Jacob deGrom landed on the 10-day injured list after experiencing right-side tightness in Sunday’s start against the Arizona Diamondbacks, but both the New York Mets and the ace believe the setback will be short-lived.
DeGrom lasted only five innings Sunday before leaving the game after tossing two warmup pitches ahead of the top of the sixth inning. A trainer came out to the mound, and it was decided deGrom’s day was done. An MRI performed later Sunday revealed no significant injury, “nothing,” according to Mets manager Luis Rojas.
However, Sunday’s sudden departure followed deGrom being scratched from last Tuesday’s start due to lat inflammation.
Despite the understandable concerns over deGrom dealing with two separate injury issues in less than a week, the pitcher downplayed the severity of the situation.
“I want to be out there every fifth day,” deGrom said, via the New York Post. “That helped make this decision easier because I didn’t want it to result in turning it into something more serious. … Talking with the trainers and Dr. [David] Altchek, this was the right call, because if you continue to go out there and that’s aggravated and you do change your mechanics, then you could be looking at some serious time, not being able to repeat your delivery and being off.”
The Mets ace is once again off to a dominant start in 2021, which was to be expected given his outstanding pitching during spring training. Despite a 3-2 record due in large part to a severe lack of run support in his six starts, deGrom has posted a minuscule 0.68 ERA with 65 strikeouts to seven walks across 40 innings while posting a stunning 0.600 WHIP.
While the Mets are said to be “optimistic” that deGrom will only miss one start, the ace declined to guarantee as much. That said, the Mets understandably played it safe by placing the pitcher on IL. What’s more, deGrom is not necessarily worried about the setback evolving into a long-term issue.
“Level of concern is definitely not very high,” deGrom said. “This is minor, let’s keep it that way.”
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