Mets Finally Give In and Let Noah Syndergaard Have His Own Catcher

18 Sep

Noah Syndergaard
NYPost.com:

The schedule and altitude are convenient excuses, at least publicly, for manager Mickey Callaway to give Noah Syndergaard a personal catcher Wednesday.

Callaway acknowledged Tuesday that Rene Rivera is scheduled to start behind the plate for Syndergaard in the Mets’ series finale at Coors Field. Wilson Ramos was the catcher on Tuesday, a night after Tomas Nido started.

“We feel that is going to be the best thing with this night game/day game and this altitude,” Callaway said, referring to Rivera starting for Syndergaard. “We think that Noah is going to pitch well with him, but we’ll probably go that route tomorrow. There’s a lot of different circumstances: day game, night game, where we’re at we need Noah to pitch well.”

Syndergaard has campaigned to have Rivera or Nido as his catcher. In each of his past two starts — with Ramos behind the plate — the right-hander has struggled, allowing four runs in each outing. Included was four runs over five innings in a loss to the Dodgers on Friday.

Honestly, with only 10 games left and the Mets literally having to win all of them to stand any chance of making the wild-card, does this whole Syndergaard brouhaha even matter anymore? Syndergaard should’ve had his own catcher awhile ago due to teh simple that the difference in numbers for when Ramos doesn’t catch him, make his case. But the GM and manager’s ego and pride and ego got too butt-hurt to allow the team to relent. And now that decision may cost them making the playoffs.