July 1, 2021: Braves beat Mets as Jacob deGrom’s ERA rises to 0.95

After suffering a 20-2 beatdown to the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park on June 30, 2021, the New York Mets hoped their ace Jacob deGrom would start the month of July on a more positive note against their division rivals.

The Mets won eight of deGrom’s starts in a row from May 9 through June 26. New York averaged more than four runs in those games, which was ample support for the stellar right-hander. DeGrom surrendered just four runs in 43 innings in that span, good for a 0.84 ERA. Even more remarkable was that his season ERA had actually increased to 0.69 during that stretch. Tunneling his glove-side1 triple-digit four-seam fastball with a lethal put-away slider was the formula for much of deGrom’s success in his 2018 and 2019 National League Cy Young Award campaigns. Unlike the balanced approach more typically used by other starters, deGrom retired batters throwing a fastball or slider roughly 90 percent of the time.2

During deGrom’s complete-game 15-strikeout shutout against the Washington Nationals on April 23, Keith Hernandez, providing color commentary on New York’s SNY, gave high praise to the Mets pitcher, saying he had not seen that caliber of dominance even on “Doc [Gooden’s] best days.”3 Hernandez was the Mets’ first baseman during Dwight Gooden’s 1985 NL Cy Young Award season, a singular pitching performance in franchise history. DeGrom’s first half suggested a challenge to Bob Gibson’s hallowed 1.12 ERA in 1968, the lowest mark for any starting pitcher since the Deadball Era.

The Mets entered the July 1 game in first place in the NL East Division, with a 42-35 record. The Braves had a 38-41 record, 5 games behind New York. It was the rubber match of a three-game series.

DeGrom faced the Braves earlier in 2021, throwing five innings of one-hit shutout ball in the first game of a doubleheader on June 21. Atlanta opposed him with Ian Anderson, a 23-year-old righty in his first full season in the majors. Anderson entered with a 5-4 record and a 3.42 ERA. He’d pitched twice against the Mets in 2021, winning one and losing one.

The Mets struck early against Anderson. After a Francisco Lindor walk and stolen base, Michael Conforto ripped a single into right-center for a 1-0 lead.

When deGrom took the mound in the first inning in 2021, he was unhittable. Batters facing him in the first were a collective 1-for-39 in his first 13 starts, with the previous 37 hitters being sent down consecutively.4

Ronald Acuña Jr., the Braves’ usual leadoff man, was a late scratch after dealing with mid-back tightness. Ehire Adrianza took his place in the lineup and brought deGrom back down to earth by scorching a chopper down the right-field line for a leadoff triple. After striking out reigning NL MVP Freddie Freeman on three sliders, deGrom surrendered a single to Ozzie Albies that tied the game. That was the first earned run allowed by deGrom on the road in 2021.

With Austin Riley at the plate, deGrom tried to paint the outside corner with a fastball, but Riley, who led the 2021 Braves in homers and RBIs, drove it out to right field and over the wall for a two-run homer. In a flash the Braves had a 3-1 lead against the best pitcher in the league. It was the first time all season that deGrom had given up more than one earned run in an inning.5

During his postgame interview, deGrom said, “I felt like I made my pitch and he was able to get a bat to it and hit it over the fence, so that’s one I just gotta tip my hat to [Riley].”6

After Guillermo Heredia grounded out to end the inning, an agitated deGrom approached his backstop, James McCann, and said a few words to him before slamming his glove on the bench. SNY broadcasters Gary Cohen and Ron Darling speculated that the Mets pitcher was upset with McCann, but deGrom clarified that he was asking his catcher “how did [Riley] hit that!?” DeGrom said he told pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, “That’s all they get.”7

It looked as if deGrom would eat his words in the bottom of the second after Abraham Almonte doubled and Kevan Smith singled to put Braves at the corners with nobody out. But that was the furthest deGrom bent. Anderson, Adrianza, and Freeman struck out swinging to leave the runners stranded. After that, deGrom was spotless in his remaining five innings of work.

DeGrom struck out eight consecutive batters in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, the fourth time he had accomplished such a feat in his career. As of 2024, this was two more than any other pitcher in major-league history. Mets manager Luis Rojas said of deGrom, “He gets upset when he gives up a run. And it’s not because of this year, because of the numbers that he’s had for the season that are historic. It’s just the way he is. He’s always been like that.”8 As uncharacteristic as those three runs in the first were for deGrom, they fueled him the rest of his outing.

