More fun with the deGrom
Different versions of our new statistic, plus the Mets heading to face their archrivals
Trivia question: On April 25, 1986, Dwight Gooden pitched a five-hit shutout at Busch Stadium, part of a four-game weekend sweep that buried the Mets’ pain of 1985 and the Cardinals’ hopes of 1986 – the defending world champions were under .500 from that series until September, by which point they were 22 games out of first place.
Later in 1986, Bob Ojeda tossed a shutout in St. Louis, as did Ron Darling in 1988 and Sid Fernandez in 1989. But since the 1980s ended, only one Mets starter has thrown a shutout in St. Louis. Who is he?
Digging deeper into The deGrom
By Jesse Spector
Last week, we introduced The deGrom, a new baseball stat that is awarded to any pitcher who works at least five innings, allows no runs, and does not get a decision. Jacob deGrom is two deGroms off Greg Maddux’s career record total of 16… in 546 fewer games pitched.
As the Mets’ ace continues working his way toward better health and making his 2022 season debut, deGrom also will start his campaign “needing” a pair of deGroms to tie for this year’s lead. That’s because on Saturday, the Padres failed to give Yu Darvish any support while he was on the mound tossing six innings of one-hit ball against the Dodgers. Unlike in Darvish’s previous deGrom on April 7 at Arizona, though, the Padres went on to win this one.
Darvish has two of this season’s 17 deGroms, and teams are 9-8 when they have a pitcher turn one in and their hitters turn their backs. Oddly enough, Saturday’s other deGrom was Martin Perez of the Rangers against the A’s, and not anyone in the Rays-Red Sox game, in which Tampa Bay took a combined no-hitter into the 10th inning, gave it up, then walked off with a 3-2 win. Boston and Tampa Bay combined to use 12 pitchers, last and least Hansel Robles – no, he didn’t really get a chance to point up on Kevin Kiermaier’s decisive homer, perhaps because it wasn’t hit vertically so much as it was a laser into the right field seats.
The 10-9 record for teams throwing deGroms this year includes three sets of dueling efforts…
April 9: Brad Keller (KC) vs. Zach Plesac (CLE) – Royals won, 1-0
April 17: Nestor Cortes (NYY) vs. Bruce Zimmermann (BAL) – Orioles won, 5-0
April 20: Sandy Alcantara (MIA) vs. Miles Mikolas (STL) – Cardinals won, 2-0
April 24: Eric Lauer (MIL) vs. Aaron Nola (PHI) — Brewers won, 1-0
The other pitchers who have thrown a deGrom this season: Corbin Burnes (MIL), Carlos Carrasco (NYM), Merrill Kelly (ARI), Michael Kopech (CHW), Jordan Montgomery (NYY), Martin Perez (TEX), Reiver Sanmartin (CIN), Julio Urias (LAD), Michael Wacha (BOS)
We’ll keep an eye on deGroms throughout the season, but also want to note that there can be an expanded version of the stat, and notes such as that Sanmartin’s is this season’s only relief deGrom. Alcantara, in the hardest of luck in his dueling deGrom with Mikolas, had 2022’s longest deGrom to date, eight innings – a “deGrom8.” The first of Darvish’s pair of deGroms this season was a no-hit bid, as he was pulled after issuing four walks and throwing 92 pitches in the season opener.
As you might imagine, the no-hit variation of the deGrom is rare but becoming less so the way that pitchers are being held to pitch and inning limits. There have been seven no-hit deGroms since the start of the pandemic (including one in relief by Joe Musgrove for the Padres last May), after none at all in 2019. To get the previous seven before COVID-19, you’d need to go back to 2014. And would you believe, of the 69 times that there’s been a hitless deGrom during their existence, there’s never been one by the Mets?
