Zac Thornton lit up for four homers by Giants

It’s mid-September, but Thornton showed his best velocity of the season today, averaging 93.6 mph with his fastball. That’s 1.5 mph better than usual. The win makes him 4-5 with a 3.44 ERA through 13 starts. He’s due to pitch at home against the Phillies next week.

Thornton allowed six hits without issuing a walk, and he struck out five. It was a solid outing for the 24-year-old, who has been one of the brighter spots in a pretty dim season for the Metropolitans. He’ll take a 2.93 ERA into a scheduled start Saturday against the Giants.

Thornton gave up seven hits, walked none and struck out four. The 24-year-old left-hander had a 3.94 ERA in four starts in August entering play Tuesday. Thornton isn’t a big strikeout pitcher, but his recipe for success against the Brewers was allowing no walks and keeping the ball in the ballpark. He has a 2.88 ERA. Thornton is lined up to face the Astros at home on Sunday.

Two of the runs came in the fifth, an inning that featured two incidents of gloves flying off the hands of Mets fielders. The first of those was on Jake Cronenworth’s fly to left to start the inning. A.J. Ewing caught the ball on a dive, only for his glove to be dislodged when he hit the ground. That resulted in a single. Fernando Tatis Jr. followed with a homer. Luis Rengifo then grounded down the third base line. Bo Bichette got to the ball but made a bad throw, and Christopher Morel had his glove come off while trying and failing to make a swipe tag at first. No runs followed after that, but it was still funny. Thornton dropped to 3-4 with a 3.04 ERA. He’ll face the Brewers next Tuesday.

Thornton is a bit of a throwback as a cutter-heavy lefty who pitches to contact and lets his defense make plays behind him. It got a little dicey early in this start though when the Braves were hitting laser beams all over the park and putting consistent traffic on the bases. Yet, Thornton forced a timely double play to subdue a threat in the third inning and benefited from a baserunning blunder by Ronald Acuña Jr. in the fifth to limit the damage. Without forcing many whiffs or generating many strikeouts, his start-by-start consistency will be determined by batted ball luck and how much he can grit his teeth to get through those jams. On the season, he has a 2.78 ERA, 29 strikeouts, and 13 walks through 45 1/3 innings. Next up, he’s scheduled to face the Padres at home.

The left-handed rookie Thornton continues to cruise. He was forced to sit for an hour during a rain delay in this one and did not miss a beat. Most of the hard contact he allowed was on the ground and his cutter jammed more than a few of the Pirates’ right-handed hitters. He is not flashy and won’t miss many bats, but Thornton now has a 2.52 ERA across 39 1/3 innings this season. Also, he likely left this game with just 63 pitches because of the hour he sat during the delay. Next up, he’s scheduled to face the Braves in Atlanta.

Thornton didn’t give up much hard contact today, but he did allow a two-run homer to Javier Sanoja in the second. The other runs came following an error from Francisco Lindor to start the first and a HBP to open the fourth. Thornton dropped to 2-2 with a 2.88 ERA through six starts. He’ll pitch in Pittsburgh next weekend.

Thornton gave up six hits, walked one and struck out five. He improved to 2-1 in five starts. Thornton allowed four runs in his first MLB start, but has since put up four consecutive quality starts. That’ll do. Thornton’s 3.83 xFIP shows he’s not as good as his 2.43 ERA, but he’s displayed enough skills to be interesting to fantasy managers. Thornton’s lined up to face the Marlins at home on Saturday.

As we’ve come to expect from Thornton in his last three outings, he threw plenty of strikes with a deep pitch mix and didn’t miss many bats, but also didn’t allow a lot of hard contact. The rookie threw 65 percent of his pitches for strikes but had just a seven percent swinging strike rate, the lowest of any of his games this season. He actually got into plenty of two-strike counts but was simply unable to put Brewers’ hitters away. Thornton has good command and a deep arsenal, which makes some of what he’s doing feel realistic, but his lack of strikeout upside makes him more of a deeper league fantasy play.

This should have been Thornton’s first big-league victory, but Francisco Lindor botched a game-ending double play in the ninth and Devin Williams couldn’t pick him up afterwards. Thornton allowed just two hits, walked two and struck out five, using only 82 pitches to get his 21 outs. He definitely made a good case for sticking around as the Mets’ fifth starter, and interim manager Andy Green confirmed after the game that he’d keep the spot following the break. He’s an option in NL-only and deep mixed leagues.