The Texas Rangers removed Jacob deGrom due to injury in the fourth inning of Friday’s matchup with the Yankees. Manager Bruce Bochy told reporters postgame that deGrom had experienced some forearm tightness but called the removal a “precautionary” measure (relayed by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). He will be reevaluated on Saturday.
It’s already the second time this season in which deGrom has left a start early. He experienced some wrist soreness during an appearance against the Royals a couple weeks back. deGrom maintained at the time he would make his next start and he did just that. Any mention of forearm discomfort is more alarming than wrist soreness, though, considering that forearm tightness can be a precursor to ligament issues in the elbow.
deGrom’s recent injury history was the primary question when he hit free agency this past offseason. There was no doubt of his brilliance when right, but health concerns kept him off the mound for over a full calendar year between 2021-22. deGrom left a few starts early during the 2021 campaign before a midsummer forearm issue that wound up cutting his season short.
Forearm tightness sent him to the injured list around the All-Star Break that season, with then-Mets’ president Sandy Alderson later saying that deGrom had been dealing with a low-grade tear in his UCL, an eyebrow-raising assertion considering the right-hander had already undergone Tommy John surgery before making his MLB debut. The pitcher refuted that assertion, calling his ligament “perfectly fine.”
While he returned from that forearm issue for the start of the 2022 season, deGrom was then diagnosed with a stress reaction in his scapula (shoulder blade). That prevented him from making his season debut until August. Once he returned to the mound, deGrom proved as effective as ever, striking out a laughable 42.4 percent of opposing hitters over 11 starts.
Texas made deGrom the centerpiece of a pitching-focused offseason, inking him to a five-year, $185M deal and the Rangers have gotten exactly what they’d hoped for from the two-time Cy Young winner thus far. At least when he has been on the mound. With Friday’s appearance accounted for, he is up to 30 1/3 innings of 2.67 ERA ball. deGrom has punched out an elite 39.1 percent of batters faced while walking just 3.5 percent of opponents.
The Rangers’ revamped rotation entered play on Friday with a collective 3.82 ERA, the ninth-lowest mark in the majors. deGrom and Martín Pérez have been excellent. Nathan Eovaldi has quality strikeout and walk numbers but a middling ERA, while the opposite is true of Jon Gray. Andrew Heaney has a strong strikeout rate but been a little homer-prone through his first few starts of the campaign.
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