Despite road struggles, Mets’ Noah Syndergaard will start Game 2

The way he envisioned it, New York Mets Manager Terry Collins would have pitched right-hander Matt Harvey in the first game of the National League division series against the Dodgers.

That would’ve allowed Jacob deGrom to pitch Game 2, and, importantly, Noah Syndergaard would have taken Game 3 in New York, where the rookie has felt more comfortable.

Harvey’s strict innings limit, though, got in the way.

“We would have liked to have pitched him Game 1,” Collins told reporters on Friday, “except we are limited to the amount of games he can pitch — not necessarily how much in those games.”

That has thrust Syndergaard in a spot that nagged him for almost the entire season: pitching on the road, in front of a hostile crowd, on an unfamiliar mound.

At home, the 23-year-old Syndergaard has a 2.46 earned-run average. On the road, it balloons to 4.23.

But Collins said the rookie’s most recent three road starts, when he allowed two runs or fewer in each, have erased any concerns.

“The way he’s pitched lately, they’re passed for me,” Collins said. “He has gone out and, as we saw, just pounded the strike zone with quality stuff.”

Syndergaard’s average fastball velocity is the fastest on the Mets’ staff, faster, even, than deGrom, who whipped 97- and 98-mph fastballs past the Dodgers on Friday evening. To complement his off-speed offerings, he added a two-seam fastball with sinking action that, Collins said, allows him to better challenge hitters and pitch to contact more often.

Syndergaard credited some of his earlier road struggles to bad luck. He said he hasn’t altered his road routine significantly.

“To be honest, at the beginning of the year when I was having struggles on the road, it wasn’t that I felt uncomfortable out there,” he said. “I felt like my stuff was there. It’s just a couple series of bad events happened.”

One of the few positive road outings he had came in his one start at Dodger Stadium.

In that game, in early July, Syndergaard called the atmosphere “electric,” yet he matched Clayton Kershaw with six innings, one run and six strikeouts. The Mets won the game with a ninth-inning sacrifice fly.

“To me, it’s just all about getting comfortable out there on the mound on the road,” he said. “I feel like the last couple starts I had on the road, I had a lot of success, lot of comforts.”

Follow Zach Helfand on Twitter @zhelfand