More deGrom facts and figures as we go, but for now, here are the career leaderboards for the longer versions of the deGrom…
deGrom6 Career Leaders
15: Justin Verlander
13: Roger Clemens, Jacob deGrom, Greg Maddux, CC Sabathia
12: Felix Hernandez
11: Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels, Jake Peavy, Jose Quintana, Rick Reuschel, Chris Sale, Julio Teheran
deGrom7 Career Leaders
12: Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux
11: Cole Hamels
10: Felix Hernandez, Don Sutton, Justin Verlander
9: Jacob deGrom, CC Sabathia, Chris Sale
8: Andy Benes, Kevin Brown, Madison Bumgarner, Chris Carpenter, Zack Greinke, Jimmy Key, Dennis Martinez, Jake Peavy, Rick Reuschel
deGrom8 Career Leaders
7: Greg Maddux, Don Sutton
6: Jim Perry, Tom Seaver
5: Kevin Appier, Ian Kennedy, Jerry Koosman, Phil Niekro, Rick Reuschel, Nolan Ryan, Chris Sale
deGrom9 Career Leaders
7: Don Sutton
6: Tom Seaver
5: Jim Perry
4: Jerry Koosman, Phil Niekro
3: Kevin Appier, Jim Bunning, Steve Carlton, John Denny, Dwight Gooden, Clay Kirby, Dennis Martinez, Jon Matlack, Carl Morton, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Luis Tiant, John Tudor
Look at those names! The Mets have been doing this to their aces forever… including twice to Bret Saberhagen, and most recently a Matt Harvey game in 2013 – the no-hit bid that Alex Rios broke up in the seventh with an infield single, and ended with Mike Baxter’s pinch-hit walk-off single in the 10th.
Behind Enemy (Base)Lines: St. Louis Cardinals
By Colleen Sullivan
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am glad the Mets have left the desert. There’s no way to really describe that Diamondbacks series other than “drunk,” but the Mets still came away with a fifth straight series win. Now It’s off to a city on a river – St. Louis!
2021 Cardinals: 90-72, 2nd in NL Central
The Cardinals finished 2021 five games behind the Brewers, then bounced out of the postseason in a Wild Card Game loss to the Dodgers. But their season wasn’t that simple.
September 2021 saw a franchise-record 17-game winning streak, starting with two wins against the Reds, followed by sweeping the Mets, Padres, Brewers, and Cubs. As a team, the Redbirds ended up with five Gold Gloves: Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Edman, Nolan Arenado, Harrison Bader, and Tyler O’Neill. You would think that with all those accolades, the Cards would have been a pretty good team. Maybe you also didn’t notice that they were in second place despite the 17-game winning streak, so something was off during the season.
Mike Shildt was dismissed at the end of the season in a move that was more about the other 145 games than the 17 straight the Cards won. Shildt had an unusual path through the organization in that he hadn’t played pro ball, and that he kept finding himself in new roles when others were shown the door. He took over as third base coach when Chris Maloney was reassigned in 2017 and was promoted to bench coach in 2018 when José Oquendo was brought as third base coach. Most notably in his career, Shildt was named interim manager when baseball supervillain Mike Matheny was fired in July 2018 for being one messy bitch. The Redbirds kept Shildt around for three additional seasons before showing him the door. Not to worry, the Padres picked him up for their coaching staff, and that’s going great.
2022 Cardinals: Okay, now what?
The Cardinals are sitting in first place under the management of 35-year-old Oliver Marmol (he’s the youngest manager of a MLB team). Marmol played in the Cardinals’ system from 2007-10, never getting above A-ball because he couldn’t hit, so naturally he became the hitting coach for St. Louis’ team in the Gulf Coast League and worked his way up from there. Most recently, he was the bench coach under Shildt after serving two years as first base coach.
Arenado (.364/.426/.727, 5 HR) and Edman (.313/.400/.563, 3 HR) are the only Cardinals off to much of a start offensively, with Goldschmidt homerless after 55 at-bats and Yadier Molina off to a 4-for-29 start with no extra-base hits because he’s super washed. I also keep forgetting that the Cards have Albert Pujols again for his (maybe) farewell tour of baseball, and definite farewell tour from his wife. Pujols is doing pretty well this season, 7-for-26 with a pair of dongs, the only Cardinal other than Arenado or Edman to go deep more than once in the first 14 games. For pitching, Jack Flaherty is on the 10-day IL, but this series has three marquee pitching matchups: Max Scherzer against Miles Mikolas on Monday, Chris Bassitt facing Jordan Hicks in the middle game, and Carlos Carrasco-Steven Matz in Wednesday’s matinee.
All in all, the Cardinals are a well-put-together team, so the Mets are in for some work. When hasn’t that been the case in St. Louis?
Trivia answer: The last Mets pitcher to throw a shutout in St. Louis was Bobby Jones on May 7, 1994, a “gem” in which he allowed eight hits and threw 143 pitches. The only run of the game came in the sixth inning, when John Cangelosi doubled and came around to score on another double by Kevin McReynolds.