Former Mets pitcher Tom Glavine said Jacob deGrom's 2021 season reminds him of another pitcher's historic stretch of dominance.
Talk about high praise.
Former Mets pitcher Tom Glavine said Jacob deGrom’s 2021 season reminds him of another Baseball Hall of Famer’s historic stretch of dominance.
“I witnessed [Greg Maddux’s] four-year run in Atlanta when he won four straight Cy Young Awards, and it was very similar to what [deGrom] is doing in the sense that if [Maddux] went out and gave up two runs in a game, you were scratching your head like ‘Oh my God, what just happened?’” Glavine, a former Braves pitcher, told “Tiki and Tierney” on Monday. “If you go out there for 35 starts, you’re gonna have a third of your starts where you’ve got it. You just walk out there, put your glove on the mound, and you’re gonna win. Then you’re gonna have a third where you just don’t have it, and then a third in the middle where you’ve gotta figure out how to win those, and those are the ones that shape whether you have a good year or great year.”
DeGrom is on another level this season. His 0.69 ERA in 13 starts has never been matched. He has the same amount of RBIs (six) as earned runs. And, unlike previous seasons, he finally is getting run support — deGrom has recorded seven wins this season.
“That kind of stuff is just stupid,” Glavine said. “It’s hard to argue, especially in today’s game and what it is, that a guy can go out and have the dominance that he’s had. I think you absolutely have to include this run that he’s on right now in the conversation with the greatest pitching runs in the game.”
While they played in different eras, deGrom’s statistics have matched up with Maddux.
From 1992-95, when he won an MLB-record four straight Cy Young Awards, Maddux had a 1.98 ERA. DeGrom’s ERA over the last four years has been 1.90.
“[Maddux] in that four-year run never had those bad ones,” Glavine said. “He never had that day where he went out there and just didn’t have it. Now you look at [deGrom] and what he’s doing, it’s the same situation, but he’s doing it at a stupid level.”
This is not the first time a Braves star has compared deGrom to Maddux. All Star third-baseman Chipper Jones called deGrom’s 2018 season — the Mets superstar went 10-9 with an MLB-best 1.70 ERA in a Cy Young campaign — “Maddux-esque.”
“I saw utter domination,” Jones said in 2018. “I mean, you’re talking about an all-time type season.”
This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:David Lazar
