DeGrom can’t blank Braves, settles for win
ATLANTA – The Mets badly needed to feel good about something, anything, after the calamity representing the club’s bullpen situation. Ace Jacob deGrom nearly gave Mets relievers the day off while lifting his team’s spirits as he masterfully dominated one of the best lineups in baseball.
DeGrom limited the Braves to eight scoreless innings as the Mets puni- shed Atlanta in a much-needed 10-2 victory on Tuesday night at SunTrust Park. DeGrom also struck out 10 in one of his strongest starts of the season. The right-hander was vying for a shutout before he gave up back-to-back home runs to Freddie Freeman and Josh Donaldson in the ninth.
“That’s the best stuff I’ve had all year,” deGrom said. “That’s why it was disappointing to give up those two homers at the end.”
The 30-year-old carved through a Braves lineup that entered the game with the thirdbest offense (.267 batting average) in the Major Leagues. For once, deGrom had the run support to garner his fourth win of the season. But that didn’t make a difference to deGrom, who says he goes into every inning with the belief that it’s a scoreless ballgame.
Pete Alonso reached base in all six of his at-bats. The rookie cranked his 24th home run of the year in the fourth inning, a two-run shot that gave the Mets a lofty 6-0 lead. Alonso is three home runs from passing Darryl Strawberry for the most by a Mets rookie in a single season. The 24-year-old still has just under 90 games to do it.
“That was fun. I should do that every day,” Alonso said. “Everyone put together some really good at-bats. It was a special day for a lot of people.
“It’s definitely motivational for sure. But also at the same time, today’s over. Today is going to have no effect on tomortointensity row. We need to come out morrow with the same and just be locked in because they’re going to be fired up tomorrow.”
DeGrom passed Al Leiter for seventh on the club’s all-time strikeout list when he whiffed Donaldson in the seventh inning for his 1,107th. When deGrom took the mound for the eighth inning, he had retired 20 of his previous 21 batters. He finished the game having issued no walks on 113 pitches.
Tuesday night marked deGrom’s fourth double-digit strikeout game of the season and the 36th of his career. Since deGrom’s debut in 2014, only four other pitchers have more: Max Scherzer (69), Chris Sale (63), Corey Kluber (44) and Clayton Kershaw (37).
“DeGrom was electric. That was him every day last year,” Mickey Callaway said. “This is what he’s been building up to. He stepped up when his team needed him the most. He did what an ace does and he went out there and shut down a great lineup.”