Seeing Noah Syndergaards Injury Coming at 100 M.P.H. [View all]

'Jim Kaat was young and Warren Spahn was old, and the kid wanted to learn from the master. He asked a coach to arrange a meeting, and for 20 minutes the ancient lefty told the green lefty about mechanics — how to use the torso to drive to the plate, and so on. The pitchers parted, and then Spahn turned back for a final word.

“Oh, kid, one more thing I meant to tell you,” he told Kaat. “When the game’s tied in the seventh inning, the game’s just starting. You have to learn how to pitch Mickey Mantle differently in the ninth inning than you did in the first inning.”

Kaat, who ultimately earned 283 victories in the majors, laughed as he recalled the anecdote by telephone on Monday. “That would be so strange today,” he said.

Kaat, 78, has stayed in baseball as an analyst for MLB Network. But the games he broadcasts are very different from the ones he played. Noah Syndergaard, the muscular right-hander for the Mets, has made 63 starts — including games in October — in an electrifying young career. He has not completed any, but he has achieved one goal.

For the second year in a row, Syndergaard throws a harder fastball than any other starter in baseball: 98.2 miles per hour. Only now, he cannot pitch at all, because he tore his right latissimus muscle on Sunday when he came out firing at 100 m.p.h. in Washington. Officially, he is on the 10-day disabled list. But the Mets acknowledged he will miss weeks, not days.

“It’s really sad to see,” Kaat said. “You get a guy like Syndergaard and so many other young pitchers — they’re so much more talented and gifted than we were.”'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/sports/baseball/new-york-mets-noah-syndergaards-injury.html?