Jeanmar Gomez Continues To Dazzle For Pittsburgh Pirates

allowed two hits and one run against the New York Mets

Jeanmar Gomez shut down the New York Mets allowing only one run, on a solo homer, and two hits.  The puzzling thing was Clint Hurdle fist bumped the right-hander after Gomez gave five strong innings of work.  Hurdle turned the game over to the Bucs bullpen with a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning.

An inning later the game was tied on a bloop single by Mike Baxter off southpaw Justin Wilson which got Mets ace Matt Harvey off the hook.

Gomez showed excellent control and allowed just one walk while punching out three New York Mets.  It was how the right-hander finished the game which was tremendous.

The 6’3″ Gomez retired the last ten batters he faced.  (*The Pirates mentioned that Gomez suffered a contusion on his calf after being hit with a batted ball in the first–this was given as the reason for the early departure.)

The sinker baller is hated by worms everywhere with a groundball percentage over 60 after nine more groundball outs yesterday at Citi Field.  Gomez came into the game with a career high 58.5 percent groundball rate and career low flyball rate.

One would seem to believe the Pirates love for sinker ballers paid off in the Gomez acquisition.   And if you don’t recall how the Bucs picked up Gomez, because I had forgot too, they traded Quincy Latimore to the Cleveland Indians to get him.   It would seem to me like Gomez has benefited from the Pirates coaching staff’s love for those who deal sinkers.

Gomez lived in the middle of the plate in spring training and now has found solid success with his sinker and the late life on his fastball.  The numbers to date show Gomez has pitched rather well dancing around 12 walks and only 18 strikeouts in his 27.2 innings pitched.

The right-hander came into the game with a shiny 152 ERA+ which will get another bump after his excellent work in the big apple.

Gomez has now made three important starts recently.  He has gone 14 total innings in those starts against the Mariners, Brewers and Mets.  Gomez has struckout elven, given up eight hits and allowed three earned runs.  Unreal.  It was never real pretty until the last ten Mets were retired today.

It’s pretty important to look back and see how vital his five inning spot start for James McDonald in the first of two against the Mariners really was.  Could you even imagine if the Bucs had dropped that game?  It’s equally important to see his start against the Brewers when he held the sign stealers to two runs over four innings.  Not pretty, but effective none the less.

Now Gomez has outdueled all-everything Matt Harvey, even though Hurdle gave Gomez the hook after five innings–he still won the battle.

It was the real shining star in this surprising season for the Venezuelan who three years ago in the minors fired a nine-inning perfect game on May 21 .

This start wasn’t perfect, but it was everything the Bucs needed.