Mets Pitching Retires Final 17 Milwaukee Batters

Throughout the early stages of the New York Mets 8-4 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 1 of their Wild Card series, it looked like the team was going to have to use a good amount of pitchers to finish it. Luis Severino was playing with fire early as the Brewers had runners on in each of the first four innings.

However, if you were to tell any fan at that point that the team would only use three pitchers and none of their top relievers, no one would have believed you. On a day where Phil Maton and Edwin Díaz were probably not available,. the trio of Severino, Jose Buttó and Ryne Stanek retired the last 17 Brewers to preserve the the win.

While Severino only recorded one combined strikeout in the fifth and sixth inning, he was able to retire all six hitters he faced and keep his pitch count at a manageable rate (26 pitches over those two frames). The key for him to get the swings-and-misses was his sweeper. That pitch gave him five of his eight whiffs according to Baseball Savant.

The line wasn’t Severino’s best (6 IP, 3 ER, 8 H, 2 BB, 3 K). However, he managed to battle without his A stuff and throw 105 pitches (68 strikes). That number is the second-most pitches he has thrown in any outing this year (113 back on August 17). In addition, it was the second-longest outing out of the 11 he made in his playoff career (7 innings against Cleveland on October 9, 2017).

Even though it looked like Severino’s day was short, manager Carlos Mendoza continued his trend of trusting his pitcher and trying to get every out he could possibly get out of him. For the second straight day, it worked.

Up next, it was José Buttó, who has been the fireman reliever for the Mets at times this year with his ability to throw multiple innings. While it looked like he was going to have come in to try to keep the Mets within striking distance in the early innings, his appearance got delayed until the seventh and he looked dominant.

Buttó threw two perfect innings and struck out three batters on 25 pitches (15 strikes). Tuesday was the first time Butto had gone multiple innings in an appearance since August 16. To end his outing, he used a changeup to get Jake Bauers looking and then he struck out Rhys Hoskins with a 96 mile-per-hour fastball in the eighth.

While Buttó was denied the opportunity to get a three-inning save, he did extend his scoreless streak to six consecutive outings and he has ten strikeouts over his last four appearances (four innings). As the postseason goes on, he can be an X-Factor in any situation towards the later innings.

After warming up in case he was needed in Game 1 of Monday’s doubleheader, Ryne Stanek got the ball for the ninth and threw strikes (11 of his 14 pitches) in his 1-2-3 inning (one strikeout).

At the beginning of this series, the bullpens for both teams were under the microscopes. Milwaukee is known for using its relievers and had the lowest ERA of any ‘pen in the National League during the regular season. However, their trio of relievers (Joel Payamps, Aaron Ashby, Nick Mears) combined to allow five runs on five hits.

Yes, both teams will have their closers available on Wednesday for Game 2. However, the fact that the Mets only had to use two relievers and didn’t burn any starters such as Milwaukee did with Aaron Civale is a big bonus.

For one day, it was the Mets pitchers that were able to throw the ball better than the Brewers relievers. Mendoza has had to get creative with his pitcher usage over the last 48 hours and for a rookie manager to be able to do that is impressive to say the least.

The Mets offense was able to silence the Brewers with a five-run fifth and it was the pitchers that were able to make sure the noise at American Family Field never came back in the ballpark.

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