CHICAGO — While you couldn’t find a much odder couple than Steven Matz, tall, lefty and reserved, and Marcus Stroman, diminutive, righty and talkative, their shared history ensures that they’ll always be mentioned as a pair. After all, as Matz recalled Tuesday, in his first year of kid-pitch Little League at age 8, he gave up his first home run to none other than Stroman.
Stretch that connection to being teammates on their hometown major league club, thanks to the Mets’ stunning acquisition of Stroman from the Blue Jays on Sunday, and if this pairing goes as the Mets hope, they’ll challenge Hamptonites Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick as Suffolk County’s best-known duo.
“We’ve been playing against and with each other all the way up until we were 18 years old,” Matz said of Stroman on Tuesday, before the Mets defeated the White Sox 5-2 in 11 innings at Guaranteed Rate Field (worst ballpark name ever). “And now we’re back on the same team.”
Notice how Matz used the word “against” before “with” as he recalled growing up geographically close to Stroman, who is expected to join the Mets here on Wednesday? These are not best friends reunited. Yet when you are born exactly four weeks apart in the same county — Stroman came first, on May 1, 1991, in Medford, followed by Matz on May 29 in Stony Brook — and you pitch for high schools (Patchogue-Medford for Stroman and Ward Melville for Matz) that sit about 11 miles apart, you form a bond, a connection, that can be fueled by multiple energy sources.
“We went to rival high schools. They were really good, and we were really good. We were battling against each other in the playoffs and stuff. Yeah, a little bit,” Matz said, when asked if a rivalry existed between the two as they grew up in such close proximity. “But we were also good buddies. We were roommates in [the Area Code Games in California] and all that stuff.”
There has not been much contact since both made the majors, Matz acknowledged, although the southpaw revealed that his father and Stroman’s father have remained friendly. He and Stroman have not communicated since the trade, said Matz, who described himself as “excited” when he heard the news of the trade.
Asked to describe Stroman, Matz said, “He’s a competitor. He’s always been that way. He’s always pitched with a chip on his shoulder. He’s always been a really fierce competitor.”
Going back to even before Stroman took Matz deep, the youngsters fantasized about reaching the bigs. Together, as amateurs, they saw those hopes crystallize.
“I think it really became a reality in high school,” Matz said, “especially that game in high school when we pitched against each other [in 2009] and we had all those scouts there [about 50] and stuff. Then the dream seemed realistic at that point.”
Matz and Ward Melville prevailed in that game, 1-0.
The Mets drafted Matz in the second round of the 2009 amateur draft and signed him. In the 18th round of that draft, the Nats popped Stroman, who chose instead to go to Duke; three years later, the Blue Jays chose him 22nd overall. Stroman made his big-league debut with the Jays in 2014 and Matz his with the Mets in 2015 — if not quite four weeks apart, then still pretty impressive. This next chapter should be particularly intriguing for this odd couple.
“I’ve known him for a really long time,” Matz said, “so it’s pretty cool that we’re playing on the same team now.”