deGrom Leaves Game with Injury After One-Hit Gem

Tonight the New York Mets took on the San Diego Padres at Citi Field for the first of a three game series. Eh? Most fans look at mid-June non-divisional games as no big deal. If you watch it, great. If you don’t, no big deal. Tonight was different. Sure the Padres have two of the game’s biggest stars in Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado. They even have one of baseball’s best pitchers in Yu Darvish, though he wasn’t pitching tonight.

No, it wasn’t the star power of the Padres that brought the biggest crowd in two years to Citi Field. No, it was a familiar face to the Amazin’ fan base. They came to see Jacob deGrom. Met fans and others came in large numbers and they were loud. My nephew is a huge Mets fan and lives in Connecticut. I jokingly asked him if he was going tonight and he replied, “yeah, I felt like I had to, right?” When a player is playing at that level, you go see them.

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Every decade or so there seems to be an athlete that performs on such a high level above the others in their sport, that the sports world takes notice. People begin to schedule their time to be able to watch those athletes perform. That is happening, as it did with Michael Jordan, Pedro Martinez and Tom Brady. That is happening now with Jake deGrom. If he is pitching, people are watching, not just Mets fans, not just baseball fans but a lot of people. People are interested in amazing athletes. Jake is an amazing athlete.

The crowd tonight at Citi Field was electric from the moment deGrom began his walk from the bullpen prior to the game. Chants of “MVP” directed at Jake dominated the first 6 innings until he departed after 80 pitches. deGrom gave up 1 hit, struck out 10 and walked none. 53 of the 80 pitches were strikes.

Jake left with the score 3-0. The Mets eventually won 3-2. deGrom picked up his 3rd straight victory for the first time since 2018 and that’s only because the Mets never score runs for him. Unfortunately, reports came out in the 8th that deGrom left the game with “right flexor tendinitis.” deGrom said he does "tendon tests" on his own and he is "pretty optimistic I will be out there in 5 days." We will keep you updated on The Drive with Charlie and Dan.