Steven Matz

[Guest 86-Dreamer]

He has shown great skill when healthy and has stunk when he is hurt. Unfortunately hurt more often than not. I hope he gets healthy and has a great career.

[ashie62]

Seems like a head case.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Booooo

[HahnSolo]

I'm done. Maybe some pitching desperate team can be fooled into thinking he's still good. Maybe Baltimore.

[dgwphotography]

Shell shocked. There are times where he just looks scared

[metirish]

dgwphotography wrote: Shell shocked. There are times where he just looks scared

This, on one occasion when Wharten came to the mound to talk to him Matz looked terrified , like he was going to burst out crying.....

[ashie62]

Steven Matz. "It sucks to suck. I know that."

Love it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

He's mopey and feels sorry for himself. We should trade him for a guy who isn't mopey and doesn't feel sorry for himself.

[seawolf17]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: He's mopey and feels sorry for himself. We should trade him for a guy who isn't mopey and doesn't feel sorry for himself.

"I prefer pitchers who don't give up runs, okay?"

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

HEY MATZ! GET YER HEAD OUTTA YER ASS AND PITCH, YA PANSY!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Good news = Matz shutting down for a while!

Bad news = Tommy Milone pitching Tuesday!

Worse news = It's a Tuesday night, which means I gotta go watch that crap!

[Benjamin Grimm]

It sadly occurred to me this morning that more than seven months will pass before the Mets again play a game that I really care about.

[dgwphotography]

Possible surgery for Matz:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2728712-steven-matz-reportedly-diagnosed-with-nerve-issue-may-need-surgery

[RealityChuck]

Odd thought:

The Mets have a lot if starters with arm injuries.

The Mets pitchers throw a pitch no one else does: the Warthan slider.

Coincidence?

[ashie62]

Maybe the kid should find another line of work.

[Edgy MD]

I'm guessing he's totally not going to find another line of work.

[seawolf17]

Edgy MD wrote: I'm guessing he's totally not going to find another line of work.

"Looking at your resume here, you've got a LOT of gaps in your history where you didn't seem to be doing much of anything."

[Centerfield]

I think the Mets owe Steven Matz a pretty big apology. The incompetence is unbelievable.

Reminds me of how bad they fucked up Beltran before he took matters into his own hands.

Might be somewhat understandable if the guy two seats over didn't have the exact same thing last fall. Fucking idiots.

[Frayed Knot]

Centerfield wrote: I think the Mets owe Steven Matz a pretty big apology. The incompetence is unbelievable. Might be somewhat understandable if the guy two seats over didn't have the exact same thing last fall. Fucking idiots.

Meaning what, that the team should have somehow prevented this from happening to him?
I don't get it.

[Centerfield]

Frayed Knot wrote: I think the Mets owe Steven Matz a pretty big apology. The incompetence is unbelievable. Might be somewhat understandable if the guy two seats over didn't have the exact same thing last fall. Fucking idiots. Meaning what, that the team should have somehow prevented this from happening to him? I don't get it.

Meaning they should have diagnosed him correctly instead of labeling him "soft".

http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2017/08/mets_steven_matz_finally_receives_diagnosis_what_t.html

[smg58]

Per Mark Carig (Newsday's Mets reporter), Matz has been pitching through pain all season. If he was performing reasonably well and the pain was something that offseason rest or surgery could take care of, you could have justified letting him pitch this long. Either the Mets have a rather broad definition of "reasonably well," or somebody (medical staff, front office, or both) is failing to do their job.

You really get a sense that there is a major lack of communication between the players (the pitchers especially) and the medical staff. If the results weren't already damning enough, what are the Mets' doctors doing that the players don't want to talk to them when something isn't right? And why isn't somebody insisting on it?

[HahnSolo]

I think there was a bit of frustration from the front office ("this guy's hurt again?") and they probably pushed him to try and pitch through it.

Looking back that wasn't a great idea. But I can understand that frustration. It was certainly shared by a lot of fans.

[smg58]

We as fans don't know what's going on behind the scenes, and can only speculate. I feel bad about it now, but it's what we do. Nobody's paying us to run a baseball team. But while I give DeGrom plenty of credit for suggesting "Hey Steve, you should get your nerves checked," that suggestion should have come from the Mets' doctors several months ago.

