deGrom dominates again, Mets beat Padres

Jacob deGrom entered Saturday night’s game with an unbelievably low 0.71 ERA—and proceeded to drive that incredible number even lower over seven scoreless innings, leading the Mets to a 4-0 victory over the Padres in San Diego.

deGrom was excellent over the first three innings, allowing only a broken bat double to Fernando Tatis Jr. in the second. Tatis was stranded at third when deGrom made an excellent play on a Tucupita Marcano roller, taking it to the bag himself to strand Tatis.

Meanwhile, Joe Musgrove did his best to match deGrom, pitching around a leadoff double by Billy McKinney in the first inning and a two out double by Travis Blankenhorn in the second. Musgrove struck out the side in the third, and eight Mets over the first four innings.

The game really turned in the bottom of the fourth, as the Padres has their sole golden opportunity to score. With one out, Jake Cronenworth singled to right center—with McKinney doing a nice job to cut the ball off and hold him to first. Tatis followed with a relatively slow grounder to short, which Francisco Lindor seemed to rush in an effort to turn an unlikely double play. The ball popped out of Lindor’s glove for an error, leaving runners on first and second.

Eric Hosmer then blooped a single in front of Dominic Smith, which probably should have scored Cronenworth, but the runner held to see if Smith would catch the ball and had to stop at third. deGrom would respond by striking out Wil Myers and Tucupita Marcano to leave the bases loaded. And the Mets offense would promptly respond in the next frame.

With one out in the top of the fifth, Musgrove hung a slider to Jose Peraza, who deposited it in the left field seats for the first run of the game. One batter later, Lindor would follow suit with a home run to right to extend the lead to 2-0.

deGrom would cruise over his last three innings, allowing only a walk to Tatis over his final three innings ths while striking out five more, giving him 11 total for the game—and moving him past Sid Fernandez and into fourth place on the team’s all-time strikeout list. When the Padres surprisingly sent a tiring Musgrove back out for the sixth, the Mets capitalized as Kevin Pillar and Tomas Nido led off with singles, and Jonathan Villar plated Pillar with a pinch hit RBI single off of reliever Tim Hill.

deGrom would depart after seven innings and 85 pitches—Seth Lugo would work around a leadoff single in the eighth, seeming to find his form as the inning went on, striking out Jurickson Profar and Cronenworth in the frame. In the ninth, Lindor would double off of former Met farmhand Nabil Crismatt to lead off the ninth, scoring on a Pillar RBI single. And Edwin Diaz would throw a scoreless ninth despite the non-save situation to preserve the 4-0 victory.

The victory snapped the team’s two game losing streak and kept them 3.5 games ahead of the Braves in the NL East. Meanwhile, deGrom’s ERA is down to a minuscule 0.62 ERA—the lowest in history for any pitcher after 9 starts—as he continues to perform at a historic pace.

Box scores

ESPN
MLB

*illar of the Game

Tie! pinch hitting Jonathan Villar drives in Kevin Pillar with an RBI single— *illar Yahtzee!

Win Probability Added

www.fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Jacob deGrom, +37.1% WPA
Big Mets loser: Kevin Pillar, -3.1% WPA
Mets pitchers: +43.3% WPA
Mets hitters: +6.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jose Peraza home run in the fifth, +15.5%%
Teh sux0rest play: Eric Hosmer single in the fourth, -7.2%

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue
Gaslamp Ball