NEW YORK -- Although his performance ended up an afterthought in the New York Mets' extra-inning loss, Jacob deGrom's streak of dominance continued Saturday.
After surrendering a first-inning solo homer to Atlanta Braves slugger Freddie Freeman, deGrom tossed six scoreless frames. He ended up with a no-decision in the 5-3 loss at Citi Field.
Freeman's homer snapped deGrom's streak of homerless innings at 40 1/3.
Still, deGrom's streak of never allowing more than three earned runs in a home start continued. DeGrom has now gone 18 starts at Citi Field without allowing more than three earned runs -- passing Jerry Koosman (1967-68) for the longest home streak by a Met to begin a career.
DeGrom is 4-0 with a 1.25 ERA in his past six starts.
"I'm keeping the ball down, getting ground balls," deGrom said. "There in the first I left one over the middle to Freddie and he got it. Other than that, I think it's just being able to throw any pitch when I want."
Manager Terry Collins noted deGrom could have gone deeper than seven innings had third baseman Danny Muno not committed errors behind him that upped the right-hander's pitch count. DeGrom was pulled at 102 pitches after seven innings.
“When you give up outs, pitches add up,” Collins said. “So you’re looking at two hitters, three hitters more that he’s got to face than he normally would have to face. You’re looking instead of being 102 or 103 or whatever he was at the time, he might be at 90. It’s a whole different situation for sure.”
