{"id":292609,"date":"2021-07-07T06:47:13","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T03:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-it-just-got-harder-for-jacob-degrom-to-skip-all-star-game\/"},"modified":"2021-07-07T06:47:13","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T03:47:13","slug":"why-it-just-got-harder-for-jacob-degrom-to-skip-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-it-just-got-harder-for-jacob-degrom-to-skip-all-star-game\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why it just got harder for Jacob deGrom to skip All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Why it just got harder for Jacob deGrom to skip All-Star Game<\/a><\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Terrible looks abounded at Citi Field on Tuesday night, the Mets keeping their fans around through a rain delay for nearly three hours, rookie owner Steve Cohen tweeting weather updates, only for the showers to persist and lead to a postponement of their game against the Brewers.<\/p>\n

Which leads to another conundrum for the Mets, one that forebodes another potentially terrible look for their ace:<\/p>\n

How can Jacob deGrom get out of the All-Star Game now?<\/p>\n

The planet\u2019s best pitcher, scheduled to start Tuesday, will instead take the mound for Wednesday\u2019s Game 1 and \u2026 then what? Surely he won\u2019t start Sunday\u2019s first-half finale on short rest, and that in turn robs him of the excuse he possessed to not pitch for the National League \u2014 for whom he is the slam-dunk candidate to start \u2014 in the July 13 Midsummer Classic at every pitcher\u2019s least-favorite site, Coors Field.<\/p>\n

\"Jacob
Jacob deGrom<\/figcaption>
UPI<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m very sympathetic to deGrom, who told The Post\u2019s Mike Puma last week that the Denver location, its high altitude murder on hurlers, factored into his desire to skip baseball\u2019s jewel event \u2014 which was the plan with his pitching Tuesday and then Sunday, the latter of which officially would have excused him from the commitment. You certainly don\u2019t want people participating against their will, and you sure as heck don\u2019t want people sustaining injuries. Yet with the rain spoiling those plans, deGrom\u2019s brilliant season, exemplified by his insane 0.95 ERA, only intensifies the pressure on him to participate. You know that Major League Baseball would love to market a matchup of deGrom against Angels stud two-way player Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n

At the least, the situation will turn up the heat on deGrom \u2014 who went on the injured list once this first half and left two other starts early with ailments, providing him some cover \u2014 to at least fly to Denver to join his NL teammates for the pregame introduction.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday afternoon, when the forecast app<\/a>eared more favorable, I asked Mets manager Luis Rojas what he thought about deGrom appearing at Coors as an ineligible player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s his decision if he pitches Sunday like the plan is,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cI know it\u2019s tough for the event not to have the presence of Jake there. It\u2019s unfortunate, all the fans and baseball itself, like everything, just to see Jake at the event, the uniform, everything. But that\u2019s more for Jake to [decide]. If he\u2019s not going to participate, knowing Jake\u2019s competitiveness, it\u2019s probably going to be tough to be in uniform and not participate. So I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a tough one for the All-Star Game without him there present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Look, if the right-hander was wired differently, then he\u2019d probably want to go to Denver, be it for the player-party scene or to meet with sponsors and boost his brand or just to revel in the festivities of the Home Run Derby and the game itself. However, you know darn well that\u2019s not how deGrom rolls, and you can easily draw a line from his low-key approach to his sky-high success, which helps the sport far more than his blowing off the Denver trip<\/a> hurts it.<\/p>\n