Mets ace Jacob deGrom dominates again, but leaves early with injury
It doesn’t matter if the stage is small or big, if he’s facing a less-than-stellar team or one of the best young rosters in baseball, when it comes to Jacob deGrom you can expect greatness. About the only thing that can slow him, it seems, is his health.
That was certainly the case on Friday night when the New York Mets' ace dominated the up-and-coming San Diego Padres. DeGrom, the two-time Cy Young winner who could very well be on his way to a third, was nearly perfect in six innings of work.
He didn’t allow a baserunner until one out in the fifth inning when Wil Myers found a hole in a shifted infield for a ground-ball single. Myers was caught stealing as the Padres attempted to manufacture any kind of scoring threat, and deGrom quickly got out of the inning.
DeGrom ended up facing the minimum 18 batters in his six innings, striking out 10. But he left after that inning with what the team later announced was left flexor tendonitis. There was no immediate word on the severity of the injury, but this is not the first time he has dealt with health issues, having missed 10 days on mid-May with right lat inflammation.
DeGrom, though, said he was not too worried about the injury.
"I'm not too concerned about it because it didn't get much worse as the game went on," deGrom said after the game. "But there in the sixth inning when I was trying to loosen up, I could feel it and it was tightening up a little bit. I've had a couple elbow issues before and I know what that feels like, so my level of concern is not too high. … I'm pretty sure it's going to be something that we can treat and hopefully not miss any time."
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Jacob deGrom left the game with an injury after recording 10 strikeouts over six innings in the New York Mets’ 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres. deGrom had thrown just 80 pitches and his ERA now stands at 0.56.
As if deGrom's dominance on the mound wasn’t enough, he also helped himself out at the plate, driving in a pair of runs with a sharp single to left field off Padres starter Blake Snell in the bottom of the fifth.
That brought his season RBI total to five, which is one more than the total number of earned runs he has allowed (4) across 10 starts this season.
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The Mets’ who are in first place in the NL East, held on to win 3-2 after deGrom left the game, improving their record to 31-24. The unfortunate Padres dropped to 37-28.
The focus on the night, though, was on deGrom, who continued to improve on his already ridiculous numbers. For instance, with 10 strikeouts on the night, deGrom lifted his season total to 103 in 64 innings of work. When he hit the 100-strikeout mark by whiffing Fernando Tatis Jr. in the fourth inning, deGrom broke a record for fastest to 100 strikeouts that had stood since 1893.
With his six scoreless innings, the 32-year-old right-hander lowered his ERA to 0.56, which is less than half that of Chicago White Sox right-hander Lance Lynn, who is second in MLB at 1.23.
That’s also half the modern-day record of 1.12 set by St. Louis Cardinals ace Bob Gibson in 1968.
DeGrom has allowed only 26 hits and eight walks in his 64 innings of work this season, for an MLB-leading WHIP of 0.53. He also leads the league in batting average allowed, at .121.
When you not only throw a 100-mph fastball and 95-mph slider but also locate those pitches, it’s understandable why deGrom is so hard to hit.
Nonetheless, his latest performance had the baseball world scrambling to come up with new ways to describe his dominance. Here are some of our favorites.
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