In what feels like another lifetime, at least from the Mets’ perspective, Jacob deGrom made his major-league debut against the Yankees, nearly 11 years to the day he’ll take the mound Wednesday night in the Bronx.
“When Jeter stepped in the box,” deGrom recalled, smiling, “I was like, alright this is real.”
That memorable meeting took place at Citi Field, the ballpark deGrom called home for the first nine seasons of his career, where he won back-to-back Cy Young Awards and performed a level of pitching wizardry few have ever touched, before or after. Despite his early Cooperstown track, it was the Mets’ concern over deGrom’s spotty health that led to their ace bolting to Texas for a five-year, $185 million deal in 2022.
The Rangers believed that deGrom could be his supernatural self again. The Mets worried that deGrom’s arm — worn down by all those 100-mph fastballs and 93-mph sliders — was a ticking bomb.
Both were right. Six starts into his Texas debut, the final one coming against the Yankees in Arlington, deGrom was shut down for a second Tommy John surgery. And now, two years later, deGrom will make his 10th start Wednesday, the first time he’s reached double-digits since his last year (11) with the Mets. In his previous five seasons, deGrom has totaled 47 starts.
DeGrom will be 37 next month, but hasn’t pitched a full season since winning his second Cy Young in 2019, due to a relentless stream of injuries. The unforgiving toll of his max-effort domination made it increasingly difficult to regularly take the mound in Flushing, so I asked him before the Yankees’ 5-2 win over the Ranagers on Tuesday night if the TJ rehab also served as a recharging period, as deGrom again is masterful (2.29 ERA, 0.980 WHIP) but also healthier than he’s been in a long while.
“The main thing is the mental thing,” deGrom said. “You want to be out there competing. The goal was to always pitch as much as I could, take the ball as many times as I could. And then when you don’t, you feel like a real letdown. We love playing this game. And when you’re going to miss that much time, it’s tough.”
Those months away weren’t only about the healing process, however. DeGrom also came to the realization it was time to re-evaluate how he got hitters out. The same merciless, high-velo attack that made him nearly untouchable for a decade was too costly for a late-30s deGrom, so he’s adopted a more energy-conserving approach.
The four-seam fastball that averaged 99.2 mph in 2021 is now to 97, along with a slider that’s dipped from 91.6 to 89.3 — still very effective pitches, obviously, but not as damaging from a physical standpoint. He also throws more changeups than he has since 2020, and the curveball — a pitch deGrom used to just toy around with — is used almost twice as often.
The payoff? In his last start, May 15 against the Astros, deGrom fired eight scoreless innings, striking out seven — and needed only 95 pitches to get there. For those that remember the latter stages of his Mets dominance, deGrom’s rapidly-escalating pitch count is what often cut his starts short way too often. But now he’s trained himself to throttle back, something that deGrom never did in a Mets’ uniform.
“There’s times where I try to do too much,” deGrom said. “But looking at what’s probably best for me and staying out there is to try to pitch a little bit smarter. Mixing in off-speed, curveballs, that feels less stressful than constantly ripping the fastball. So just trying to be smart about it. . . . Now it’s just more, hey, try to hit the glove and go from there.”
Said Rangers manager Bruce Bochy: “He’s not trying to power his way through anybody. I think he’s made a concerted effort to probably dial it down just a touch.”
That’s a notable departure from deGrom’s approach with the Mets. Knowing that his previous full-tilt, full-time attitude could have contributed to his Flushing flameout, deGrom was asked Tuesday if he has any regrets that he didn’t switch things up sooner. He paused for a moment before answering.
“You can’t live with the ‘what ifs,’” deGrom said. “So I never really thought about it because every time I took the ball, the goal was to win. I still take it that way. I was younger at that time and felt like I could do it. Now it’s trying to be smart and continue pitching for a while.”
The eye-popping deGrom velocity may be dialed back, but his legendary pitch-location remains pure sorcery. While his radar-gun fireworks always drew the gawking attention, deGrom’s uncanny ability to dot the corners is what made him truly unhittable, and that’s been a key to his revival. DeGrom said that was the primary focus of his rehab — trying to nail targets as soon as he could begin playing catch — and that helped sharpen him back into Cy Young form.
“The command is incredible,” said Kyle Higashioka, the former Yankee now with the Rangers. “It’s almost like catching a video game. You just put the glove up there and that’s where the ball goes. And it’s like 100 mph.”
It’s a New York baseball tragedy that the Mets and deGrom couldn’t figure out a way to keep the two-time Cy Young winner in Citi Field for his entire career. But after a comet-like chapter in Queens, deGrom’s goal now is to avoid burning up during these last few years with the Rangers.
