New York Mets starting pitcher Jacob deGrom is just out-of-this-world ridiculous right now. There aren't enough superlatives in any language to describe just how good he is at playing baseball. We got another glimpse of it Friday night and ... good grief. He beat the Washington Nationals all by himself, basically, in the 6-0 Mets victory.
The line: 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 15 K
That'll work. The 15 strikeouts are a career high. This was actually deGrom's fourth career complete game and second career shutout. He hadn't thrown a shutout since 2016. I guess this is where we ask ourselves if he's actually getting (gulp) better?
Oh and he's also hitting. Those two hits he gave up? He matched them. He allowed a single and a double, but he also produced a single and a double while going 2 for 4. He scored twice! He also drove in a run.
deGrom is now hitting .545 this season. He has six hits in 11 plate appearances while he's only allowed 13 hits to 101 batters faced.
The line of absurdities with his start to this season is long. Such as ...
- He joins 2019 Gerrit Cole and 1999 Pedro Martinez as the only pitchers ever to strikeout at least 14 batters in three straight starts (via Sarah Langs)
- He joins Dwight Gooden as the only pitchers with 50-plus strikeouts and five-plus hits over a four-start span (via Stats)
- The 50 strikeouts in his first four starts are the most in baseball history (via Langs)
deGrom's season line right now is outrageous. It's only four starts, but take a look: 0.31 ERA, 0.55 WHIP, 29 IP, 13 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 50 K.
Not that anyone but be dumb enough to suggest as much, but this isn't smoke and mirrors or anything. He 100 percent looks this dominant. He threw 10 pitches that were at least 100 miles per hour on Friday. His breaking stuff is basically NSFW territory. I mean, his crisp slider is sitting 92-93. That used to the velocity of a quality fastball.
Perhaps what best sums up the level at which deGrom is pitching right now? Mets color man Keith Hernandez -- who played with prime Dwight Gooden -- was asked on the air if he'd ever seen anything like this. He said no and mentioned Gooden. He said not even on "Doc's" best days was he on this level.
In 80 starts since the start of the 2018 season, deGrom has a 2.00 ERA (1.998, so technically it's sub-2 and rounded up) and 0.94 WHIP with 678 strikeouts in 518 innings.
We truly are witnessing one of the greatest runs by a starting pitcher in baseball history.
