Mets' Edwin Diaz shows vintage stuff in ninth to lock down his 10th save
Edwin Diaz of the New York Mets pitches during the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The 47,150 in attendance at Yankee Stadium watched in rapt attention as the type of showdown worthy of these two rivals unfolded. From the visitor’s dugout, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza all but willed his closer to not give in. And from the trainer’s room, starter Griffin Canning talked through the at-bat. What do you throw the best hitter on the planet with the game on the line, anyway?
And Edwin Diaz? The guy tasked with protecting a one-run lead against Aaron Judge? He was just having a grand old time.
“It’s fun,” he said, as if facing Judge isn’t the major-league baseball equivalent of an unsedated root canal. “Facing the best hitter at the end of the game is really fun.”
That’s basically all you need to know about Diaz’s headspace right now. On Saturday, he faced Austin Wells, Ben Rice and Judge in the ninth, struck out the first, coaxed a soft lineout from the second, and worked a full count on Judge before getting the slugger to whiff on a 98.6-mph fastball at the top of the zone to preserve the 3-2 win.
It was, in many ways, vintage Diaz — no small feat considering his early-season unsteadiness, as well as a drop in velocity, prompted some to wonder if the closer was on the decline.
“I didn’t start the way I wanted to,” Diaz said of his season, but he adjusted his mechanics at the end of April. “Right now, I think I’m throwing the best since 2022, so I feel really happy.”
The scoreless ninth marked Diaz’s 10th save of the season; in eight appearances since April 21, his ERA has dropped from 5.59 to 3.00 — a span of 8 1⁄3 innings in which he’s allowed four hits, a single unearned run and two walks with 11 strikeouts. On Saturday, his fastball touched 100 mph and averaged out at 98.5 — 2 mph higher than his season average.
“For Diaz to come in in the ninth and get the three outs the way he did it — attacking, using all his pitches” was impressive, Mendoza said. “To get Judgie on a 3-2 fastball up in the zone, it was really good to see. [He had] conviction with all his pitches, attacked and executed.”
Diaz started Judge off with four straight sliders, bringing the count to 2-and-2, before challenging him with a 100-mph fastball that Judge caught up to late, fouling it off. Diaz went back to his slider, throwing it out of the zone for a ball, before coming back with the heat.
“He was electric today,” Pete Alonso said. “He had command of all of his pitches. He just looked really explosive . . . He’s crushing it, he’s crushing his process.”
Added Mendoza: “When he’s mixing, that’s when he’s at his best. We’ve seen it at times when he gets fastball-happy, slider-happy, he gets away from one or the other. What makes him elite is his ability to mix and execute.”
A lot of that comes from being able to trust his fastball — something that evaded him in parts of last season but was reclaimed as the Mets made their playoff run. He saw the issue rearing itself again early this year and worked with the coaching staff to rectify the problem.
“I’m just trying to throw my fastball straight to the hitter,” Diaz said. “I was missing a lot arm-side and right now, I can throw it right in the middle, and that’s what I want.”
And though the bases were empty and letting Judge reach base certainly was an option, Diaz, with the killer closer mentality, didn’t much think that way. Sure, it’s nice insurance, but he had no intention of letting Judge beat him.
“I wasn’t trying” to walk him, Diaz said. “I was confident I wouldn’t give up a bomb because I was trying to throw pitches to make him swing, but if he goes to first base, I’ve got [Cody] Bellinger next and I was feeling really good about facing Bellinger [too] . . . I was just trying to throw my best pitches in the AB.”
If Diaz taught anyone anything in his dominant 2022, it’s that his best is just about untouchable. Even if you’re the best hitter in the world right now.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