While deGrom kept the Braves off the board, the Mets could not scratch another run across against Anderson and still trailed by two runs heading into the seventh. Left fielder Dominic Smith led off with his seventh home run of the year, cutting the deficit in half. The next three Mets grounded out.

DeGrom closed out his outing by setting down the Braves in order thanks in part to savvy glove work by third baseman Luis Guillorme and Lindor at short. He retired his last 18 batters in a row for a final box score line of 7 IP, 14 K, 0 BB, 3 ER. This was deGrom’s fourth start in 2021 with at least 14 punchouts, the most in a team’s first 78 games since Hall of Famer Randy Johnson in 1999.9 Despite deGrom’s turning in another quality start, the game turned out to be the worst start of his 2021 season in terms of earned runs allowed, and inflated his 0.69 ERA to 0.95.

The Braves took a 3-2 lead to the top of the ninth, but Dominic Smith led off by lofting a 1-and-1 pitch from Braves closer Will Smith into the right-field seats for his second homer of the game. It was a tie game, and deGrom was off the hook.

Seth Lugo came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth. Heredia turned a swinging bunt into two bases10 on a throwing error from Lugo. Pinch-hitter Pablo Sandoval grounded out softly to the pitcher, moving the winning run to third. After striking out Kevan Smith, Lugo intentionally walked Acuña – who had pinch-hit in the eighth and remained in the game in right – and walked Ender Inciarte after eight pitches. Freeman lined the first pitch he saw up the middle and off Lugo’s foot.11 The ricochet deflected to Guillorme, who made a barehand effort to throw out Freeman, but it was late. Not a single batted ball left the infield, but the Braves had a walk-off victory.

Jacob deGrom made his final appearance of the season on July 7, when he suffered a season-ending elbow injury.12 He posted a 7-2 record and an ERA of 1.08 in 92 innings, a line that earned him a ninth-place finish in the NL Cy Young Award voting despite missing the entire second half. The Mets finished third in the division with a record of 77-85 and failed to clinch a postseason berth. The Braves not only captured their fourth consecutive NL East title, but also their fourth World Series championship, defeating the Houston Astros in six games.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other pertinent material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL202107010.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2021/B07010ATL2021.htm

Photo credit: Jacob deGrom, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Tunneling is the concept of throwing different pitches consecutively with similar trajectories to give the impression of a repeated pitch the batter has seen in that plate appearance. Against right-handed hitters, deGrom’s plan of attack often was to throw a fastball on the outside edge of the strike zone and follow that up with a slider down the same “tunnel” but tail out of the zone in hopes of inducing a swing and miss. This location for right-handed pitchers is sometimes called the “glove-side” with respect to the glove being worn on the pitcher’s left hand. Jon Roegele, “The Effects of Pitch Sequencing,” Fangraphs.com, November 24, 2014, https://tht.fangraphs.com/the-effects-of-pitch-sequencing/?from=saberarchive.

2 David Adler, “The 3 Ways deGrom Has Gotten Even Better,” MLB.com, June 10, 2021, https://www.mlb.com/news/jacob-degrom-2021-changes.

3 Matt Snyder, “Mets’ Jacob deGrom Keeps Making Pitching History, Also Contributing with the Bat,” CBSSports.com, April 23, 2021, https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mets-jacob-degrom-keeps-making-pitching-history-also-contributing-with-the-bat/.

4 Jordan Horrobin, “deGrom Dominates (14 K’s) after Difficult 1st,” MLB.com, July 2, 2021, https://www.mlb.com/news/jacob-degrom-dominates-after-difficult-1st-inning.

5 The Colorado Rockies scored three unearned runs against deGrom in the fifth inning of the first game of their doubleheader against the Mets on April 17.

6 Horrobin.

7 Horrobin.

8 Horrobin.

9 https://stathead.com/tiny/aYGJ2.

10 Horrobin.

11 “Freddie Freeman’s Walk-Off Single,” MLB.com, July 1, 2021, https://www.mlb.com/video/freddie-freeman-singles-on-a-ground-ball-to-third-baseman-luis-guillorme-.

12 Dessha Thosar, “Mets’ Jacob deGrom will not pitch again this season,” New York Daily News, September 29, 2021, https://www.nydailynews.com/2021/09/28/jacob-degrom-will-not-pitch-again-this-season-mets-ace-shut-down-after-frustrating-year-of-injuries/.