The gap between Jacob deGrom‘s win total and wins above replacement just closed a little further in today’s rubber game victory against the Cincinnati Reds. With ten strikeouts over six scoreless innings, the righty managed to improve his record to 6-7 while lowering his ERA to 1.77.
The former measure means little in the scheme of things, but the latter, in all its unwavering glory, becomes more meaningful with each masterful outing in a Cy Young season. If the 2018 season ended today, deGrom would check in with the franchise’s third-best single-season ERA, just 24 points behind Dwight Gooden in 1985 and one behind Tom Seaver in 1971.
Truth be told, this may not have been one of deGrom’s finest starts. It was the first time since June 30 that he failed to crack seven innings, with the main culprit being the 60 pitches spread out across deGrom’s first three innings of work.
Even so, deGrom was far from ineffective. He managed to race ahead to a 0-2 count against six of his first 11 batters faced, and only walked one batter while allowing three hits – none of which seemed a consequence of even remotely solid contact. Philip Ervin punched a grounder into center – just outside the reach of Jeff McNeil – and advanced to third after Scooter Gennett beat the shift by poking a brilliantly-spotted changeup into left field.
The response? DeGrom handed Eugenio Suarez and his 87 RBI a seat by striking him out on a nasty changeup. Devin Mesoraco then nabbed Gennett on a poor double-steal attempt to neutralize whatever threat remained. Billy Hamilton dumped a fly ball in front of Austin Jackson and stole second to open the third, but was again stranded, as the master of extrication himself forced a bunt lineout from Jose Peraza before striking out his next two batters.
“Jake does what he does. He gives us opportunity after opportunity to go out there with a lead and try to build on it,” said Brandon Nimmo – who hit three doubles in support of his ace – in the post-game. “We’re just really thankful to have him.”
With a 1.60 ERA over his last 20 starts, deGrom is now tied with Sid Fernandez for the most starts of six or more scoreless innings with 25. In terms of such strides made despite surrounding incompetence, deGrom would likely rank just as highly.
The fourth through sixth innings not only featured some asinine missed strike calls along the outside corner, but even called for an umpire replay at one point, as the entire crew seemed to have forgotten the count itself against Phillip Ervin. Wilmer Flores dropping a popup in foul ground forced three extra pitches to push deGrom into triple-digits, arguably costing him the seventh inning, but nonetheless, both batters were again retired via strikeout, thus ending deGrom’s afternoon on a positive note for the first time in a long time.
“He always seems to step it up, even when he doesn’t quite have his best stuff and there’s a runner in scoring position, or a runner at third with less than two outs – he always steps up and gets the big strikeout, no matter how he’s feeling,” said manager Mickey Callaway in the presser.
“He goes right to his best weapons with runners in scoring positions… He’s always getting ahead, attacking, and wiping them out with his slider. I think those two components probably help him out a lot.”
Just another day at the office, it would appear. Hopefully one of these days, we’ll get to hear his name in the NL Cy Young discussion. Apparently, he still has to prove himself.
