For those of you who didn’t catch it, Steven Matz came through in a huge way for the Sand Gnats last night when he tossed a gem in order to push Savannah to the next round. Savannah received excellent pitching from both Gabriel Ynoa and Steven Matz in their consecutive victories over Augusta. However, I wanted to take a minute to focus on Matz and his stellar work for Savannah. He finished the year with a 2.62 ERA and 121 strikeouts in 106.1 innings — a 10.2 K/9 rate.

He allowed just a single hit last night over seven shutout innings while striking out eight, effectively making arguably his best start of the year in Savannah’s most important game of the year The native New Yorker is an easy guy to come to appreciate, and he seems to have a solid grasp of the game. Here’s Matz post-game:

“Usually, the first time around, I try to establish the fastball. The second time around, I’ll try mixing in some first-pitch breaking balls, and that’s been huge for me. Since that [curveball] has developed, and it’s really come along the past four outings, I’ve been throwing that first-pitch breaking ball for a strike.

It’s really showed its benefits, like today. I threw a couple of them and the changeup, too, the second and third time around. I’ve been using everything lately.”

Well, when you throw the kind of heat that Matz does, it’s easy to see why he would pitch the way he does. Honestly, he sounds like he’s a confident pitcher right now and he definitely should be. A part of me wishes they would skip St. Lucie and toss him into Binghamton next year because of his lost time recovering from injury, but I’ll learn to be patient.