What began as a blip in late April has begun to look like a disturbing trend for Jacob deGrom into mid-May.
Over his last four starts, deGrom is 1-3 with a 5.64 ERA, having allowed 35 baserunners to reach base while allowing 14 earned runs and five home runs in only 22 1/3 innings during that span.
Last night, deGrom allowed two home runs in the first inning – a two-run home run to Kris Bryant which was immediately followed up by a solo home run to Anthony Rizzo.
Furthermore, left-handers are hitting .341 against deGrom this season (although that’s down from .404 earlier this month), compared to only .224 last season.
So, what seems to be the trouble for deGrom over this span?
“It boils down to location,” deGrom explained after the loss.”Tonight I struggled with it. And I think that kind of makes me get off my game plan. I can’t throw the pitches that I want for strikes.”
Terry Collins believes it comes down to deGrom’s fastball command, but also trusting his fastball.
“You’ve got to locate your fastball,” Collins explained of deGrom’s struggles. “That’s what made him so good last year was the location, moving it around side to side. We’ve got to get him back on track.
“He really hasn’t struggled like this before. We’ve got to get him through it and we’ve got to get him to get that confidence back and still trust his stuff and make pitches with it.”
Last night in particular, deGrom had zero command of his fastball pretty much with the exception of the fifth inning, but by then he had allowed four runs to come across. He had his good velocity – he averaged 95 mph with his two fastballs and was in the upper-90s on a couple of occasions, so it’s clearly not due to a lack of strength or health.
What’s worse, like he has in three of his previous four outings, he’s getting fastball happy early, then abandoning his fastball as the primary weapon mid-game, going to sliders and change-ups to try and get ahead of the count. Yesterday, he couldn’t get ahead with those pitches either, which made for another slog for deGrom.
The interesting part of deGrom’s slump is he was spoken to by the coaching staff about using his fastball too much at the beginning of the slide, yet his four-seam fastball usage is down nearly ten percent and his two-seam usage is down nearly seven percent in the month of May. Presumably that’s because he isn’t trusting it mid-game and trying to get the opposition out with junk.
As Terry eluded to, that’s just not what made deGrom successful last year, and not what made him successful over his first three starts.
Generally speaking, deGrom has not been able to bury his stuff at the knees, which was a big reason for his success last year as well. He’s consistently been up in the zone, and that dates all the way back to Spring Training.
The good news is the stuff is there, and when he is commanding that stuff, its still electric. It’s about consistency with his command, which should come back with some adjustments.
Just Mets 