Not The Same Score

The Mets played their first of their periodic West Coast 10pm games last night. In my salad days, I thought nothing of staying up into the wee hours of the night watching or listening to these games, no matter how long they might drag out. But in the same vein that I no longer feel like I need to sit out in arctic cold Citi Field when the Mets are losing 7-2, I also can't necessarily make it all the way through these 10pm West Coast starts.

Sometimes, however, I do, and last night was one of those nights. To be fair, I did fall asleep sometime between the 4th and 6th innings. My other half had insistently gone to watch her stories on TV (Revolutionary War show du jour), and so I relented, opting instead to turn on the radio and let Howie and Josh tell the story for me. I don't so much mind this, however on this night they basically lulled me to sleep. Maybe it's just that San Diego gives off such a laid-back feel. Whatever it was, I innocuously shut my eyes with the Mets leading 2-0. Some time later I opened my eyes and the Mets were ahead 6-0, and I had no idea what the hell was going on.

What I did know was that Jacob deGrom was working on a Perfect Game at the time, because Howie, as is his wont, said something to the effect of "deGrom has retired all 15 batters he's faced so far," with the fitting segue to Johan Santana's No Hitter-iversary following immediately. Then, of course, someone got a hit for the Padres and there went the evening's major storyline.

Regardless of whether or not he threw a Perfect Game, it was still a very fine outing for deGrom, who has now reeled off three consecutive outings where he's been in complete control. He has two wins to show for it, of course the Mets did win the other game as well, no thanks to their bullpen, but it seems like he's getting better and better with each outing. His 8 inning effort last night featured a stingy 2 hits, an even stingier no walks and 8 strikeouts, as his ERA for the season dropped to 2.41.

deGrom was aided by the Mets offense scoring 7 runs, which is kind of unheard of for them to do in San Diego, because the Mets have played 33 games at Petco Park and lost 29 of them by the score of 2-1, so any time they can go into San Diego and score more than 1 run, it's a moral victory even if they lose the game. I don't believe they've ever scored as many as 7 there. Daniel Murphy led the charge with 4 hits—he's actually been hitting more of late, which is nice because it heightens his trade value, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking this is going to be a long-term thing. It helped particularly because Lucas Duda was out with a Marlin-induced knee injury (and a note to Matt Harvey to stick one in Dee Gordon's ribs the next time they see each other), so whenever other guys can pick up the slack that's a nice thing.

Regardless, deGrom didn't need so much offense in order to wipe out the Padres on this evening. I think it's time to just admit to the fact that my man is a really good Pitcher.