Pitchers go through ebbs and flows over the course of a baseball season, even the best in the league.
After all, it’s impossible to make 30 impeccable starts, even if it’s expected – or assumed – with each of the Mets young starters.
For the second consecutive outing, it appeared Jacob deGrom was swimming against the tide, battling himself while trying to find a way to pitch deep into a ballgame while remaining effective.
Of course, an ebb for deGrom or any of the Mets young, frontline starting pitchers is more like a good outing for most any other starting pitcher in this league.
DeGrom certainly wasn’t brilliant on Friday against the Rays. He needed 31 pitches in the first inning as he struggled to put the Rays away in a scoreless first. He seemed to have no feel for his slider or change-up at any point during the night, so much so he became fastball-dependent for most of the night.
“I threw a lot of pitches early,” deGrom explained after taking his third consecutive no-decision on Friday night. “A lot of 3-2 counts which I normally don’t do and my pitch count got up pretty quick. That’s not a good way to start a game.
He was throwing hard, although often times he was missing away from the left-handed hitters with his fastball, an indication he was flying open with his hips. But the key for deGrom was he did not miss too often in the strike zone. Again, he had trouble putting the Rays away much of the night which resulted in his escalated pitch count, but he found a way to get big outs when he needed to and did not walk a batter on six hits to lower his ERA to 2.13 for the year.
He did make two mistakes – one to Grady Sizemore in the fourth inning and one to James Loney in the seventh inning – but he battled his command and efficiency problems to pitch into the seventh inning to give the Mets a chance to win the game.
“I left a couple of balls over the middle, but other than that I felt I threw the ball all right,” the young right-hander explained.
It was good enough to win certainly, and the Mets were at least able to provide deGrom with a consolation prize by getting him off the hook when they tied the game for the second of three consecutive times in the eighth inning when Daniel Murphy homered to right field.
DeGrom continues to marvel at his team’s resiliency.
“It was definitely impressive. deGrom said.
The Mets have done that for deGrom, especially recently. They club is 14-7 in games started by deGrom in 2015, but they’ve won each of his last five starts and six of his last seven despite their star pitcher not having a decision in his last three efforts.
Despite going winless in his last three starts and finding a way despite not being on top of his game over his last two, deGrom will certainly take the team win above anything else.
“We’re never out of the game and we’re looking forward to getting out there and winning ballgames,” he concluded.
Just Mets 