DEGROM IS BB KING
Walks 6 Nats after losing control late
Sporting a struggling offense and depleted lineup, the Mets needed Jacob deGrom to be just about perfect on Saturday. He wasn’t. While there were glimmers of brilliance from the young Met starter — like striking out seven in the first three innings — ultimately deGrom struggled with his control and walked a career-high six batters in the Mets’ 3-1 loss to the Nationals at Citi Field. “The base on balls killed him,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. In the end, deGrom allowed three earned runs on eight hits and six walks over 5.2 innings. He picked up his first loss of the season. “I feel like early on I had control of everything,” deGrom said. “And then I was having a hard time getting the ball down when I walked six guys. I felt like I had good command and kind of lost it late. Walking six guys never helps and then you’re behind in a bunch of counts, just didn’t really throw the ball how I wanted to late.” It wasn’t just that deGrom had control early. He had his stuff working, too. He totaled 27 swinging strikes
in the start, and between his last start against the Marlins and his first three innings on Saturday, the Mets starter struck out 20 batters in 10 innings.
But then it turned. He allowed a run on two walks and two singles in the fourth inning and then two more in the fifth off of three hits and two more walks.
After the game, deGrom himself was trying to wrap his mind around how it happened.
“I’m not really sure what happened,” he said. A sore neck caused deGrom to have his originally scheduled Friday start pushed back a day, but he said that it felt fine on Saturday.
The culprit for the control problems, according to Collins, was mainly one specific pitch.
“Missed with the slider quite a bit tonight,” Collins said. “The slider, especially the two walks to (Anthony) Rendon, I mean he missed sliders on the outside corner pitch after pitch and you’ve got to get those to get outs.”
DeGrom noted as the game went on that he started to miss high and away from batters. And while he finished with 10 Ks, the strikeouts didn’t come at quite the torrid pace they did to start the game.
“It’s definitely strange,” deGrom said. “My goal is to go out there and put up zeroes. Wasn’t able to do it. I had some hard hit balls off of me. Just wasn’t very good late.”