Just Mets

Lost in Friday night’s eighth inning meltdown was another brilliant effort on the part of Jacob deGrom, who unquestionably deserved his eighth win of the year.

Instead, deGrom ultimately allowed two earned runs in 7 1/3 innings on Friday night, seeing his ERA rise to 2.34 for the year while falling to 7-5 in 14 starts in 2015.

He was lifted with one out and the tying and go-ahead runs at the corners in the eighth inning.

“He’s at 97 pitches, 90 degrees out,” Terry Collins explained about the pitching change. “He hung the slider to Simmons. He got the ball up to Perez, even though he was bunting. I just thought it was time. If he’d have got Ciriaco out, he would have stayed in to face the next guy. One out, I was looking for a strikeout.”

Perhaps, but given the state and instability in the Mets bullpen, deGrom was very likely to be the best pitcher at Collins’ disposal in that particular situation.

DeGrom himself hinted he could have at least attempted to get Peterson out.

“I felt good. I think we wanted to go with the matchup there,” deGrom said about being lifted. “That’s part of it. He happened to get a hit there.”

Instead, Sean Gilmartin faced Jace Peterson, who lined a go-ahead double over Juan Lagares’ head, which sealed the Mets fate in another ugly and disheartening loss.

But none of what happened in the eighth inning or throughout the game should diminish deGrom’s performance on Friday. He was magnificent and pitched like the ace the Mets needed him to be. He didn’t miss very many bats and only recorded three strikeouts, but deGrom induced mostly weak contact from start to finish, featuring a devastating slider and change-up which had the Braves off-balanced all night long. He was also impressively working inside to the Atlanta hitters, jamming them and backing them off the plate which helped setup those two off-speed pitches away.

All-in-all, he was fantastic once again. It was the 11th time in 14 starts deGrom has allowed two earned runs or less.

“We’ve got some very good pitching, we are just not scoring runs,” Collins said. “They live on the edge. They can’t make too many mistakes, because we are not scoring.”

The club also can’t make routine big league plays, which probably hurts the pitching just as much as the poor offense, if not more.

Anyway, with all due respect to Clayton Kershaw, deGrom is probably the best pitcher in baseball right now. He has established himself as the elite right-hander in the league for sure, and has helped form one of the most dynamic 1-2 punches with Matt Harvey the game has seen in the last 15 years. The Mets not only have unique talent in these two two starting pitchers, they have that special bulldog mentality which is not teachable. When combined with the talent they possess, it creates something special in which the Mets would be foolish to waste during their prime years here.

Now, if the team could hit a little more for him and play better behind him, perhaps these outings would translate into more wins, and fewer bone crushing losses.

deGrom is 16-7 with a 2.16 ERA in 191 2/3 innings in 29 starts in the last 365 days. That ERA is the best in baseball among qualified starting pitchers over that span.