Edwin DiazThe Mets’ struggles continued Saturday in Miami, as the Mets’ closer let a four-run ninth-inning lead melt away in an eventual 10-9 overtime loss to the Marlins.
After the match, manager Carlos Mendoza said Diaz, who has now allowed seven earned runs in his last three appearances in 2.1 innings with two blown saves, “is still our closer.”
“You have to stay the course,” Mendoza said after the match. “You have to stay positive about him because he is too good a pitcher.”
However, with both the manager and closer pointing to the right-hander’s confidence level as the biggest concern, Mendoza left the door open for Diaz to work in lower leverage situations and possibly step out of the closer role for a while.
“Obviously when you have one of the better pitchers, the best closer in the game, like he does, I think it comes down to the confidence level,” Mendoza said. “He’s right, you could see he’s putting pressure on himself because he’s not getting results. But we will continue to work with him and he will get through it.”
When asked if it would be possible to move Diaz to a spot with lower leverage until his confidence returns, Mendoza said it is something they will talk about.
“I have to talk to the coaching staff, I have to talk to Edwin. If you know we want to find some softer spots for him to get him going, he is still our closer,” the manager said. “And he’ll get through it. He’s too good a pitcher to continue to compete for long.
“Like I said, we’ll have these conversations and see what we get.”
Diaz said he doesn’t think he needs to take a break from close quarters, but he’s willing to have a conversation with the Mets about a change in his role.
‘They trust me, they will give me the ball. And as soon as I step on the mound every day, if they give me the ball tomorrow, I’ll do my job tomorrow,” he said.
When asked specifically about plans for an interview, Diaz said he is “open to anything” and that he “wants to help this team win, that is my main goal.”
“If they want to talk to me about it [moving out of the closer role] and I feel good about it and I agree that I just want to win games,” he said. “I think whatever position they put me in, I want to win games… if they need me in the ninth, I’ll come back.”
However, confidence – and not health – was the main thing Diaz pointed to as his biggest concern.
“My self-confidence, I feel like it’s at a low ebb right now,” he said. “I make pitches, I throw strikes, I try to do my best to help the team win. I am not in that capacity at this time.”
Diaz added: “Confidence is the most important thing for a player. I think if your self-confidence is high, you will perform the way you want, when [you have] I had low self-confidence, which is kind of how I felt today. I tried to make pitches and get my clean inning and tried to build my confidence, but that wasn’t it today.”
Although they were still working in the ninth inning, Saturday’s performance was not a safe situation for Diaz, as the Mets held a four-run lead. But Mendoza said he wouldn’t call it “necessarily a weaker spot” for Diaz.
“I wanted him in the game, it’s a four-point lead, I felt good with where we were and you know, he’s one of the best guys you’ve got there,” he said. “He’s just struggling at the moment and we couldn’t get the three outs there.”
If Diaz has to step out of the closer role for a while, is Mendoza worried it could further negatively impact his confidence?
“These are some of the conversations we need to have with him,” the manager said. ‘He also processes some things mechanically. So we just have to get him back to basics.”
Physically, Diaz said he “feels 100 percent” and that his body is “not my problem” but that he is “thinking too much.”
“That was really hard for me in the game,” he said of thinking too much on the mound.
In the ninth inning, Diaz recorded just one of five batters he faced, throwing 15 pitches, eight sliders and seven fastballs. His average fastball velocity was 97.2 mph and went as high as 99.1 mph. And Diaz’s heater got three whiffs on four swings, allowing only an infield single.
But the slider was a different story.
“His slider was all over the plate today,” Mendoza said. “It didn’t accomplish much today and they got him.”
There were two called strikes on his slider, but after four swings the Miami hitters came up with three hits and four runs: a ground-rule double to left center (163.1 mph off the bat), a single to right (160, 9 mph) and a 428-foot three-run homer to center (177.9 mph).
“I just threw it in the middle [of the plate], I missed it,” Diaz said of the slider. “I wanted to throw it in the zone, but I just missed it and I got it [hurt].”
Mendoza said earlier this year that Diaz’s issues were related to fastball commands and that his slider “had depth,” but “today that wasn’t the case.” with the once devastating slider acting ‘more like a cutter’.
“But the [velocity] was there,” the manager added. “He’s working through some things mechanically and like I said, he’ll be fine.”
The next step for Diaz will be to “watch videos and talk to the pitching coaches,” but the Mets will “keep giving him the ball and he will get through it.”
For Diaz, the path to regaining his self-confidence is to “keep working.”
“Trusting myself, I think that’s the most important thing for me,” he continued. “…Today I felt really good, I threw my fastball, my slider. I missed a few sliders in the middle of the zone… but I have to keep trusting myself.”