[seawolf17]

Mets gonna Mets.

[Edgy MD]

I got an idea when somebody is playing baseball wrong, or counterproductively. I really think I do.

Whether somebody is doing a good job diagnosing injuries, I'm far less confident. Maybe some of these things are apparent, maybe some aren't. Maybe some become apparent over time. Maybe some become apparent as they measure how a regularly used arm responds.

I have a hernia. I know I do. I pointed to the spot, and my GP felt me up, and said, "Yeah, that's a hernia."

But I've been in for an ultrasound, and they smeared me with jelly, and they couldn't find the bugger. They went out in the hall and called in a bunch of interns and nobody saw nothing and I felt like a complete tool.

Then I realized, and the GP confirmed, sometimes the thing pops back in place, and sometimes it doesn't. If this thing leads to increasing discomfort, I'll go in again, and maybe look stupid again. But it really manifests itself while I'm exercising, and that sucks, because I'm turning into a whale.

Diagnostics is a mystery to me. Maybe they totally messed this up, but I have no idea, really.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I suspected he was hurt, only because his history has been that when he's healthy he pitches really well, and when he doesn't it's been because he's been hurt.

Of course, we couldn't really come to a firm conclusion based on that kind of evidence because there will inevitably come a time when he'll pitch poorly while healthy. And this recent stretch could have been that.

[Centerfield]

I got an idea when somebody is playing baseball wrong, or counterproductively. I really think I do. Whether somebody is doing a good job diagnosing injuries, I'm far less confident. Maybe some of these things are apparent, maybe some aren't. Maybe some become apparent over time. Maybe some become apparent as they measure how a regularly used arm responds. I have a hernia. I know I do. I pointed to the spot, and my GP felt me up, and said, "Yeah, that's a hernia." But I've been in for an ultrasound, and they smeared me with jelly, and they couldn't find the bugger. They went out in the hall and called in a bunch of interns and nobody saw nothing and I felt like a complete tool. Then I realized, and the GP confirmed, sometimes the thing pops back in place, and sometimes it doesn't. If this thing leads to increasing discomfort, I'll go in again, and maybe look stupid again. But it really manifests itself while I'm exercising, and that sucks, because I'm turning into a whale. Diagnostics is a mystery to me. Maybe they totally messed this up, but I have no idea, really.

Yes. It's much harder to tell. Obviously we can't watch the exams unfold in front of us, with retired doctors commentating saying "Roll that back, see right there? That's where he missed it. Should have gone with the X374 scope and it would have been like reading a newspaper. Stupid."

All we can do is look at the results. Look, we only follow the Mets so we can't compare apples to apples, but the Mets doctors certainly seem to be incompetent.

From the article:

Whatever it was, MRIs revealed no structural damages, because there weren't any to reveal. The doctors had to perform a nerve test and put him through CT scans, which they only did Monday, about five or so months after he first felt the discomfort. "The symptoms weren't necessarily leading to the nerve," Matz said. "So today I kind of used the last bullet and did the nerve test." Matz had suspected that it was a possibility based on talking with Jacob deGrom and Erik Goeddel, who pitchers who have undergone the same procedure.

It's just mind boggling.

"I don't know Steven. It's a head scratcher. Elbow pain. Drop in velocity, sudden negative impact on performance. Really I got nothing."

Thank you Doc. I appreciate you trying.

"My pleasure Steven."

[shows him out of the room]

"Lorraine, who's my next appointment?"

[voice from offstage: "It's Jacob deGrom sir. His file is on your chair"]

[thumbing through the chart]

"Hmmm. Ulnar nerve in the elbow. Huh. That's something you don't see every day."

[Ceetar]

Did they check him for Spinal Stinosis? I mean, one guy on the team has that too. Better make sure.

[ashie62]

Same surgery as deGrom?

[A Boy Named Seo]

I feel bad for Matz, and if he felt like the team had this "rub some dirt on it, don't be a pussy" view of him, then yah, he's gonna try to pitch through it (and look like crap doing it). I mean, if the dude can't throw a ball without pain in the 4 days since his last start, why in the world would anyone think he'd feel good on the 5th day? Shut him down and keep digging for the cause.