Let’s start here: Jacob deGrom has been by far the best starting pitcher in baseball this year. And he’s 8-8. Which, although it may mind-boggle fans knowing he would have 35-40 wins already on a team like the Red Sox, may be on pace for an all-time wins record by a Mets’ pitcher. I’ll have to check. While there have been more than a couple of pieces written about his season, it is a heartwarming combination of tragic and hilarious, so I’ll throw a few words out there myself.
The man has a losing record. My sophomore year statistics class allows me to deduce that. A baseball novice or a Mets’ fan might say “hey, 8-8 is pretty great, especially for a Mets’ pitcher”. And they would be right. Until you consider the fact that deGrom has basically a negative ERA (1.68, close enough), and the team has still lost 15 of his 26 starts this year. He’s literally giving up almost always 1 run or less and going deep into games, and has a losing record – not to mention he JUST picked up his sixth win by throwing a complete game shutout two weeks ago (surprised they didn’t find a way to lose that one also).
He had a start about a week ago where he drove in the only two runs his team scored while shutting them out over six innings to get the W. Last night, he gave up one over six innings, and drove in the only run his team scored during that time. Maybe it just dawned on him that his team really truly sucks in all facets, and he should take it upon himself to not only completely shut down the other team, but also create the offense.
The truth, however, is that the reason he doesn’t always do this is that he hopes if he can maintain a losing record, the Mets’ management will trade him away, maybe get a future 8th round pick back or a low A garbage prospect – not a bad result for that group. Beats the bag of peanuts and the six-pack of Bud Light they traded Jeurys Familia (spell-check me, that doesn’t look right even though ESPN swears that’s the correct spelling) for last month. Seriously, those were the terms of that trade, look it up.
The only logical conclusion I can make here is that deGrom is, in fact, losing games on purpose. He clearly has the ability to not only throw shutouts at will, but drive in runs (guy has a sweet swing), yet he chooses not to do so every time. The man wants to get away from that team, and we don’t blame him. He’s actually a genius – he knows that if he goes 8 innings and gives up a run, he will get the loss most of the time, and the Mets will probably ship his ass out of there eventually. We, the fans, can only hope it’s soon.
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