Mets History: Look back at Jacob deGrom’s beginnings

The Mets have lots to thank Jacob deGrom for. But what would have happened had he not started that fateful game against the Yankees?

I thought this was a perfect time to think back to Jacob deGrom’s roots. Do you remember his debut? Or the hype that surrounded his promotion?

The New York Mets didn’t think much of Jake back in 2014, and neither did fans. That’s why I wanted to talk about the day that brought him to stardom, the day that had it gone any different, might not have led to the same career.

We all know that Jake made his debut on May 15th 2014 against the Yankees at Citi Field, but do we remember what led up to it?

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I was at the game the day before. It was my first subway series game and it was a big matchup back then. It was Rafael Montero making his debut versus Mashahiro Tanaka. That was a really hyped up matchup, and an hour before first pitch, nobody was talking about the matchup for the next game.

This was two days after Jake was called up, but he wasn’t going to be a starter. He was called up to pitch out of the bullpen after Gonzalez Germen was injured.

No big deal. At the time, Jake was a nobody. He pitched well in the minors before being promoted, but he didn’t even enter the year as a top 20 Mets prospect.

So we’re standing in the line waiting to get in and there’s an announcement that Dillon Gee went and injured himself. He was supposed to start the next game and it was announced that Jake was going to start instead.

Again, it wasn’t really all that big, the game was going to feature two pitchers making their debuts, it was jake against Chase Whitley. Jake quickly made his name known as he gave up just one run over seven innings.

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He did well, and stayed in the rotation, even after Gee returned, despite losing his first four decisions. But as we all know, the dominance from his debut stayed as he went on to win rookie of the year that season and the rest history.