It hadn’t been easy for Jacob deGrom over his previous two starts.
Nine earned runs, four walks, three home runs, 13 hits, and only 10 1/3 innings pitched. Opponents had hit .310 against him with a .902 OPS.
It was a combination of ineffectiveness and distraction for deGrom. Six of those runs were given up in Yankee Stadium thanks in part to two home runs allowed to Mark Teixeira on April 24. In his next start, he became admittedly distracted and frustrated after his good start against the Nationals was derailed by a Wilmer Flores error.
So, something had to change. Terry Collins spoke with deGrom about one adjustment in particular he had to make, and that was to use his change-up and curveball more.
In those two rough starts, deGrom threw only 40 change-ups and sliders combined. And for the most part, the opposition was on the 119 fastballs and sinkers he had thrown in the same span – they had only swung and missed at nine percent of those pitches.
“I don’t know why I got away from it,” deGrom said. “[Kevin Plawecki] and I talked about it before the game, starting to use it a little more. We used the curveball and changeup way more and they were working, so we stuck with them.”
So on Wednesday, deGrom got back to the program which made him so successful during his 2014 Rookie of the Year campaign. He threw 40 change-ups and sliders which helped him improve his swing-and-miss rates on his four seam fastball and sinker up to 14 percent.
In addition to his pitch selection, deGrom had struggled specifically against left-handed hitters. Coming into play on Wednesday, lefties were hitting .379 against him. But because he was able to re-establish his off-speed – especially away to lefties – he was able to hold Orioles lefties to just 4-for-17 on Wednesday.
“If you go back and think about what he did last year, he was a guy that really used all his pitches,” Collins explained after Wednesday’s game. “His changeup got so good toward the end of last summer that it became a huge pitch for him and he’s kind of got way from that a little bit, so we kind of wanted to reestablish that.”
That re-establishment resulted in seven innings of one-run ball for deGrom with only one walk and nine strikeouts. He induced ten groundball outs in his seven innings.
With the win, deGrom improved to 3-3 with a 2.95 ERA for the year. He is 3-1 with a 1.40 ERA in four starts at home this year. Lefties are now hitting .342 against him this season, which is a 37 point drop from the mark entering last night’s game.
“Hopefully it’s a confidence booster for him,” Plawecki said after the game.
Just Mets 