By Williams Coppola/ Contributor Bronx Chronicle Sports
With Jacob deGrom on the hill Wednesday night at Citi Field and no room for error the Mets needed their ace to do what he has done all year for them and pitch like the Cy Young winner that he is. If I had a vote he would be clearing room on is mantel place for number two.
The Marlins started 24- year old Robert Dugger who has all of 32.1 innings in the majors coming into this game. With a top speed of 88 mph on his fastball and a collection of 70 to 72 hanging curve balls, it was just a matter of time before the Mets hitters would unload on this kid and boy did they.
Three runs in the first and four in the second were enough to support deGrom as the Mets beat the Marlins 10-3, It also furthered the cause for deGrom and getting a second straight NL Cy Young Award.
The four runs second inning was topped off by Peter Alonso’s 51st home run to deep left center field. A monster 437 foot shot that drove in both deGrom and Brandon Nimmo giving the Mets a 7-0 lead.
Just what the doctor ordered as they continued to chase the Milwaukee Brewers, trailing them by five games for that last wild card spot with five games to go in the season. Unfortunately the doctor arrived too late as the Brewers had already put six runs on the board in Cincinnati in the top of the first before the Mets even came to bat.
It would be nice to see deGrom win another Cy Young award and Alonso win the rookie of the year award (that’s a sure thing) and watch him either tie or surpass Aaron Judge’s rookie home record of 52. He has already set new Mets records for home runs with 51, home runs at home 25, total bases 340 and extra base hits with 83.
“I told them we fought hard,” manager Mickey Callaway said. He discussed the mood of his team and how they fought adversity to play meaningful baseball in August and September.
Alosno also has set the Mets rookie records for RBI’s 118, runs 99 and hits 151. He is also close to becoming the first Mets rookie to have 100 runs and 100 RBI.
But back to deGrom. He goes into the 7th inning pitching a 9-0 shutout having thrown 81 pitches and surrendering only two hits. Will we be seeing a complete game shutout? You may ask, what is a complete game shutout? Well I will explain. It is when a pitcher, yes one pitcher, pitches all nine innings in a game, does not allow a run and his arm doesn’t explode.
Well guess what? In his last start of the 2019 season and with a pitching line of 7 inn, 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 walk 7 strikeouts and 95 pitches thrown, 60 for strikes. He was taken out for a pinch hitter with a 9- run lead.
Pathetic to take him out after seven. The announced crowd of 21,471 deserved better as deGrom has pitched 23 scoreless innings over his last three starts. That’s just crazy!
You can read about all his amazing numbers for this year and in his career but the bottom line is that this is a real pitcher. He knows how to get outs and mixes things up on hitters by adding and subtracting speeds on all of his pitches, keeping them off balance and guessing on every pitch. If that is not Cy Young credentials, I don’t know what is.
So when the Reds went down in the bottom of the 9th in Cincinnati at 9:52 EST the Mets run for the wild card ended, and all the awards and amazing numbers this never quit club put up will not erase the bitter taste of coming that close.
Was it the bullpen? Was it the injuries. Was it the manager? How about the analytic geniuses who really call the shots?
All I know is that they gave us some real exciting baseball up to the last week of the season and though there are only four games left that may not mean anything to some, others will see not the end of a season but the beginning of the next.
This is a good team and they will only get better.
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