ARLINGTON, Texas _ A bloated ERA is attached to Jacob deGrom's name here in the first week of June in what has become yet another worrisome development for the Mets.
DeGrom began the year as a sleeper Cy Young Award candidate and looked the part in April, but his recent production has been more in line with a No. 5 starter than an ace.
At a time when the Mets are ready to welcome back two fellow starting pitchers to the rotation, it may not mean much if they cannot sort out what is wrong with deGrom.
DeGrom arguably had the worst start by allowing a career-high eight runs in the Mets' 10-8 loss to the Rangers at Globe Life Park on Tuesday night. DeGrom (4-3) wasted three leads and allowed a run in each of his four innings. His 4.75 is the highest ERA he has ever had following any of his 88 career starts dating to the 2014 season.
The right-hander has now allowed seven or more runs in back-to-back starts after only allowing seven or more runs in two of his first career 86 career starts.
DeGrom has been one of the game's premier pitchers since his 2014 debut, and due to Noah Syndergaard's absence he is the lone remaining in the Mets' once-vaunted rotation. The Mets (24-32) need him to be the stalwart of their rotation and give them great starts on a consistent basis, but he has not been able to do that lately.
His last two outings have been particularly disastrous, with deGrom lasting just four innings in each and surrendering 15 runs spanning those two starts. In his previous outing, he yielded seven runs to snap the team's three-game winning streak.
The Mets hitters tried to help deGrom on Tuesday by giving him a lead in the first, second and third innings, but he wasted each edge.
Two hits in the first inning led to the Rangers evening the game at 1-all, and the first two runners reached and scored in the second to give Texas a 3-2 lead.
After the Mets gave deGrom a 4-3 lead in the fourth, he relinquished it in three batters by surrendering a two-run homer to Joey Gallo that just cleared the wall in right field.
DeGrom allowed another three runs in the fourth inning including a homer to Nomar Mazara that put the Mets in an 8-4 hole. The righty allowed 10 hits and struck out a season-low two batters while walking one batter spanning his season-low 69 pitches.
He is not slated to pitch again until next week with Steven Matz and Seth Lugo slated to return this weekend against the Braves.
While the Mets' hitters gave deGrom four early runs to work with, they failed to break the game open against ex-Met Dillon Gee despite numerous chances.
The Mets were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position in the first five innings _ they finished 2-for-14 _ and stranded nine runners in that time.
They stranded two runners in the first, fourth and fifth innings, and left the bases loaded in the third inning. The third inning had the chance to be a grand inning but a great defensive play by Jared Hoying and a lack of clutch limited the Mets to just two runs.
Asdrubal Cabrera led off the inning with a homer to even the game at 3-all before Hoying robbed Jay Bruce of another homer with a leaping grab at the wall in center field.
Neil Walker then cleared the wall to dead center _ a young fan caught the ball on the elevated grassy hill _ to give the Mets a 4-3 lead.
The next three batters reached to put Gee in a bind, but Travis d'Arnaud and Juan Lagares popped out to end the threat. That would be the last time the Mets led with deGrom later putting them behind for good in the bottom of the inning.
The Mets entered the ninth trailing 10-5 before scoring three runs and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate against Matt Bush, but Bruce hit into a game-ending double play.
