So what is normal anyway?
Well, there are some things it is not. Such as trying to pitch — the home opener no less — while awaiting word of your wife’s impending labor. Or suffering lat tightness, especially on the Mets, where “lat” could be transposed with “epidemic” among pitchers. Or making starts 16 days apart as a result.
Welcome to Jacob deGrom’s abnormal April.
“It has been a little weird, hasn’t it?” catcher Kevin Plawecki said.
The Mets are looking forward to deGrom’s Saturday start against the Giants at Citi Field because it could represent a return to normalcy for the former National League Rookie of the Year. Perhaps the hardest element to deal with for deGrom was worry about his newborn son, Jaxon Anthony, who remained in the hospital for a week after his birth.
Pitching against a major league team should seem like a piece of cake in comparison. DeGrom will get the ball Saturday for his third start with a mind free and clear of worries about labor and lats and hospitals.
“I think it helps him a lot,” manager Terry Collins said. “As I’ve said before, there is a pattern you get in as a baseball player that this is what you do. And every fifth day, when you’re out there every fifth day, you just are in a comfort zone. And when you’re not, you’re scrambling.”
Comfort zones, as a rule, don’t last 16 days. DeGrom, who declined comment Friday before the Mets blasted the Giants, 13-1, in the first game of the series, pitched the home opener April 8 and beat the Phillies, working six innings and surrendering one earned run. That was the game when he basically had an Uber car outside the exit in case wife Stacey went into labor. But while his mind wandered, his pitches did not, and he struck out six and customarily walked none.
He endured the lat tightness and the concerns over his son, however, and returned to the mound April 24 in Atlanta and beat the struggling Braves, lasting 5 ²/₃ innings, fanning three, walking none and surrendering one earned run. He has not walked anyone in 13 ²/₃ innings dating to last season.“When you have to throw an extra bullpen [session] or you’ve got a couple extra days or, ‘Geez, [we’ve] got to bring you back on short rest,’ it just kind of throws them out of whack. And that’s why I’m really anxious to see Jake in more of a pattern,” Collins said. “I think it will help him. The fact that things at home are settled down, I think it will ease his mind a little bit, and I think it will help him prepare a little bit better.
“Everybody shows their emotions in different ways. In Atlanta, he was excited to get away from what he was dealing with, with the baby and everything. He was excited to get back to baseball,” Plawecki said of the “low key” deGrom. “I don’t see [Saturday] being any different. When it’s his time to pitch, he’s locked in and ready to go. Everything at home now seems like it’s quieted down. Hopefully, his head is clear and he’s ready to go. I know he will be.”
Collins is thrilled at the prospect of having normalcy back for deGrom and for all his rotation.
“But those guys, he and Matt [Harvey] — even though Noah [Syndergaard] hasn’t shown signs of it — as it starts to warm up and we start to get into more of a consistent pattern, I think you’re going to see some pretty dynamic pitching.”
Not that it hasn’t been good so far, but that’s just normal for the Mets.
