DENVER (AP) — Jacob deGrom struck out nine straight batters against Colorado on Saturday, falling one shy of matching Tom Seaver’s major league record.
He fell short of the record and nearly missed a win.
DeGrom finished with 14 strikeouts to lead the New York Mets over the Rockies 4-3 in a doubleheader opener.
German Márquez pitched a two-hitter for his second career complete as the Rockies won the nightcap 7-2, stopping a seven-game losing streak and the Mets’ four-game winning streak. Josh Fuentes broke open the game with a three-run homer in the fifth off Jacob Barnes.
DeGrom, a two-time NL Cy Young Award winner, wound up with a win when trailing at his final pitch, just the third time that has happened and the first since 2015.
Seaver set the consecutive strikeouts record against San Diego on April 22, 1970, fanning his final 10 batters in a 19-strikeout performance.
“That would have been nice to reach but fell a little short,” deGrom said with a smile.
Coming off a 14-strikeout performance in a 3-0 loss to Philadelphia, deGrom became just the ninth pitcher to strike out as many as nine in a row.
“The fastball was the best weapon for him,” Mets manager Luis Rojas said. “It’s special. You don’t see that often. You talk about Jake getting better every year and he goes out there, and we talked about the challenge of the weather, so it’s a little bit of a different start. He makes an adjustment and does something special.”
The streak ended in the fifth inning, when the Rockies took a 3-1 lead with three unearned runs, but the Mets rallied to win a series opener delayed a day by snow when pinch-hitter Jonathan Villar hit a tying double off Daniel Bard (0-1) in the seventh inning and Dominic Smith had a sacrifice fly.
Pete Alonso had homered…
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