The prospect of seeing Mets ace Jacob deGrom pitch again this season just keeps taking hits. The latest news is that it'll be at least another two weeks before deGrom throws again. Mets manager Luis Rojas said as much on his daily Zoom with reporters:
Luis Rojas says Jacob deGrom is slightly improving but "there's gonna be two more weeks of no throw" pic.twitter.com/1A6kk7QIjC
— SNY (@SNYtv) August 13, 2021
It's good to hear something like "slightly improving," but another two weeks without throwing is a dagger. deGrom has said that he's confident he'll return from his forearm injury this season, but I'm not joining him in that confidence -- at least not as a starter.
Two weeks from today is Aug. 27th. Let's say he can then start throwing off flat ground. There's a process pitchers go through to build back up to game shape. Just working backward from the last day of the season, Oct. 3, it's getting more and more difficult to see him working his way up to a starter's workload.
Perhaps he can get into a groove as a reliever and start to build his stamina to the point he's starting toward the end of September, but with this many setbacks, the feeling isn't optimistic.
deGrom, 33, was the NL Cy Young frontrunner before this injury. In 15 starts this season, he's 7-2 with a 1.08 ERA, 0.55 WHIP and 146 strikeouts against 11 walks in 92 innings. He's still among the league leaders in WAR due to just how good he's been, but he's losing an awful lot of volume to the point that he's probably no longer a threat to win his third Cy Young in the last four years.
More importantly would be the Mets here. They are a half-game behind the Phillies for first place in a three-team NL East race. Not getting deGrom back at all really hampers their chances to win it.
