ARLINGTON, Texas - It didn’t take Jacob deGrom very long to make history in the Texas Rangers 2-0 shutout win over the Washington Nationals.
deGrom came into play needing just two strikeouts to reach 2,000 in his career, and after facing just two batters, he became the 95th pitcher in MLB history to reach the milestone.
Following a strikeout of Daylen Lile to open the game, deGrom fanned Nationals designated hitter Abimelec Ortiz on his signature slider for career strikeout number 2,000.
“It was a very special moment,” deGrom said after the game. “I’ve been fortunate enough to play this game for a while, and I told the guys in [the clubhouse] I’m so excited to be here and do it with that group; we got each other's backs, we gotta play really good baseball from here on out and try to get in the playoffs, that’s the main goal right now and hopefully do something special in October.
“Obviously personal accomplishments are really cool, but to go out there and put us in a position to win was the main goal, so getting that 2,000th was obviously a very cool personal accomplishment for me. It was funny; Corey [Seager] before I walked out there goes, ‘How about we get this done quick?’ so I gotta give him some credit for that,” deGrom finished.
deGrom not only reached the 2,000 strikeout mark on Thursday night but did so in just 272 games, the fewest by a right-handed pitcher in baseball history. Only Randy Johnson (262) was quicker overall.
It was also just the third time a pitcher reached 2,000 strikeouts in a Rangers uniform as deGrom joined Ferguson Jenkins and Cole Hamels as the only pitchers to hit the mark in Texas.
Even after recording strikeout number 2,000, deGrom was dialed in, throwing six shutout innings, allowing just one hit and one walk while tying a season high with ten punchouts.
“To think about his first strikeout was in 2014, it just means he’s done it for a long time at an extremely high level,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said after the game.
“I think I read somewhere that he got his 1,000th strikeout in four years; that’s an incredible run that he was on and still is. Today was vintage deGrom. I’ve said that a couple times, but that’s what it looked like when I faced him back in the day. It was six innings, ten strikeouts; you could just kinda sign up for that, and you knew what you were going to get.”
“I’m not kidding you, that’s exactly how it looked; it was just a dominant performance, all his pitches working, on the attack. I thought it was just a pretty special night because, probably, his first strikeout was what it looked like and how dominant he was for those years; it almost mimicked and mirrored what he looked like tonight,” Schumaker said.
After deGrom's strong outing, the Rangers bullpen combined to pitch three scoreless innings, highlighted by Jacob Latz striking out the side in the ninth to earn his 25th save of the season.
Corey Seager came through with what would end up as the game winning swing when he lifted a solo home run over the left-field wall in the third inning. Texas got a big insurance run in the eighth when Nicky Lopez came through with a sac fly, scoring Ezequiel Duran who tripled just pitches earlier.
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