NEW YORK -- The New York Mets are concerned enough about Matt Harvey that they attempted to hold a quasi-secret 25-minute session off the main Citi Field mound on Saturday. Should they have some concerns about Jacob deGrom too?
The bats (sans an ailing Lucas Duda) and the bullpen (with impressive work from Hansel Robles and Addison Reed) bailed out deGrom on Saturday. The Mets rallied from 4-1 down to tie the Milwaukee Brewers on Yoenis Cespedes' home run and win 5-4 on David Wright's walk-off hit.
It was their first walk-off win since July 31, when Wilmer Flores hit his “tears of joy” home run to beat the Washington Nationals. Cespedes’ 31 home runs since Aug. 1 are one shy of the major league lead, which is amazingly shared by Khris Davis and Chris Davis. Wright's eight walk-off hits are the most in Mets history. He snapped a tie with Rusty Staub, Kevin McReynolds and Ed Kranepool and bounced back from being booed after striking out for the 50th time this season.
There was plenty of jubilation to go with the Mets’ second straight comeback win. But deGrom’s so-so start still loomed as a little troubling.
DeGrom entered Saturday with a 2.50 ERA, but the combination of vastly different peripherals than usual, an inability to sustain the fastball velocity he showed last season for more than two innings and a rough outing against a Ryan Braun-less Brewers lineup raises at least some potential concerns.
DeGrom entered the day with a best-in-the-majors 1.03 career ERA in 11 career home day games but gave up a season-high four runs. DeGrom was hit moderately hard, though not overly so, and did strike out a season-high seven. But consider who was doing the hitting:
Right fielder Ramon Flores, batting No. 8 in the lineup with a .198 career batting average, homered and drove in three.
DeGrom entered the day allowing hard-hit balls in 20 percent of at-bats against him. That number might have gone down a hair on Saturday afternoon, but it’s still nearly double his rate from last season. In 2015, he had the eighth-lowest hard-hit rate in the majors; entering Saturday, he ranked 16th worst.
It took 100 pitches for deGrom to get 15 outs. His five innings matched his shortest start of the season.
DeGrom also walked three for the second straight start. He didn’t have a streak of two such starts all last season. After hitting 94 and 95 mph on the radar gun repeatedly in the first inning, he dropped to 92 and 93 mph most of the rest of the way. His average fastball velocity entering the day was 92.4 mph; he averaged 94.9 mph with the pitch last season.
This could have been a case of the numbers simply catching up to deGrom. The sabermetric statistic xFIP, which is a future ERA estimator based on a pitcher’s strikeouts, walks and fly balls allowed, pegged deGrom at 3.97, much higher than the 2.50 he had entering Saturday. DeGrom’s ERA and xFIP have historically been within about 0.3 to 0.4 of each other, and the two numbers moved closer together on Saturday. His xFIP stayed the same, but his ERA jumped more than half a point to 3.07.
Prior to the game, fans were treated to a video interview with Harvey, in which he was asked who his best friend on the team was. His pick: deGrom, since the two always seem to be together in all their baseball activities. Though deGrom’s struggles aren’t nearly the same statistical stratosphere as Harvey’s, the two might end up further bonding over this, as well.