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The last time he pitched in a game that counted, Jacob deGrom was brilliant, of course. He pitched seven innings, allowed four hits and two runs against the Brewers last July 10, first game of a doubleheader at Citi Field. He allowed a pair of solo home runs, and left the game on the hook down 2-1; in a reversal of standard form, the Mets rescued him with a run in the bottom of the seventh, then walked it off in the eighth.
Here’s the remarkable thing:
That game actually increased his ERA, from 0.95 to 1.08. It actually increased his WHIP from 0.549 to 0.554.
As much as anything, this is what we miss with deGrom when he doesn’t pitch. It isn’t often that we not only see athletes perform at genius levels in real time but can anticipate that’s exactly what we’re going to see on the drive to the ballpark or the arena. Wayne Gretzky was like that in the ’80s. Michael Jordan was like that in the ’90s. They existed in a rarefied plane that few others could even visit.
Look, it’s silly to completely minimize the punch that deGrom’s absence to the Mets is in practical terms. And when deGrom spoke Sunday morning for the first time since being shut down for four weeks, you could hear the same irritation Mets fans have been expressing since Friday in his own words.
“I am really frustrated,” deGrom told reporters inside the home clubhouse at Port St. Lucie’s Clover Park, before the Mets closed out the home portion of their spring schedule with an 8-4 win over the Marlins. “I came into camp feeling really good, I felt like my elbow and shoulder were in a good spot and then to hear a stress reaction in the bone was definitely something I was not expecting, so the level of frustration is really high right now.
“Honestly, I was expecting to hear, take a couple of days off and you will be ready to go.”
It is a blow. But it isn’t a death knell. For this is also true: The Mets ought to be able to survive this. More to the point: if the Mets can’t ride this out until June, then they aren’t nearly as solid a team as they seem to be, both on paper and the glimpses we’ve seen of them in Florida.
For one thing: it’s useful to remember that just because deGrom is the best pitcher in the world, that hasn’t always translated because the Mets have had chronic issues scoring for him and protecting leads for him (and he is, for the most part, a six-inning pitcher thanks in part to his own brilliance as a strike-out ace).
The Mets were actually 11-4 in his 15 starts last year, a significant increase from the 28-36 mark they compiled in his Cy Young seasons of 2018-19. (As a point of reference: in Tom Seaver’s three Cy Young seasons — 1969, ’73 and ’75 — the Mets were 69-39.)
The Mets look like a stronger team this year and that will not only benefit deGrom but the others who will now take part in this next-man-up tour across the next eight weeks.
“The old saying is, ‘If you don’t like what’s going on, give it a week and then everything’s changed,’ ” said Chris Bassitt, who pitched four strong innings and one shaky one Sunday in his final tuneup for the regular season. “We’ll be perfectly fine. We’ll be all right.”
It will fall heavily on Bassitt to help make that so, since he’s now the clear No. 2 on the staff (and the de facto temporary ace if Max Scherzer’s hammy forces him to miss a start).
“If we’re that reliant on [deGrom] — I know he’s the best pitcher in the world … but it’s OK. We’ll be all right.”
He’s exactly right. And there’s also this: deGrom will be back.
“I’m going to try to look at it from a positive standpoint that structurally everything looks fine,” he said, “so once the bone heals then we’ll be ready to go and build up from there and hopefully be healthy for the rest of the year.”
The Mets will survive. The loss is the eight games, or 10 games, when we might’ve seen Jacob deGrom do something we’ve never seen before. In the big picture of the long season, that may be a secondary issue. It just doesn’t feel that way in real time, when you’re watching it and shaking your head in amazement.
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