The Blue Jays Need Steven Matz to Return to Form

Matz has shown flashes of excellence this season, but didn't have it in Tuesday's 7-5 loss to Baltimore.

© Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

On June 14, the Blue Jays announced starting pitcher Steven Matz had tested positive for COVID-19. He was asymptomatic, but immediately left the team and went into isolation. 

Matz played catch, threw bullpens into a screen and — after missing an MLB-mandated 10 days — returned to the Blue Jays roughly a week before his next start to toss live batting practice. Still, Matz admitted training in isolation was far from ideal. 

"I did everything I could to kind of stay in shape and keep it going," Matz said. "But ultimately, sometimes it's tough to simulate that game action and get that little extra adrenaline." 

So, when Matz toed the mound in his first game back — a June 30 loss to the Seattle Mariners — he looked understandably sluggish. The left-hander labored through 2 2/3 innings and allowed four earned runs before getting the hook. 

On Tuesday night — a 7-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards — some progress was made, but old problems persisted. Matz threw 71% of his pitches for strikes and his fastball velocity — which dipped to an average of 93.8 miles-per-hour last start — returned to a more normal 94.6. This part was good.  

"I'm happy with where I'm at physically and where my rhythm was today, compared to last start," Matz said. 

When Matz got ahead of Pedro Severino in the fourth inning, all looked uniform, until the Orioles catcher belted a center-cut fastball into the left field seats to give Baltimore the lead. After Bo Bichette committed his 15th error of the season, Matz hung a slider that Cedric Mullins punished for another two-run homer. This part wasn't so good.

Matz allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits and left the ballgame before he could get an out in the fifth inning, but felt like the sharpness returned to most of his pitches. 

"[I] actually felt a little better as the game went on. Even going into the fifth, I still felt pretty sharp. Just that one slider to start off the at-bat, it was a little flat to Mullins," Matz said. 

Baseball Savant

It's not always easy to pinpoint where Matz goes wrong. On Tuesday, his stuff looked fine, he put up four strikeouts and walked nobody, but the left-hander hung too many pitches up or center-cut in the zone and the Orioles clobbered them. 

Matz's splits this season are hard to digest. The 30-year-old won his first four starts with the Blue Jays — carving through hitters to the tune of a 2.31 ERA — but posted an ugly 5.69 ERA in his next 10 appearances. Ideally, the Blue Jays want him to find a groove somewhere in between those two stat lines.  

The big lefty doesn't have to pitch like an ace, and expecting him to do so is unreasonable, but he's proven himself as a guy that can eat innings and lock down the back half of Toronto's 2021 rotation. That's the guy the Blue Jays need every fifth time out, and while Matz shows flashes of excellence at times, he's struggled to string together quality outings.

Matz just needs one solid start to build off of. Tuesday night wasn't it.