Jacob deGrom’s early exit gave the Phillies a fighting chance for a comeback | Bob Brookover

Even though it happens a lot more than you think and way more than it should, it was still a big deal. The Phillies improved to 4-0 Monday night at Citizens Bank Park by beating the New York Mets in a game started by Jacob deGrom.

Good luck is about the only advice a manager and a hitting coach can offer ahead of sending their guys out to face deGrom, who with seemingly little effort and remarkable consistency pumps triple-digit fastballs into pinpoint locations.

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“The best thing I can tell you is to just grind out at-bats the best you can,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said before the game. “I think you have to be ready to hit his fastball because it’s that good. He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, and when he does, you have to capitalize on it.

“But there is no extended plan on how to beat him. The best plan to try to beat him is probably to try to get him into long counts and tire him out, and that’s not easy to do because he has so many swing-and-miss pitches.”

Very few teams beat deGrom, and yet the Mets still find a way to lose more than they win when the best pitcher on the planet takes the mound. They did so again Monday against the Phillies even though deGrom was at the top of his game in the Mets’ season opener.

The Phillies won, 5-3, by rallying for five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning against a couple of New York relievers. Remarkably, the loss dropped the Mets to 36-41 in games started by deGrom since 2018 even though he has a 2.07 ERA in 77 starts and has won two NL Cy Young Awards during that span.

“I don’t know how that is even possible,” Phillies reliever Brandon Kintzler said. “The game is hard. That shows that it is hard. It doesn’t matter who is on the mound. That guy can’t go nine every time, which is why bullpens are so important.”

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The bullpens meant everything in this game.

Kintzler, in fact, deserved credit for a save of sorts even though his 1 2/3 innings of work came in the top of the fourth and fifth. After the Mets took advantage of two walks and three singles to score twice in the fourth off lefty Matt Moore in his Phillies debut, Girardi called in Kintzler to face Kevin Pillar with one out and the bases loaded. The former Chicago Cubs and Miami Marlins closer threw four straight sinkers, and the fourth was right at Pillar’s knees. The New York center fielder grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, and the Phillies were still close even though they were not doing any damage against deGrom.

Sam Coonrod, in his Phillies debut, pitched two scoreless innings and struck out three and rookie Connor Brogdon followed with a scoreless eighth, extending the bullpen’s scoreless streak to a dozen innings to start the season. Brogdon got his second win of the young season.

To the Phillies’ delight, Mets manager Luis Rojas removed deGrom after six innings and 77 pitches. Rojas said he wanted to be cautious because deGrom had not pitched in 10 days, a result of the Mets’ delayed start to the season after the Washington Nationals had a COVID-19 outbreak last week.

“We were happy as a team, of course, getting one of the best pitchers in the entire world out of the game,” Phillies right fielder Bryce Harper said.

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It showed. After failing to score in the seventh off Miguel Rojas, the Phillies finally got things going in the eighth when Brad Miller got a pinch-hit single off Trevor May, a one-time prospect in the Phillies’ farm system. After Andrew McCutchen battled his way on with an eight-pitch walk, Rhys Hoskins lined a 2-2 sinker into right field for a single that loaded the bases with one out.

Rojas called on Aaron Loup to face Harper, but that lefty-on-lefty strategy backfired. Loup hit Harper with a curveball to force in a run, and the Mets, thanks to the three-batter-minimum rule, were stuck with Loup against the right-handed hitting J.T. Realmuto, who jumped on a first-pitch cutter for a game-tying single to left field.

DeGrom was left with his 63rd no-decision in 184 career starts. The Mets fell to 26-37 in those no-decisions, and this cruel twist of fate came when Alec Bohm hit a grounder to third baseman Luis Guillorme, who had entered the game as a defensive replacement in the bottom of the eighth. Guillorme fielded the ball fine and made the right decision to throw home in an attempt to cut off the go-ahead run. But his throw sailed away from catcher James McCann, allowing Hoskins and Harper to score.

Jose Alvarado came on in the ninth and gave up a run before nailing down the save, and the Phillies had another impressive win while sticking the rival Mets with a debilitating season-opening loss in which they wasted another brilliant effort from the best pitcher on the planet.