It didn't look like Jacob deGrom's night on Thursday, as the ace was uncharacteristically knocked around in the first inning against the Braves.
A triple, a single and a two-run home run gave Atlanta a 3-0 lead after deGrom had recorded just one out. Before the first inning was over, the Mets ace had allowed more runs in a game than he had all season.
A visibly frustrated deGrom slammed his glove as he entered the dugout, having just given the Braves a three-run lead and the Mets' struggling offense an immediate hole to climb out of.
"I gotta tip my hat to [Austin] Riley over there," deGrom said of the home run, the first he's allowed in his last seven starts. "I came in, I was really frustrated. I said to James 'How did he hit that?' I felt like I made my pitch and he was able to get a bat to it and hit it over fence. That's one that I just gotta tip my hat to him."
It was deGrom's first taste of early inefficiency this season, as he entered the night with a 0.69 ERA. But he quickly refocused and returned to his dominant self.
"I came in and I was pretty mad," deGrom said. "Then I said to [Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner], 'that's all they get.' I had to turn the page there and go out there and try to put up zeroes the rest of the game."
It didn't happen right away, but after getting in another jam in the second with runners at the corners and nobody out, deGrom returned to his Cy Young self, striking out three in a row to escape the threat, and two innings later, started a stretch of eight straight strikeouts to keep Atlanta at bay while the Mets battled back to tie it in the ninth.
At one point, deGrom had retired 18 straight batters, and overcame his disastrous beginning to turn in another quality start, allowing three runs over seven innings with 14 strikeouts to raise his ERA to 0.95.
It wasn't enough to get the Mets a win as they were walked off in the bottom of the ninth, but even in surrendering the most earned runs and matching the most hits allowed in a start this season, deGrom showed a resiliency that he hadn't had to display yet this season, showing his ability to find his peak stuff mid-start, a promising sign for a dominant ace who can't be expected to pile on zeroes every five days.
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