Jacob deGrom came out pumping the heat on Wednesday night with 100.3 mph on the first pitch against the Boston Red Sox and half of his first inning pitches reaching triple digits.

The reigning Cy Young winner was cruising through the first three innings, extending his scoreless streak to 31 innings (tied for third longest in team history). Trouble came in the fourth inning when Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers hit a double with one out.  Mitch Moreland followed with a double of his own, a line drive that scored Devers to tie the game at 1-1. Later in the inning, deGrom uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Moreland to score, giving the Sox a 2-1 lead.

DeGrom was sharp again in the fifth, with a 1-2-3 inning. Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo tied the game with his first home run of the season in the bottom half of the inning.

Then another scoreless inning for deGrom in the sixth on only seven pitches. Mets rookie Andres Gimenez stroked an RBI triple in the bottom of the inning to give the Mets a 3-2 lead, and a rare chance for deGrom to pick up a win. That thought was quickly squandered in the top of the seventh when Christian Vazquez hit a solo homer off Mets ace reliever, Seth Lugo.

Justin Wilson imploded in the eighth inning, allowing the Red Sox to score three runs and give them a 6-3 lead. The Mets got one back in the eighth on a Yoenis Cespedes big fly.

The Mets had plenty of chances in the ninth inning when they loaded the bases with none out, but were only able to score one run and lost 6-5.

DeGrom’s pedestrian line (for him of course): 6 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, BB, 4 K, 88 pitches/60 strikes

The four strikeouts for deGrom were his lowest total since May 27, 2019 and only the fifth time since the start of the 2018 season he failed to strikeout at least five batters.

Let’s go back to the deGrom four-seam fastball to examine a spike in velocity and drop in swings and misses.

  • DeGrom’s four-seamer first start of the 2020 season: 98.2 mph average, 100 max, 30 pitches/9 swings and misses
  • DeGrom’s four-seamer second start of 2020 season: 98.9 mph average, 101 max, 40 pitches/3 swings and misses

So, deGrom was throwing harder in his second start – including personal best max at 101.1 mph – but wasn’t getting the Red Sox to swing through the pitch very often. In fact, the Red Sox fouled off a whopping 15 of the 40 four-seamers that deGrom threw on Wednesday.

As shown by the photo below, you can see the vertical location of deGrom’s pitches vs the Braves and then the Red Sox

 

Looking at the photo, it appears that deGrom had trouble getting his four-seamer higher in the zone against the Red Sox than the Braves. So, while the fastball had a little boosted velo, it was typically in thrown in easier spots for the hitters to at least foul off.

As you can see in the following photo, the change in location could be due to the change the slight change in deGrom’s release point on Wednesday against the Red Sox.

While his fastball was easier to make contact with on Wednesday night, it was his changeup that ultimately let him down. The back-to-back doubles from Devers and Moreland both came off changeups.

DeGrom has now made 66 starts since the start of the 2018 season, in that span he has a 2.04 ERA but the Mets record is only 29-37 in those games.