The New York Post e-Edition

Amazin’s ace emphatically puts injury concerns to rest while passing umpires’ inspections

Ken Davidoff

ON THIS historic day at Citi Field, two observations: 1. Only a chump will get caught with sticky stuff on his person.

2. Only a champ can upend Jacob deGrom

The best pitcher in baseball, coincidentally (by virtue of the schedule) the first hurler in baseball history to be proactively searched for foreign substances, twice received clearance. No surprise there; deGrom can attribute his vast success to velocity which, unlike spin rate, can’t magically in- crease via

Spider

Tack

Pelican

Grip or any other such adhesive.

More important for the ace and his club, deGrom broke his alarming streak of consecutive starts cut short by injury at two, tossing five dominant innings Monday to lead the Mets to a 4-2 victory over the Braves in Game 1 of this doubleheader (Atlanta won the nightcap, 1-0) and quieting the objections raised by many, present company included, over moving forward with the right-hander rather than sidelining him out of an abundance of caution.

“I do not like coming out of baseball games [early],” said deGrom, who lowered his ERA to a ridiculous 0.50. “Hopefully that last one was the last time this year.”

Indeed, deGrom looked so little the worse for wear that, if not for the failure of Mets outfielders Albert Almora Jr. and Dom Smith to track down Kevan Smith’s fifth-inning fly ball to left-center

SPORTS

en-us

2021-06-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://nypost.pressreader.com/article/282501481594114

New York Post