Jacob deGrom struggles mightily as Mets lose

There aren’t too many reasons to watch the Mets at this point of this season, but Jacob deGrom has generally been good and enjoyable all season. Sure, his numbers haven’t quite been what they were over the past few years, but he’s been the lone member of the starting rotation to last the full season—or anything even close to that—thus far.

And while deGrom wasn’t ever in the Cy Young hunt at any point this year, he’s been a reason to specifically pay attention to the Mets even after it was well established that the team would amount to nothing this year. If you felt that way about deGrom and this were the only game of the Mets’ current five-day window of games, it would have been extra disappointing.

In an inning that feels like it took place far more than a few hours ago, deGrom struck out the Phillies in order to begin the game. But deGrom gave up three runs in the second inning, all of which scored after Dominic Smith, whose defense has constantly been praised throughout his minor league career, made an error. So in terms of ERA, deGrom wasn’t on the hook for those. In the fourth, however, deGrom was very much on the hook as he gave up six more runs to the Phillies, and all of them were earned.

If you’re looking for highlights from the game, well, let’s try:

• Nori Aoki continued his impressive first week with the Mets with a 1-for-3 night with a walk and a run scored.
• Travis d’Arnaud, who sounds like he’s very much still part of the Mets’ 2018 plans, went 2-for-4 with a double that plated Aoki for the Mets’ only run of the night.
• Asdrubal Cabrera went 2-for-4.
• The Mets’s bullpen, which consisted of a bunch of players vying for roles in to start next season—Josh Smoker, Jacob Rhame, Kevin McGowan, Erik Goeddel, and Jamie Callahan—shut the Phillies out the rest of the way.

The series is set to wrap up on Wednesday, weather permitting. And while Matt Harvey had been slated to start the game, he’s been moved off of it, officially because of the weather forecast. Maybe the game won’t get played and Major League Baseball will spare the universe one more game between the current versions of these two teams.

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue
The Good Phight

Box scores

ESPN
MLB

Win Probability Added

FanGraphs

What’s WPA?

Big winners: none
Big losers: Jacob deGrom, -40.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Travis d’Arnaud doubles to score Nori Aoki in the first, +10.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Ben Lively singles to score two runs in the second, -18.2% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -44.3% WPA
Total batter WPA: -5.7% WPA
GWRBI!: Ben Lively