Jacob deGrom’s run support overshadows stellar outings with Mets

Jacob deGrom’s run support holds a special place in the library of annoying modern baseball discourse.

It’s annoying partially because it is reductive—yes, it is true that he does not often receive significant run support, but “often” is not “always, forever, indubitably.” (The narrative of a guaranteed vanishing offense has gotten especially banged up this season: Before deGrom’s start on Monday, the Mets were 8–2 behind him in 2020.) It’s annoying because it is hacky—not just an easy joke but a weak one. If it’s fair to note that the Mets’ organizational spirit frequently feels less like that of a baseball team and more like some exercise in absurdist humor, it’s also fair to demand that the jokes meet a higher standard, focused on the real material. (Or did you miss the mysteriously dark smoke wafting over the stadium on Sunday?) And the deGrom-run-support conversation is annoying most of all because it is boring. There’s so much else to say about deGrom. He pitches in a way that should inspire poetry or quasi-religious devotion or, possibly, back-to-back-to-back Cy Young Awards. If your primary takeaway after one of his starts is how few runs he did or did not have to work with—you likely missed a hell of a pitching performance.