Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
Noah Syndergaard believed he had already reached rock bottom.
The imposing Mets pitcher’s E.R.A. was a bloated 6.35 after the season’s first month, and his record was 1-3. He no longer trusted his breaking pitches, and when he stood on the mound, he could not grip the baseball. The ball, he said, felt “slick as can be.”
“Like holding an ice cube,” he said.
But on Thursday at Citi Field, Syndergaard caught fire with a historic all-around performance. In a matinee outing, he offered the 21,445 fans in attendance a one-man show that lasted just over two hours and put him in rarefied territory for major league pitchers.