Max

Meyer

Meyer punched out nine batters on the afternoon while scattering six hits and three walks. The lone tally against him came on an RBI single off the bat of Jake Mangum in the fourth inning. Meyer got 15 swings and misses on 105 pitches on the day, seven of those on his sweeper, while registering a strong CSW of 34 percent. He’ll look to replicate this fine effort as he carries a 7-0 record, 2.75 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and a 95/32 K/BB ratio (85 innings) into Saturday’s matchup against the Giants.

The runs came on homers from Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno. Meyer left with a 3-2 lead in the sixth, which was quickly expanded to 6-2, but the Diamondbacks recovered to tie the game before the Marlins won 10-6. Incredibly, Meyer still hasn’t taken a loss in 14 starts this year. He came into the season 6-11 in 25 starts. Meyer is due to make his next start Sunday in Pittsburgh.

Meyer got the victory, moving him to 6-0 with a 2.81 ERA. He actually gave up 10 hard-hit balls today, but they turned into 10 outs; one was a single and another one saw a batter reach on an error, but two turned into GIDPs. He gave up one other single on an 85-mph liner to the outfield. He struck out seven. Meyer’s next start will come at home versus the D-backs.

On the plus side for fantasy managers, Meyer racked up six strikeouts on the evening while issuing three free passes. The Mets got to him early in this one, pushing four runs across in the opening inning. They added on single runs in the third and fourth, including a solo shot off the bat of Mark Vientos. Meyer generated 10 swings and misses on 106 pitches on the night, posting a CSW of 30 percent. He’ll attempt to bounce back as he brings a stellar 2.97 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and a 74/25 K/BB ratio (66 2/3 innings) into Wednesday’s matchup against the Nationals in Washington.

Meyer was dominant on Saturday, holding the Mets scoreless over seven frames. He allowed just one hit and walked three batters while generating 12 whiffs to strike out eight batters. The 27-year-old right-hander is now 5-0 on the season with a 2.52 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and a 68/22 K/BB ratio across 60 2/3 innings. Meyer will look to continue the breakout campaign with another start against the Mets in New York on Friday.

John King, Calvin Faucher and Lake Bachar finished up. Meyer struck out six, generating 13 whiffs. All three hits against him were singles. Meyer is now 4-0 with a 2.85 ERA. His peripherals aren’t quite as good as his ERA, but they are much improved. The big thing is that he’s given up homers on just 7.4 percent of his flyballs allowed. He was at 20.9 percent in his career coming into the season, compared to a league average of 11-12 percent. He’s slated to make his next start Saturday against the Mets.

There was a lot of good and also plenty of weird in this start from Meyer. First with the good, he forced 22 total swings-and-misses. That’s only the 16th instance so far this season of a pitcher recording that many whiffs in a single game. The bulk of those came from the combination of his slider and sweeper, which have each been borderline unhittable this season as he’s found some more velocity on each. Now for the weird, he didn’t get many called strikes and found himself hunting for the whiff a bit too often through the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings after his lineup had built him a big lead. He simply wasn’t in the zone enough, especially with his fastball, to give his team any length. Also, he could not figure out Byron Buxton who launched two home runs off him. All in all, this was an encouraging start, just one that felt like it could have yielded better results. Next, he’s lined up for a two-start week against the Mets and Braves with both starts coming at home.

On one hand, Meyer’s command wasn’t great in this one. He walked two hitters and threw just 59 percent of his pitches for strikes. On the other hand, he had a solid 13 percent CSW and racked up five strikeouts. Part of that was his extreme success in two-strike counts, converting almost 50 percent of them into strikeouts. That will happen sometimes when you have a slider like Meyer’s, but he won’t want to make a habit of it. The 27-year-old will now carry a 2.79 ERA into next week’s start against the Twins, and he’s entering auto-start territory at this point.

The one hit came off the bat of Garrett Stubbs, who was promptly erased on a double play. The only other batter to reach against him was Alec Bohm, who walked. Meyer fanned seven and needed just 83 pitches to get 21 outs. The knock against Meyer so far this season is that he just hasn’t worked deep into games at all, but he lasted seven innings for first time in his career today. He’s now 2-0 with a 2.68 ERA and a 40/13 K/BB in 37 innings, and he’ll face the Orioles on Thursday.

Meyer’s only run allowed came on an error by Otto Lopez. The 2020 third-overall pick scattered four hits and a walk, and he struck out five while throwing 51-of-77 pitches for strikes. He was particularly effective with his sweeper, with 7-of-21 pitches getting called strikes our whiffs. Meyer has looked solid to open the campaign, and will look to continue to lower his 3.30 ERA versus the Phillies next weekend.