Jacob deGrom silences Rockies as Mets get back on track

Jacob deGrom walked off the mound shaking his head after completing Thursday’s sixth inning. It was the only one all night, of course, in which the perfectionist didn’t post a zero on the scoreboard. 

The team co-ace’s fifth start since returning from the injured list was just as encouraging as the first four for the first-place Mets, who began a stretch of 20 of 23 games played against sub-.500 teams with a 3-1 win over the Rockies at Citi Field. 

Working with two extra days of rest since his previous outing one week earlier, deGrom retired the first 12 batters he faced and departed with a 3-1 lead after six innings. The two-time Cy Young winner allowed one run on three hits with one walk and nine strikeouts over an 87-pitch effort. 

Pete Alonso belted a two-run homer in support of deGrom, who improved to 3-1 with a 2.15 ERA over five starts since returning from the injured list this month. 

Max Scherzer also missed nearly seven weeks bridging May and July with an oblique strain, and deGrom finally made it back to the rotation on Aug. 2 — after missing nearly 13 months with shoulder issues. 

Even with their first-place standing for all but one calendar day of 2022, the Mets (80-46) certainly missed their co-aces. But perhaps, Buck Showalter was asked before the game, that means their arms have more left in reserve for the stretch run and the postseason due to their limited innings totals this season. 

“I hope so,” Showalter said. “You have to look first at what they were out with. Those things have resolved so far, but they’re always capable of cropping back up. But from an inning-count standpoint … it’s something we look at and take under advisement, as part of the total evaluation. 

“But you realize that it doesn’t always follow that perfectly. I wish it was that easy, but it’s human beings with a heartbeat and things change. The body and the things that it’s subjected to respond differently as you get older.” 

The 34-year-old deGrom didn’t look as if he aged at all during his time away, entering with 37 strikeouts in 23 ¹/₃ innings over his first four outings. He opened Thursday’s outing with seven strikeouts among the first dozen batters he faced over four perfect frames. 

The Mets had multiple base runners in two of the first three innings against Rockies righty Ryan Feltner, grabbing a 3-0 lead through three. 

Tyler Naquin (2-for-4) snapped an 0-for-19 skid with a single for runners on the corners in the third, but rookie Brett Baty — who went 1-for-4 in his Citi Field debut — struck out looking for the third out. 

Francisco Lindor and Alonso — each playing his 125th of the Mets’ first 126 games — combined to drive in all three runs in the third. After Lindor’s 85th RBI of the season came home on an infield out, Alonso crushed a 3-0 four-seam fastball from Feltner off the facing of the second deck in left-center for his team-best 31st homer of the year and a 3-0 lead. It was Alonso’s first home run this season while swinging at a 3-0 pitch and the third of his career. 

The Rockies finally got their first two base runners against deGrom in the fifth, on an infield single by Jose Iglesias and a double inside third base by Randal Grichuk. But deGrom stranded both runners in scoring position with a punchout of Sam Hilliard, his eighth of the game, and a fly-ball out by Brian Serven. 

The Rockies finally got to deGrom on Ryan McMahon’s one-out solo blast into the visiting bullpen in the sixth, but the four-time All-Star completed the inning by whiffing Charlie Blackmon and getting C.J. Cron to bounce into a force play for the third out. 

Seth Lugo escaped a self-induced bases-loaded jam in the seventh and closer Edwin Diaz worked a scoreless eighth against the middle of the Rockies’ lineup before Adam Ottavino recorded the final three outs in the ninth for his first save of the season.