Jacob deGrom Should Finally Get the National 'Ace' Attention He Deserves

The national stage was his to do with as he pleased.

No one else was there to share the attention. Not an ace teammate, not an ultra-hyped prospect teammate. Not the other team in the same city. 

Jacob deGrom had the spotlight to himself last week, and he performed the way a superstar does when it’s time to shine. He became the first pitcher in All-Star Game history to strike out three hitters in an inning using 10 pitches or fewer, nearly completing the Midsummer Classic’s first immaculate inning—nine pitches, three strikeouts—in Tuesday’s sixth inning.

“Because I knew I had just one inning, I was just letting it go," deGrom, whose eight fastballs in the inning were between 96-98 mph while his season average is below 95, told reporters. "It flew by so I hope I can be here again." 

It flew by for the opposing hitters, too.

“I blinked and I was walking back already," Cleveland Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis told reporters afterward. He was the second strikeout sandwiched between Oakland A’s catcher Stephen Vogt and Detroit Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias.

DeGrom, the New York Mets’ 27-year-old second-year right-hander, was marvelous against some of the best hitters the American League had to offer, highlighting why he deserves to start getting the kind of attention and recognition worthy of the game’s elite starters.

The All-Star performance was electric, showing why deGrom has been the horse of the Mets rotation since he debuted in May of last season. He was never a highly touted prospect, failing to register in the top 100 of any major publication’s prospect list entering 2014. But once he debuted with a seven-inning, one-run outing against the big brother New York Yankees, he became a Mets sensation.

DeGrom won the National League Rookie of the Year award last year with a 2.69 ERA, 144 strikeouts in 140.1 innings and a 132 ERA+. Despite that, he entered this season overshadowed by ace Matt Harvey’s return from Tommy John surgery.

Even with Harvey in the rotation, though, it is deGrom who is heading it in 2015. He has a 2.14 ERA, fifth-lowest in the majors, in 17 starts; a 0.924 WHIP, the third-lowest in the majors; nearly nine strikeouts per nine innings; and he has a 173 OPS+, tied for the fourth-best in the majors.

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Jacob deGrom won't say it, but he's clearly surpassed Matt Harvey as #Mets ace http://t.co/h0qK0kGVUH pic.twitter.com/CnFBTgIvEP

— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) July 9, 2015"

Those first-half numbers were good enough to make him the lone Mets representative in the All-Star Game.

“I wanted to prove that it wasn’t luck,” deGrom told reporters during All-Star media availability. “Everybody says your second year’s your toughest year.”

That may be true, but even more true is the fact that pitchers who have won the Rookie of the Year award recently have largely struggled sustaining their careers beyond a couple of seasons. Pitchers believed to be budding stars who have flamed out, either because of injury or sliding production, after earning the honor include Jeremy Hellickson of the Tampa Bay Rays (2011), Neftali Feliz of the Texas Rangers (2010) and Jason Jennings of the Colorado Rockies (2002).

DeGrom sustaining the success he’s achieved over 39 career starts is now vital for the contending Mets. They currently sit two games behind the Washington Nationals in the NL East and two games out of the second wild-card spot behind the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants. They start a critical three-game series in Washington on Monday.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Harvey has been solid but not the ace he was over his first 36 starts before missing all of 2014 with his elbow injury. Highly touted prospect Noah Syndergaard has been quite good in his 12 starts—3.05 ERA and 2.69 FIP—but is on a strict innings limit, as is Harvey and fellow highly rated prospect Steven Matz, who was dominant in his two starts before landing on the disabled list with a lat injury.

DeGrom is also on a limit after throwing 178 combined innings between the minors and majors last season. He has never reached 180 in any year, so it is worth paying attention to his performance as he nears that total in 2015—he is at 113.2 as of Monday. His cap will be somewhere slightly higher than 200 innings this season, which gets him into murky water if the Mets happen to make the postseason.

To combat the limits affecting the club later in the season, the Mets have fiddled with a six-man rotation for portions of the year, but getting deGrom the ball as much as possible in the second half is likely to be key in earning their first playoff berth since 2006.

DeGrom is now permanently in the spotlight. Attention will be focused on him even more now that he’s broken out in a historic way on a national stage. And even though some, such as Andy Martino of the New York Daily News, believe Harvey is still the team’s ace, deGrom is now the man carrying the team’s aspirations on his shoulders.

Over the next two-plus months, he will finally begin receiving the national attention he has earned as the team’s best pitcher.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.