In his first ever postseason start, Jacob deGrom was incredible. He fired seven scoreless innings and allowed just five hits while striking out 13 batters.
Despite all of the attention being placed on Clayton Kershaw, it was deGrom who ended up stealing the show. He out-pitched the Dodgers’ ace, and led the Mets’ to their first playoff victory since game 6 of the 2006 NLCS.
“This guy’s a beast,” David Wright said of Jacob deGrom. “He’s a little modest. He won’t admit it, but he’s a beast.” (Mike Vorkunov, NJ.com)
His 13 strikeouts were the most for any pitcher making their postseason debut, and it’s tied for the most in Mets’ playoff history with Tom Seaver. Seaver struck out 13 during the 1973 NLCS against the Cincinnati Reds.
The most impressive part of last night’s start was how deGrom stayed composed, even after two misplays from Michael Cuddyer. He displayed incredible amount of poise as he escaped both jams with his incredible stuff and command.
“Once I got out there warming up, I kind of settled down. I think it really went away after the first pitch I threw,” deGrom said. “We had a good gameplan. We came up with one before with me, Dan [Warthen] and Travis [d’Arnaud] and I tried to execute that to the best of my ability tonight.”
“My changeup was good tonight, got a few strikeouts on that to the lefties, and was also locating my fastball pretty good too,” deGrom said. “I think trying to keep them off balance and get ahead.”
The only downside about his great start is that probably won’t be available in game four of the series. Terry Collins told reporters that he wouldn’t want to pitch him on short rest after throwing 121 pitches.
“As I sit here at this moment, I think he went too far tonight,” Collins said. “He had to work hard. I mean, he worked really hard early in the game. And even though I don’t count when you intentionally walk somebody … he still threw 117, 118 pitches. That’s a lot of work for him.”
Degrom already established himself as an excellent starter prior to last night’s game, but now he cemented his status as one of the elite pitchers in baseball. If he can perform like this for the rest of the way, the Mets will be one of the toughest team’s to face this postseason.
Infographic by ESPN.
