ARLINGTON, Texas — Jacob deGrom entered Monday’s start against the Toronto Blue Jays with 1,728 career strikeouts. After a 2-1 loss to Toronto and 5 1/3 innings on the mound, deGrom’s total remains unchanged.
For the first time in his MLB career, deGrom failed to record a strikeout. The Blue Jays, who entered the contest with the American League’s fewest punchouts, tagged deGrom for two earned runs, including a Daulton Varsho solo home run.
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“I think guys are ready to hit from pitch one,” Varsho said. “I think everybody just made the right choices of what pitches to swing at.”
The Texas Rangers starter earned two Cy Youngs and became one of MLB’s top pitchers by locating pitches and missing bats, twice leading MLB in strikeouts. After missing most of the last two campaigns due to injury, deGrom’s strikeout rate is slightly down this season, but he still averaged over one an inning before Monday. The 36-year-old entered the Toronto start with a 32.7 percent whiff rate, sitting in the 90th percentile, per Baseball Savant.
But he earned just three swings and misses against the Jays, an eight percent whiff rate.
The Blue Jays’ plan of attack against deGrom was to avoid two-strike counts, Varsho said. Three of Toronto’s five hits off the Texas righty came in the first two pitches of an at-bat. While the Jays’ offence ranks 24th in runs scored, they’ve been one of the hardest groups in baseball to strike out. After Monday’s contest, they sit second in MLB with just 381 strikeouts, behind the San Diego Padres.
The Rangers’ starter still managed to hold Toronto’s bats to two runs, but the game pushed his season ERA up to 2.42. With Kevin Gausman throwing eight innings of one-run ball for Toronto, deGrom recorded his second loss of the year.
“He’s tough,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “You got to kind of take what you can get. But to have that against him was really impressive.”
(Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
