Mets right-hander Jacob deGrom went through a serious injury scare to his pitching elbow on Wednesday, but it turns out he won’t even miss a start. DeGrom will take the ball Monday as scheduled, manager Mickey Callaway told Brian Heyman of MLB.com and other reporters Saturday. The 29-year-old DeGrom’s near-injury didn’t occur on the mound, of course; instead, it came when he was swinging the bat during a third-inning plate appearance. As a result, Callaway would rather the prized hurler take a more passive offensive approach. “No, he will not,” Callaway said when asked if deGrom would be swinging in his next start. “I haven’t told him that, but no. There’s really no reason to. If it were up to me, the [pitchers] would never take BP. They would never swing in the game. We don’t need their spot in the lineup to score runs. And if we do, we’re not going to win anyway.” To his credit, deGrom is actually a decent offensive contributor relative to most other pitchers, evidenced by the .211/.233/.268 line he posted in 77 plate appearances last year.
Here’s more from the National League:
- Giants outfielder Mac Williamson won’t come off the seven-day concussion disabled list Sunday, manager Bruce Bochy announced (Twitter link via Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group). Williamson is still “woozy,” according to Bochy. As Crowley notes, that suggests Williamson is continuing to deal with symptoms from the head injury he suffered April 24. The Giants have gone an impressive 7-3 since then, even though Williamson may have been in the very early stages of a breakout season prior to going on the DL.
- Dodgers left-hander Rich Hill will also have to wait a bit longer to return from the DL. Hill was scheduled to start Sunday against the Padres, but the Dodgers will instead give the ball to righty Ross Stripling, Pedro Moura of The Athletic was among those to report. The Dodgers don’t want to expose Hill’s injured finger to the high humidity in Monterrey, Mexico, site of their current series, according to Moura. However, Hill pointed out that he’s ready to come back. “I’m good to go. There’s nothing wrong,” said Hill, who has been out since April 14 (via Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times).
- Righty Enyel De Los Santos is making a case to join the Phillies’ rotation sometime this year, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com writes. The Phillies acquired the hard-throwing 22-year-old from the Padres in exchange for shortstop Freddy Galvis over the winter, and De Los Santos has since opened the season in dominant fashion with his new organization. Across 19 1/3 innings (four starts) at the Triple-A level, De Los Santos has pitched to a 1.40 ERA with 11.64 K/9 against 2.79 BB/9. Although De Los Santos isn’t on the Phillies’ 40-man roster, which could work against a promotion, they’ve taken notice of his performance, as director of player development Joe Jordan explains at length in Zolecki’s piece.
Come back soon Mac
Yeah! Like Gobbysteiner said: come back soon Mac!
Great to see Mac get a second shot at the bigs with his new swing and confidence, only to smash his head on a wall after tripping on a mound in the field of play! For crying out loud….figure out a way to move the bullpen mounds! The fact that everyone forgot to find a place for them when the park was designed and had to stick them on the field is embarrassing. What would they be saying if a big time player tripped over those mounds and blew out an achilles? Ridiculous.
I understand the Dodgers are playing it safe with regards to Hill. But I find it really difficult to accept pulling a guy from a start due to fears the humidity will cause issues with his finger. Isolating that and saying it out loud is enough to make plenty of old timers roll in their grave.
He’s been babied so much since he put on Dodger blue. Maybe it’s time to accept that the cautious approach might be part of why he isn’t warding off these injuries. Maybe he needs to get that finger in game shape and stay there.
If Callaway’s comments are how most, if not all, managers feel, why the hell wont they use a DH in the NL? It’s just a matter of time, IMO
I think the best way to appease the “No, I love watching a .200 OPS hitter not even try to get a hit because the one time they do, I love it” crowd would be to let that spot in the batting order be more fluid and up to the manager, if the pitcher really can hit, they can, but if its someone like deGrom (.447 career OPS), then use a damn DH already. Fair?
I think the best way to appease them is actually let the pitchers run and bat and actually practice other parts of the game so they’re actually in shape to play the game instead of protecting them from injuries and given the amount of arm injuries on the DL I’d say it’s a utter failure by the entire league
batting and running and all that stuff would cut into their practice time for, you know, pitching. Pitchers have never been able to hit. It’snot the skill they are selected for. And nobody at the major league level is going to gain much by practicing it more..
The argument always against pitchers hitting is that they get hurt. Very few do and the reasons for that is they’re unathletic or trained to be. You really think pitchers are just practicing pitching all practice long? lol most of their time at practice is shagging flyballs.
How is that fair? Even the pitcher like DeGrom can hit it’s extremely likely you have a hitter on your bench who is better. There’s no middle ground on the DH v Pitcher.
The Mets don’t need the pitchers spot in the lineup to score runs…so far the other 8 aren’t scoring any either. And if that’s how he feels what is the point of him hitting the hitter 8th anyway?
There’s more than. a bit of evidence that hitting the pitcher 8th and a speedy leadoff-type 9th helps a team score an extra 8-12 runs per year. (The theory is that the #1-4 hitters are your team’s best, and also to do with something about pitcher’s batting with one out or two outs is slightly different between the 8th and 9th spots in the order.. 8-12 runs a year doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s basically one extra win per year. It’s marginal, but it exists. If you’re forced to bat a non-hitter in a lineup spot, you take a marginal advantage wherever you can.
Ryan Vogelsong got hit in the face, deGrom hurt his elbow, Scherzer hurt his thumb and three Brewer starters got hurt hitting or running the bases. Ask Jimmy Nelson how he feels about this. Even old school Terry Collins was for DH. He said no comes to a game to see the pitcher hit. Need to prevent injuries, Mets may have dodged a bullet this time.
I would bet having the entire league having pitchers hit would save 1000s of pitches a year saving pitchers from arm injuries which is far more injuries than pitchers getting hurt on the base paths or at the plate.