Jacob deGrom took the mound this afternoon for his second start of the spring and wasted no time showing us that he is ready to mow down batters.
On two pitches in the first, deGrom got two outs. Then followed that up by striking out the next four batters including Manny Machado included.
His location was spectacular, keeping the ball low in the zone and painting those corners beautifully. After five scoreless innings of work, he had eight strikeouts, only gave up one hit and didn’t walk a batter.
The fastball from deGrom was sitting 95/96 mph and he had a couple of sharp sliders in the high 80’s. The right-hander has now allowed only two runs in 7.2 spring innings on three hits and has struck out 12 in that span.
DeGrom pleased with outing pic.twitter.com/ZM8ySTTspm
— Matt Ehalt (@MattEhalt) March 16, 2018
It’s been very reminiscent of his dominant season last year. Every pitch looked effortless and easy coming out of his hand. His changeup in particular on the corners was devastating all afternoon.
DeGrom showing us all that he plans on picking up right where he left off. If there was ever a time to get excited about this rotation this is it. Having that one-two-punch ready to go this year for the Mets is going to make all the difference this season.
