Sean Newcomb just completed by far the best month of his young career.
Newcomb is a legitimate candidate for National League pitcher of the month after posting a 5-0 record with a 1.54 ERA across six starts.
He allowed six runs over 35 innings. Newcomb struck out 30 against 16 walks.
The lefty ended his May with a career-high tying seven innings and a win over the then first-place Nationals on Thursday.
After walking two in the first inning, including missing the strike zone on his first seven pitches, Newcomb settled in to limit the Nationals to two runs, retiring 14 of the last 15 hitters he faced.
“Just last night was indicative of how far he’s come,” manager Brian Snitker said Friday. “How that game started, and how he righted the ship, what he did really speaks volumes on the growth he’s had over the last year.”
Following his final start of April, Newcomb’s ERA was 4.23. Entering June, he owns a 2.73 mark.
The 1.54 May ERA was sixth lowest in the senior circuit. It was inflated by the lone blip of Newcomb’s month, when he allowed three runs in three innings against the Red Sox, when the Massachusetts native was pitching in front of family and friends at Fenway Park for the first time.
In his other five May outings, Newcomb went at least six innings and didn’t allow more than two earned runs. He held opponents scoreless through his first three starts.
Newcomb is riding a 36-inning homerless streak, and has let three balls leave the park in 62-2/3 innings. He allowed 10 homers in 100 major-league innings last year after surrendering seven across his final 197-2/3 innings in Double-A and Triple-A.
Opponents hit .158 against him in May, the lowest mark in the league among qualifiers.
Some of his dominance was unprecedented in franchise history: He allowed 19 hits, becoming the first Brave in the past 110 years to make at least six starts and permit 19 or fewer hits.
Newcomb is the first pitcher since Drew Pomeranz in May 2016 to allow 19 or fewer hits across 35-plus innings in at least six starts. Since divisional play began in 1969, only 14 other pitchers achieved such before Newcomb.
