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Jeff Passan ESPN
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- ESPN MLB insider
Author of The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports
New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom will miss Opening Day after an imaging test showed a stress reaction in his right shoulder blade.
In a statement Friday, the Mets said deGrom would not pitch for up to four weeks and then be reevaluated.
DeGrom, 33, is widely considered the best pitcher in baseball. In 15 starts last season, he posted a 1.08 ERA and in 92 innings he hit 146 batters and walked just 11. But a variety of injuries caused him to miss starts and elbow pain kept him sidelined for the entire second half .
The shoulder blade or scapula is a vital bone in the throwing process. Stress reactions, which are bone injuries typically caused by repetitive motion, are rare in pitcher’s shoulders. Typically, stress reactions are cured by rest.
In mid-June 2014, St. Louis Cardinals starter Michael Wacha suffered a stress reaction in his right shoulder. He returned to the Cardinals rotation on September 4.
DeGrom, who won back-to-back National League Cy Young Awards in 2018-19 and finished ninth last season despite only playing half a season, should play an important role in the Mets’ effort to clear the spot the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves, who has won four consecutive NL East titles.
New York signed former Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer to a three-year, $130 million deal this winter to pair with deGrom at the top of his rotation. Scherzer is now expected to start Thursday against the Nationals on Opening Day.
In his two starts that spring, deGrom had shone, giving up a run in five innings and batting 10 without walking a batter. On Thursday, he felt a tightness in his right shoulder, prompting the team to do an MRI of deGrom’s arm on Friday morning.
While the shoulder — a tangle of overlapping muscles — looked clean, the bone sparked enough concern to shut down deGrom for the start of what might be his final season with the Mets. He said he plans to exit his contract after this season, in which he will be paid $33.5 million, but added that he “love[s] to be a Met” and that “it would be really cool to be one for my entire career”.
Selected by New York in the ninth round of the 2010 MLB Draft, deGrom has a career record of 77-53 with a 2.50 ERA and 1,505 strikeouts in 1,261⅔ innings.