SCARY GOOD
PHILADELPHIA — The Mets’ version of Gibraltar was due to take a hit.
That was Jacob deGrom — the team’s only starting pitcher to remain healthy this entire season — leaving the mound in the seventh inning Thursday night after Nick Williams’ line drive struck him in the right triceps.
DeGrom wasn’t even allowed to throw a practice pitch for manager Terry Collins and trainer Ray Ramirez. The ace right-hander was removed, on a night when the Mets continued their dominance of the Phillies with a 10-0 victory at Citizens Bank Park.
DeGrom was diagnosed with a contusion to the triceps (X-rays were negative), allowing the pitcher and team officials to exhale in this season of triage.
“It didn’t feel good when it hit me, but it’s all right now,” deGrom said. “I was fortunate enough it didn’t get me square in the elbow. It was above it.”
A team that has lost Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Robert Gsellman, Steven Matz and Seth Lugo for extensive stretches this season doesn’t need to ponder the possibility of deGrom missing even one start.
“I think I will be fine,” deGrom said.
He was rolling against the hapless Phillies, with 6 2/3 shutout innings in which he allowed four hits and struck out nine.
The Mets (51-61) got homers from Wilmer Flores, Neil Walker, Michael Conforto and Curtis Granderson to turn the game into a runaway. But the Mets are used to such tactics against the Phillies: Since the start of the 2015 season, Collins’ crew has out-homered Philadelphia 90-37 in the series.
Conforto, shifted to cleanup for the first time this season (he filled the vacancy created by Jay Bruce’s trade to Cleveland), hit a three-run homer off the left-field foul pole in the seventh to give the Mets a 7-0 lead. Granderson hit a two-run homer in the ninth to complete the rout.
Flores’ three-run blast in the first against Vince Velasquez gave deGrom (13-5) a comfortable cushion. Walker homered in the third, after Velasquez had departed the game with numbness in his right middle finger.
DeGrom, who is 9-2 with a 1.82 ERA over his past 11 starts, was never seriously threatened by the Phillies — until Williams’ line drive hit him flush in the side, ending his night.
“I just wanted him to finish that inning if he could,” Collins said. “But when he told me he got hit in the right arm, he was out.”