Life on the mound can be a maddening way to make a buck in light of the millions that land in your bank account.
A day after Rafael Montero reaped the best outing of his major league career, the ace of the Mets maligned starting rotation, Jacob deGrom, got stung by the National League Central cellar dwelling Cincinnati Reds.
Just when it seemed like the long-haired hurler had found his former self, a case of inconsistency has crept in over the past couple of weeks and the mystery as to why this keeps occurring remains.
In the last 16 days, the Yankees, Marlins and Reds have roughed up the righty – the only exception – a one-run gem against the NL East leading Nationals.
The consolation prize in suffering his fifth loss in eight starts was the gift of recording a career-high in season strikeouts, a total of 206, but his eye is on another aspect of his game.
“The goal is to get to 200 innings. I said before, the guys who are the best in the game normally get to 200 innings,” deGrom said. “That was my goal this year.” His total for the season currently sits at 178.2.
Thursday deGrom was compromised by his fastball command, surrendering four runs (three earned) on six hits in six innings of play.
Mets bats didn’t help his cause by going 1-11 with RISP, leaving eight men on base.
After a day off on Friday, the team heads to the hurricane ravaged city of Houston on Saturday where Matt Harvey takes the hill against the Astros. Donning the not so popular surname on the back of his jersey, Harvey returns from the disabled list with mediocre velocity. Here’s hoping his mechanics are mended and throwing hard doesn’t matter.
