If you think you’ve heard all this before, you have. Lots.
Jacob deGrom started for the Mets on Friday and their offense was comatose. Again. Unless you consider two hits, one of them for an RBI by deGrom, lively. His frustration must be through the roof.
“Honestly, it hasn’t been this year. Like I say every time I go out there, I’m trying to put us in a position to win and we just haven’t won baseball games that I’ve been pitching,” deGrom said. “It’s not like these guys aren’t trying to put up runs. It just seems whenever I’m out there, we’re not able to score enough to win.”
Well, deGrom was out there, so of course the Mets didn’t score enough and the Braves pulled out a 2-1 victory at Citi Field.
“I think he’s the best pitcher in baseball, personally,” Atlanta All-Star Nick Markakis said.
Didn’t matter. DeGrom was typically good, but Atlanta’s Anibal Sanchez was a bit better. The key was deGrom pitched against the Braves while Sanchez got to face the Mets, now losers of four in a row. So even though he authored his 19th straight start surrendering three or fewer runs, deGrom came up empty in the win column. He fell to 5-7, despite his MLB-leading 1.85 ERA.
In eight innings before he was lifted for a pinch hitter, deGrom surrendered six hits, two runs, one walk and struck out nine. It was his seventh straight winless start, fifth straight losing decision.
“Obviously we know we haven’t been scoring runs when Jacob pitches,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “Early I felt like we were going to get to [Sanchez]. But then the later it gets … yeah, you do get a little frustrated. You start feeling that you’re letting Jacob down a little bit.”
But deGrom remained the good soldier toward his teammates.
“They’re giving 100 percent [but] we were unable to win the baseball game,” deGrom said.
Sanchez pitched six innings, surrendered one run and two hits, including the RBI single by deGrom that followed an Amed Rosario double in the third and tied the game at 1-1. Sanchez struck out nine, walked two. Three relievers held the Mets hitless over the final three innings with A.J. Minter earning his eighth save as Atlanta won its fifth in a row.
In the five games against the Braves, deGrom has pitched 33 innings surrendering four runs. The Mets lost all five, two of the losses charged to deGrom.
“There’s only so much he can control,” said Braves manager Brian Snitker, who labeled deGrom one of the best pitchers in baseball “right there with [Max] Scherzer. … He’s just really, really good.”
The Braves stressed that if deGrom makes a mistake, you must capitalize. The first capitalization came from Johan Camargo in the second inning, when he crushed an 0-1 fastball to right for his 13th homer and a 1-0 lead.
“A good pitch. He had to be looking for it,” deGrom said.
After deGrom tied the score, the Braves’ youthful top of the order produced the decisive run in the fifth. With two out, leadoff man Ronald Acuna Jr. doubled to left-center. Then Ozzie Albies sliced a first pitch curve for a double to left for the 2-1 lead.
“I thought like I made a decent pitch,” deGrom said. “He just somehow kept that thing fair.”
Acuna and Albies caused an ultimately futile fuss in the third. Acuna singled. Albies bounced to the right side. Second baseman Jose Reyes made a terrific diving stop and nailed a sliding Albies at first. Jose Bautista, playing first for the first time as a Met, fired to third to cut down Acuna.
But the offense, which counts a 2-0 count as a rally, couldn’t match the defense. When Todd Frazier reached on a two-out error in the ninth, what remained of the 25,101 crowd went nuts. Not for long. Don’t forget, deGrom started.
“He does exactly what he wants to do. He can set you up, when you think you have him figured out,” said another Braves All-Star, Freddie Freeman. “But it’s fun. I like competing against the best and he’s a top-two pitcher in the game.”
The numbers just don’t show it.
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