The New York Mets have to be pleased with the groove Jacob deGrom is in right now. The Mets ace hurled seven shutout innings in their 4-0 victory over the San Diego Padres. deGrom currently holds a streak of 17 consecutive innings without allowing a run. If the Mets want any chance to make a run at the Wild Card, they will need him to carry them through the next two months.
Can deGrom Repeat?
deGrom is battling a lot of the same factors he had to deal with in 2018. He takes the mound with an offense that does not score for him and a below average defense. They only major difference between the two seasons are his slow start and the larger amount of Cy Young contenders.
Since the three rough starts to end the month of April, Jacob deGrom has been, well, Jacob deGrom again.
16 starts, 2.36 ERA, 120 K, 22 BB
— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) July 25, 2019
His ERA in each month has decreased and he put together one of his best starts of the season on Thursday. deGrom had a career ERA under two during day games and the number decreased even more today. In his four daytime starts in 2019, deGrom has only allowed three runs and has struck out 34 batters.
Who is deGrom Battling For the Cy Young Award?
The usual candidates, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer are in the mix. Kershaw has not skipped a beat after losing velocity on his fastball and has been a strong as ever. Scherzer has pitched the Washington Nationals back in the race for the NL East and leads the league in strikeouts.
Jacob deGrom's KO of Mejía, extended version.
Mejía watching the replay and muttering to himself (it's rare someone gets to watch his own death). pic.twitter.com/UyKkYXsR5w
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 25, 2019
The new comers to the conversation are youngsters Mike Soroka and Luis Castillo. Soroka’s biggest weapon is his hard sinker and his ability to limit the home run. He has only allowed five in 102.1 innings and to the old writers his 10-2 record also looks good as well.
The Man to Beat
Hyun-Jin Ryu has actually pitched as well as deGrom over the last two seasons, just with a smaller sample size. His 1.76 ERA leads baseball and has only walked 14 batters in 123 innings. He is currently the front runner for the Cy Young and as long as his ERA stays in “deGrom” territory, he will be the winner.
This is a ridiculous stat…
In Hyun-Jin Ryu's first 11 games of the season, the Dodgers had a combined 4 errors.
In the past 8 games Hyun-Jin Ryu has started (tonight included), Dodgers have a combined 16 errors.
Are they trying to lose? @TFKLeague pic.twitter.com/xdpfjSzMka
— Pete Hoffman (@HoffWFAN) July 20, 2019
deGrom’s second half will have to top last year’s to put himself in the top three. Ryu will also have to regress at some point as well. deGrom’s first month of 2019 was proof of how hard it is to sustain that level of success. If the Mets are out of the race in September, at least we will have the Cy Young and batting title race.