After nine years as the ace of the New York Mets rotation, winning a Rookie of the Year Award, two Cy Young Awards, and three All-Star appearances, Jacob deGrom returns where he began: Citi Field. Degrom makes his first-ever start against his former team.

He was beloved in Queens. In 2018 he posted an ERA of 1.70 and in 2021 he was having a historic season when injury cut it short. His ERA was 1.08. 

His career was on a no-doubt-about-it Hall of Fame trajectory until it was riddled by injury. 

Then the Rangers shocked everyone by signing deGrom before the 2023 season. Even though his ’23 season was derailed by yet another arm injury, deGrom made an indelible impact. He started just six games, but the Rangers won all of them. They needed every one of those games as they barely squeaked into the wild card.

Making tonight’s game even bigger is now he’s trying to help the Rangers pull off the impossible September miracle. They won two out of three against Houston and swept Milwaukee to put themselves very much in the wildcard race. The wrinkle is, Seattle caught Houston last night, leaving Texas two games out of the wild card, but with both of their A.L. West foes in front. 

Jacob deGrom’s return to New York takes on even more importance now. He’s the Rangers ace. This is what they got him for. 

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