After three incredible postseason starts (3-0, 1.80 ERA), Jacob deGrom wasn’t able to continue his playoff dominance last night against the Royals. He allowed four runs and six hits while walking three batters during five innings pitched.
“There are a lot of good hitters over there,” deGrom said after the game. “The walks hurt me, and in the fifth I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I felt fine. I don’t know what the difference was. I just wasn’t making pitches.”
While he started the night off strong, the game slipped away from deGrom in that fatal fifth inning. He allowed all four of his runs during the inning as he gave up three RBI hits to Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas.
“We gave Jake some extra rest and he came out and was looking good and all of a sudden balls were in the middle of the plate,” Terry Collins said.
“And I don’t know why but we just aren’t making the pitches we need to make. And we can sit here and it’s easy to make excuses that, hey, it’s the workload, it’s the days off, it’s the youth, on the big stage. I’m not going to say that.”
There was also a report by Adam Rubin of ESPN New York that deGrom,may have been tipping his pitches according to a former Mets player.
“I can’t figure it out yet, but they have something on deGrom out of the stretch,” the retired player indicated. “They better figure it out or they can’t win this series.”
Whatever the reason may be, deGrom clearly wasn’t at his best and the Royals made him pay for it. They were locked in against him, and according to USA Today, they only had three swings and misses all night:
Royals Swings vs deGrom: 43 – Total Misses: 3
Royals Swings vs deGrom fastball: 30 – Misses: 0
“Again, they did exactly what people said, and they put the ball in play,” Collins said. “I told Jake not everything has to be a strike. You’ve got to move it around. You’ve got to change speeds, give them something to look at. If you continue to pound the strike zone, they’re going to put it in play, and that’s what they did.”
It’s been very disappointing to see both Matt Harvey and now deGrom under-preform in the World Series, especially since they were so locked in during the NLCS. For all the talk they were going to dominate the Royals, the two have only combined for four strikeouts.
The Mets desperately need rookie Noah Syndergaard to come up big on Friday night or else they will be on the verge of elimination. The Mets are not out of this, and keep in mind that in 1986 the Mets lost the first two games of the World Series at HOME. And well you know the rest. LGM
