The Mets got two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom back into the rotation last week after an absence of more than a year, and he returned to the mound at Citi Field on Sunday. He hasn’t lost a step yet. Not even close.
DeGrom even showed through five innings that he still has the raw material to be the best pitcher in the world. The basic, final box score won’t do justice to what deGrom did for the Mets faithful on Sunday. The line itself was still pretty good too.
deGrom retired the first 17 batters he faced. Yes, he had a perfect game for 5 2/3 innings before walking a walk and then giving up a two-run home run to Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson. Those last two batters really made ugly what used to be one of the nastiest performances we’ve seen in 2022.
deGrom had everything working from the start. His average four seam fastball was 99.1 miles per hour and he reached 100 in more than a handful of pitches. His top speed measurement? A cool 101.6. Of his 33 sliders, 20 were induced swings and a whopping 18 were swing-and-misses. For those unaware, a 90 percent sniff rate on any top-level field is unheard of. The frontrunners are generally around 70 percent.
Here’s a good illustration of how the Grom Braves made hitters look for much of the day:
if there was each no worries at all in this outing, it was deGrom who only put in 76 pitches and the Braves who got to him in the last eight or so. However, let’s keep the perspective right here, which is that deGrom missed more than a year with elbow and shoulder injuries and he is 34 years old.
That is, the Mets are now treating the Grom with extreme care, and they should be. She came in on Sunday with a 5 1/2 match division lead, so eyes are firmly set on closing the regular season and then having a full deGrom ready by October. This means that the most important aspect of Sunday was that deGrom continued to make progress. He threw 59 pitches back in his first outing, and this time he went to the mid-’70s.
Simple: So far so good with Jacob deGrom in his return from the injured list.