DeGrom Reaches 1,000 Career Strikeouts to Cap Historic Season

On Wednesday night, Jacob deGrom did something that only eight other pitchers have done. He racked up 1,000 strikeouts with the New York Mets.

It couldn’t have come in a better way either, the final strikeout that he recorded of the season was his number 1,000. He’s the ninth Mets pitcher to reach the feat and the fastest to do so in only 897.2 innings.

Next up on the Mets list Jon Matlack at 1,023 strikeouts with the Mets. DeGrom is within 200 strikeouts of moving past Al Leiter, Ron Darling and David Cone for fifth place.

The 1,000 career strikeouts isn’t the only big feat deGrom accomplished this year, but the number of strikeouts for the single-season are impressive as well. He finished the season with 269 strikeouts, 30 more than his old career best from last year.

Only Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden have more strikeouts than deGrom in a season. Gooden had 276 strikeouts in 1984 and Seaver had 283 and 289 strikeouts in 1970 and 1971 respectively.

DeGrom’s dominant season also put him at the top of the Mets leaderboards when it comes to K/9. His 11.157 K/9 in 2018 is the second highest in team history, behind just Gooden’s 11.394 in 1984. When it comes to career K/9, deGrom leads the pack with a 10.026 mark. He also set few Mets franchise records including the lowest WHIP ever for a starter at 0.912 and highest strikeout percentage at 32.2%.

Strikeouts aren’t the only area where deGrom was dominant, he also went on to tie or set numerous major league records in his historic 2018 season. He has now gone 29 straight starts giving up three or fewer runs, tying Jake Arrieta‘s run in 2015-2016 for the major league record.  DeGrom also set a major league single season record with 24 consecutive quality starts.

Probably the most mind-boggling stat is deGrom becoming one of only three pitchers since 1908 that went a season with an ERA below 2.00, had more than 250 strikeouts, and fewer than 50 walks. The other two are Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez and Christy Mathewson.

DeGrom’s late season surge has him as a near lock for the Cy Young award, and his name will be tossed around for MVP as well.