Jacob deGrom is at it again. In the New York Mets’ 14-inning, 2-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves at Citi Field on Friday night, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner went above and beyond in his attempt to keep the Mets’ five-game winning streak alive. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, but deGrom’s performance was certainly something to behold.
As we all know, you can’t win them all. But when your ace gives you seven innings of 13-strikeout, one-run baseball — regardless of how effective starter Mike Foltynewicz and the Braves’ bullpen were on Friday — these are the games a team with postseason aspirations has to win.
DeGrom began his night with a perfect first, setting down Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, and Freddie Freeman in order. He worked around a leadoff single from Josh Donaldson and a two-out base hit from Rafael Ortega in the second, escaping unscathed after Alex Johnson‘s line out to centerfield.
After issuing a one-out walk to Albies — his only free pass issued on Friday — in the third, the aptly nicknamed “deGrom” (gotta love Players Weekend!) kicked into another gear and began a nearly-historic stretch, retiring the next nine Atlanta batters he faced with the last eight coming via strikeout.
Freeman’s nine-pitch, inning-ending, punchout (deGrom’s 3-2 curve in the dirt induced arguably the ugliest swing I’ve seen Freeman — one of the game’s very best hitters — ever take) in the third began Jake’s streak, but things only got more impressive from there.
Donaldson, Matt Joyce, and former Mets bench cog, Adeiny Hechavarria, struck out on a combined 12 pitches in the fourth (three swinging strikes), with deGrom looking to be in complete control to close out the frame.
After a low changeup for ball one, deGrom froze his briefly-former teammate with two consecutive 98 MPH four-seamers on opposite corners (inside black, then outside) then dropped a 91 MPH slider in the exact same spot as the previous heater for a called strike three.
DeGrom kept the streak alive in the fifth, ringing up Ortega swinging at a 2-2 changeup, inciting three whiffs on three upper-outer-half four-seamers (97, 98, 99 MPH, respectively; wow), and pumping three more fireballs past his counterpart, Foltynewicz to end the inning.
Acuna went down looking at a ridiculously-placed, lower-half, outside-paint slider to start the sixth and bring deGrom just two strikeouts from Tom Seaver‘s franchise-and-MLB record of 10 consecutive strikeouts, but Albies and Freeman singled in consecutive at-bats to break the streak and, to a more alarming extent, put the Braves ahead 1-0.
A few more notes on deGrom’s strikeout streak before we move on: Over that eight-batter stretch, deGrom threw 36 pitches, drawing 15 swinging strikes and eight called strikes. Of the four foul balls that were hit in that span, Freeman contributed three during his at-bat in the third. In the fifth inning alone, Jake racked up nine whiffs and one called-strike on 12 pitches. He’s like a machine, folks.
Josh Donaldson went down swinging at a 3-2 changeup to leave Freeman stranded limit the damage. Now, it’s more than likely every set of eyes or ears that were tuned into Friday night’s game at that point were expecting Jake to blow Donaldson away with a fastball in that spot. I audibly giggled when he went with the changeup. I’d imagine Donaldson wasn’t as jovial about the situation.
After deGrom’s game-tying, solo homer in the bottom half of the sixth and his perfect seventh (with one more strikeout for good measure; his 13th of the night), the 30-year-old right-hander’s evening was done (107 pitches; 78 strikes).
Though, with each of those respective milestones, Jacob deGrom became the first pitcher in modern baseball history to hit a homer and strikeout at least 13 batters in a game twice in a season (April 3, 14 K, HR versus Miami).
The 28 swings-and-misses deGrom accumulated tied for second-most in a game in MLB this season (Houston’s Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole and New York’s James Paxton — on Friday night — each racked up 29 whiffs; Verlander also picked up 28 on May 21; h/t James Smyth, YES Network).
The 30-year-old picked up 10 whiffs on 38 four-seamers, seven on 34 sliders, and nine on 27 changeups. His average exit velocity on just 12 total balls in play was a measly 88.3 MPH. Just dominant.
Including Friday night’s outing (seven innings, one run, 13 strikeouts, one walk), since May 22 (17 starts; 110 innings), Jacob deGrom owns a 1.88 ERA/2.35 FIP with 11.45 strikeouts, 2.05 walks, and 0.65 home runs allowed per nine innings, respectively. Since the All-Star break, deGrom’s pitched to a 1.04 ERA with 69 strikeouts and 14 walks over eight starts (52 innings).
With his sixth punchout on Friday, DeGrom became the first NL pitcher to eclipse the 200-strikeout plateau in 2019, notching his third consecutive 200-strikeout season (fourth in five seasons). His 2.56 ERA now ranks fourth in the NL (Hyun-Jin Ryu, 2.00 ERA leads) and his 3.21 xFIP ranks second (Max Scherzer, 2.93).
