Texas Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom throws during the first inning of a baseball game … More
The world of high velocity can be a fickle thing and get paused at a moment’s notice. One day you are in the middle of a lengthy scoreless inning streak, another you have missed the final two months with an elbow injury.
Another instance you are returning from an injury with a cinematic feel after missing four months with a scapula injury and then undergoing a second Tommy John surgery on your elbow after years of high velocity.
All of those scenarios describe the trajectory of Jacob deGrom, who turned out to be the winningest out of all the Mets young pitchers in an era when they had Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz and Matt Harvey.
The world of deGrom turned partially full circle Tuesday about 26 1/2 hours before he takes the mound at Yankee Stadium when he spoke for nearly eight minutes about various things, including his time with the Mets, his dialing it back a little and his confidence in completing a second rehab from Tommy John.
He is in the third year of a five-year contract signed with the Rangers after the Mets got 64 innings from him in a highly fun 2022 season that ended with the disappointment of losing the NL East on the final weekend and the wild-card series at home to the San Diego Padres.
Over the final two full seasons deGrom provided the Mets with 156 1/3 innings though the 2,166 pitches he threw were mostly effective but given the injury history it was not hard to see why the Mets did not retain him and pivoted to signing Kodai Senga and Justin Verlander for the 2023 season after deGrom debuted as a somewhat unheralded prospect on May 14, 2014 against the Yankees at Citi Field after initially being called up to be a reliever.
The Mets seemed to be proven right after the first month of the 2023 season when deGrom went down with another injury that resulted in the second Tommy John procedure. The injury cost him a chance at contributing to the World Series championship team and kept him out until the final month of last season.
“The main thing is the mental thing,” deGrom said to a large group of media at his locker inside the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium where he last appeared for a makeup game on Aug. 13, 2018. “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 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.”
It also can be tough to pitch without usual velocity but deGrom will be 37 by the time the Rangers visit the Mets in September and with age comes an acknowledgement of a slight downturn in that area. Though for deGrom that means averaging 97 mph on a fastball thrown 45.3 percent of the time as opposed to 98.9 mph in 2022, 99.2 in 2021, 98.6 in 2020, which is not quite the downturn most are used to pitching with like CC Sabathia after he learned how to throw a cutter to prolong his careeer.
“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.”
So far, deGrom has given the Rangers 51 innings and a 2.29 ERA. Last Thursday in a 1-0 win over the Houston Astros, he completed eight innings for the 26th time and first time since a 15-strikeout showing against the Washington Nationals on April 23, 2021 when he threw 56 fastballs, averaged 99.2 and threw 10 of those at 100 mph or higher.
“He’s not trying to power his way through anybody,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said. “I think he’s made a concerted effort to probably dial it down just a touch.”
In fact, a case can be made that his best seasons were done at lower speeds. deGrom won consecutive Cy Young awards in 2018 and 2019 as a major highlight for a team who turned out to make a massive mistake in the managerial department.
In 2018, deGrom pitched 217 innings and threw 1,374 fastballs that averaged 96 mph. A year later, he pitched 204 innings and threw 1,536 fastballs for an average of 96.9.
At this point, deGrom is still throwing hard, just not at the highest end of the velocity spectrum but comfortably entrenched in the high 90s velocity club and the Rangers hope they can get him through the rest of this season and two more seasons while getting back to their 2023 championship form.
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