler couldn’t help himself from taking the money and running to Philadelphia after 2019. Syndergaard’s elbow isn’t yet out of the shop from 2020 Tommy John surgery. Matz? Seemed dependable more than he could actually be depended upon, but nobody ever said the theoretical Five Aces were created equal.

Jacob deGrom’s still pretty good, however.

My one fear as extremely sympathetic Steven Matz scuffled was I would come to turn on him as I did on his inconsistent southpaw predecessor in Met clothing, Jon Niese. They are the only two fully homegrown lefthanders to start more than a hundred games for the Mets over the past four decades. For a while there, Niese was foundational, too. To be fair, I didn’t necessarily diminish my simpatico for Jon, because I was never particularly attached to him to begin with. Also to be fair, Niese was never really framed in golden terms — anybody really salivate at the notion of Niese, Pelfrey and Gee anchoring our future? — so you couldn’t honestly grow overly indignant when he proved to be mostly middling. He showed up one day, seemed kind of OK some days, got paid to get better and, well, didn’t.

It’s hard to remember that Jon Niese was a 2015 Met, just like most of the Aces. He started 29 games that championship season — as many as Harvey, one fewer than deGrom and nearly two-dozen more than Matz. I found it surprising that Niese and Bartolo Colon (a staff-leading 31 starts) were shunted aside to long relief that September to assure that the Mets’ postseason rotation would be all about the kids. By then, despite yeoman service dating to the last days of Shea, I was done with Niese. He was Toby Flenderson to my Michael Scott and I just wanted him to stop being the way that he was.

When I wished to express my dismay with lefty Matz, I would compare him, either in print or in my head, to lefty Niese. Now you don’t want to me referring to you as STEVEATHON, do you? Niese started 179 games as a Met and compiled an ERA a tick below 4. Matz gave us 107 starts and an ERA of 4.35. So maybe Matz actually wasn’t as good as Niese, yet my fear never came to fruition. I never turned on Matz. Yet I haven’t wrapped a black armband around any of the sleeves on my 2015 commemorative t-shirts.

Matz’s final appearance as a Met came in relief on the last day of last season. He pitched three innings, gave up three earned runs and lowered his earned run average as a result. Think about that: you give up a run every inning and it technically qualifies as one of your better days.

Those are the days that need to end, my friend. Or be taken to Toronto the minute border restrictions are lifted. Thank you for the first day, Steven, and scattered nights along the way. When you come by again, we’ll stand and applaud from wherever we are.