In order for Noah Syndergaard to escape his current funk, he just needs to get better at escaping, period.
Specifically the traffic jams that define all pitchers’ success.
For all the hand-wringing around Thor’s rough start to 2019 — his 6.35 ERA tied him (with Colorado’s Jhoulys Chacin) for fifth-worst among qualifying pitchers entering Monday’s action — a deeper dive into his statistics reflect encouraging indicators.
His strikeouts-to-walks ratio, for instance, has dipped only slightly from last year’s 3.97 to his current 3.90. His line-drive percentage has dropped from 24.4 percent to 15.6 percent, as per FanGraphs.