Jacob deGrom’s stellar season: Start #23

After his Cy Young aspirations seemingly took a hit after his last two starts, Jacob deGrom launched himself right back into the conversation with a dominant start against the Reds.

Perhaps it helped that he was pitching during the day. deGrom has always been phenomenal in the sunshine which earned him the nickname Sunshine Superman. His six innings pitched against Cincinnati just added to his already minuscule numbers. He did not allow a run and struck out ten which lowered his ERA to 1.99 for his career during day games.

The righty labored a bit in the first couple of innings which drove his pitch count up. Wilmer Flores also committed an error which extended an inning so deGrom was unable to go as far into this game as we have been accustomed to this season. It was still an impressive outing and he limited the damage early on before he settled in and overpowered an underrated Reds’ offense. Opposing batters are now hitting just .205/.256/.297 with a .553 OPS against deGrom for the year.

The ace had all of his pitches working, but he effectively used his changeup and curveball to go along with his blazing fastball. He threw twenty-one changeups that went for strikes 71.4% of the time as well as eleven curveballs that were strikes 90.9% of time.

The offense finally broke out and gave him some support so his record stands at 6-7 to go along with a 1.77 ERA.

The Mets’ ace still has more WAR than actual wins, but both Max Scherzer and Aaron Nola have passed him in that category. However, his 2.20 FIP leads all pitchers in the National League, as does his incredible 212 ERA+.

Dwight Gooden’s unbelievable 1985 season will probably not be caught put deGrom is still in good position among some other special seasons.

This last start was certainly a step in the right direction for deGrom to claim the coveted award at the end of the season, and he will need to continue that trend if he wants to edge out some tough competition.