The New York Mets have been one of baseball’s best teams in 2022 even though Jacob deGrom has missed the entire season. But the two-time National League Cy Young Award winner will soon return to New York’s rotation.
Buck Showalter had previously said that deGrom would return next week. Now, we have a specific date. It was announced on Saturday that deGrom will make his season debut on Tuesday against the Washington Nationals.
When healthy, deGrom is arguably MLB’s best pitcher — and the argument against him may not be that strong. Since 2018, he’s posted a 1.94 ERA, 0.881 WHIP a 12.0 K/9 rate and a 1.8 BB/9 mark. He hasn’t thrown a Major League pitch in over a year. But before getting hurt in 2021, deGrom had a 1.08 ERA, 0.554 WHIP, a 14.3 K/9 rate and a BB/9 ratio of only 1.1.
He’s a stud. News of his return was met with a lot of excitement from the MLB world.
deGrom’s return gives the Mets a starting rotation that opposing hitters won’t be excited to face.
Entering Saturday’s game, the Mets sat at 62-37, putting them three games ahead of the Atlanta Braves for the National League East lead. Finally having the 1-2 punch of deGrom and Max Scherzer atop the rotation will make New York hard to catch and probably even harder to defeat in a short postseason series.