Noah Syndergaard’s Cy Young hopes may depend on if he can get out of his own head

DETROIT — By all accounts, Noah Syndergaard is having a fantastic season, and one better than his rookie year when he finished fourth in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. But the 2016 season has had its struggles, some more evident than others. For Syndergaard, it’s the hidden mental battle that’s proven more frustrating than the results on the field.

“After we got the lead, I went out to the mound telling myself that, no matter what, I couldn’t blow it,” Syndergaard said. “Well, that’s like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant. I think every major mistake I made tonight was in that (fourth) inning.”

An arm that tops out at 100-plus mph is a valuable tool. But learning when to use it and when to back off isn’t something that manager Terry Collins is sure Syndergaard knows how to do just yet. The youngster has five pitches with command at his disposal, but at times he admittedly plays a self-destructive game by overthinking his starts and situations in the game.

Getting ahead of opposing batters hasn’t been a problem for Syndergaard, but putting them away was on Friday. Tigers batters were at a disadvantage in 14 out of the 18 plate appearances and nine started out in an 0-2 hole but he couldn’t put them away in half of the 14 occasions.

“It’s been a battle,” Collins said of Syndergaard. “He’s had to work very, very hard, harder than he ever probably has had ever since he was a major league pitcher. To be honest, even though it’s tough, I think it’s good for him.

“You’re going to learn how to pitch at this level, you’ve got to learn how to pitch through tough times. As I said before the game, he got ahead of a lot of guys, couldn’t make the pitch to get them out.”

Just as Jose Abreu had to work through his own struggles — the actual and perceived — so too is Syndergaard. The work has paid off numbers-wise, but he’s also had to pitch through a bone spur that popped up earlier in the season. Selected as an All-Star for the 2016 Midsummer Classic, Collins shut him down for 10 days at the break to rest a dead arm that saw his velocity dip briefly.

The dead arm wasn’t surprising given his workload. And instead of decreasing his velocity, Syndergaard has dialed it up. He’s throwing over 1 mph harder on three of his five pitches and nearly 1 mph on another. He may not be hitting 100 mph in every game, but his overall velocity has gone up with every pitch.

While that’s well and good, it’s also added stress to an arm that’s already been through some issues. Include the mental game that he’s been playing with himself, and you get a flamethrowing ace with fantastic stuff who may not always be at the top of his own game. Sometimes he’s able to get away with it, and others — like Friday’s four-run start — he’s not.

It’s then that the frustration shows on the mound, and the home run given up to Victor Martinez was one such example. But that’s just something Syndergaard is going to have to learn how to control instead of let the situation get away from him. Overthinking his pitches also plays into that, something he readily acknowledged after Friday’s loss.

“I’m trying to be too fine with my pitches instead of just trusting my stuff and letting it go,” Syndergaard said. “I know I have the stuff to go out there and be dominant, but I’ve got to let myself do it. I’m not pitching badly, but I’m not doing what I know I can do. ... My curveball was really good tonight, but I waited too long to start throwing it. I should have been using it more in the early innings instead of just throwing the slider and fastball.”

Syndergaard has given up more than three runs in a start just three times this season. His FIP has decreased by over a run since last year, and his 10.9 strikeouts per nine outpaces Clayton Kershaw’s by a hair — and that’s up by 0.9 from last year, too. The home runs dropped from an average of 1.1 per nine, to 0.6 this season. His only negative has been the hits, which have gone up to 8.6 from 7.6 in 2015.

This season isn’t one of deterioration. It’s a matter of adjustments both physical and mental. In the middle of a performance where Syndergaard is in the conversation for the NL Cy Young Award (his 2.20 FIP is second only to Kershaw’s 1.65, currently on the disabled list), being dominant goes beyond the ability to throw hard. Trusting himself and his stuff is the bigger battle, and in that regard, he’s still learning.