Another marvelous outing by Jose Quintana on Tuesday added to this recent stretch of successful outings by the veteran lefty. Something about having Francisco Alvarez behind the plate clicks with the New York Mets starter. It helps to go against the Washington Nationals twice in a row. In those starts he has combined to throw 14 shutout innings.
Extending further back over his last 5 starts, Quintana has gone 3-0 with a 0.89 ERA. The ERA is the best among qualified MLB starters over the last 30 days. He is trailed by Taj Bradley at 1.20, Paul Skenes at 1.39, and teammate Sean Manaea at 1.57.
This stretch by Quintana has not only made him more valuable to the Mets, but it also seems to have scratched him off as a possibility to get traded. Rumors of the Mets dealing from their rotation have subsided. Quintana isn’t doing it with smoke and mirrors. He has truly been this good.
The lefty duo of Jose Quintana and Sean Manaea have been two of the best over the last month
Manaea has been almost as good as Quintana and can at least gloat about having a better batting average against. In fact, the .156 against him is the lowest among the qualified starting pitchers. Quintana is at .162. Andrew Abbott of the Cincinnati Reds and Ronel Blanco of the Houston Astros are two players between them.
The awesome performance from these two has flown a bit under the radar. Much of June was about celebrating the Mets offense and sweating the bullpen performance.
If there is one thing both pitchers could do more, it would be to give the Mets consistent length. Luis Severino, despite his struggles, still averages more innings per start even throughout the last month. Quintana is at just over 6 innings per start. Manaea remains under.
As successful as this string of 30 days has been for Manaea, he has still walked nearly a batter per every other inning. His 14 bases on balls in 28.2 innings is the major hiccup along the way.
The less innings we see from the relief pitchers, the better. Quintana turned the ball over to the bullpen on Tuesday only to see his 7 shutout innings turn into a 7-5 victory for the Mets. A lot seems to be going well for the Mets with the bullpen continually splattering red paint on the joy.
One thing we haven’t had to worry about is seeing Quintana or Manaea on the mound every fifth or sixth day. We know they’ve been good but for the last 5 starts each has made, not many in baseball have been better.
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