DeGrom gem bittersweet as ace leaves with injury in Mets' win

This of course brought along M-V-P chants the entire night, as the two-time Cy Young Award winner shut his opponents down through six innings of work.

deGrom retired the first 13 batters he faced to start the game. He was once again magnificent, and not only was his fastball working for him, so were his off speed pitches, including his slider, which drew eight swings-and-misses through the first four innings alone.

He did not allow a baserunner until Will Myers singled with one out in the top of the fifth to end his perfection. But Myers was soon erased, as catcher James McCann gunned him down trying to steal second, which was the Mets' 38th caught stealing of the season (1st in MLB).

With the game still scoreless at the start of the bottom of the fifth, Kevin Pillar got things going with a leadoff double off Padres starter Blake Snell. This brought up the red-hot Billy McKinney, who followed up Pillar with a double of his own to plate the first run of the contest.

Snell walked Jose Peraza to put two on, with nobody out for none other than deGrom. And after Snell balked, which allowed both runners to move up to second-and-third, deGrom drove them home when he ripped an opposite field two-run single to extend the lead to 3-0.

This forced Padres manager Jayce Tingler to yank Snell before he could record an out in the inning. After tossing seven innings of one-hit baseball last Friday night against the Mets, the lefty did not fare as well this time out, allowing three runs in just four innings of work.

As for deGrom, he has now collected 11 hits and driven in more runs at the plate (5), than he has allowed on the mound this season (4). Pretty incredible when you think about how rare that is for a pitcher.

And on the rubber, the righty has an astounding 51 double digit strikeout games in 193 career starts. He also eclipsed 100 strikeouts through 61.2 innings this season, which made him the fastest to 100 punch outs in a single campaign since the mound moved back to 60-feet, 6 inches in 1893.

Despite only throwing 80 pitches, deGrom was lifted from the game after the sixth with what the Mets later announced as right flexor tendinitis. Now, the Mets will have to hold their breathe until they know more about the prognosis of their ace. 

"I am not too concerned about it because it did not get much worse as the game went on," he said, per ESPN's Bradford Doolittle. "Whenever you say elbow, everybody gets nervous about that. I am not too worried about it. Hopefully it's something we can treat."

But either way, the fact that deGrom re-injured himself in only his fourth start since coming back from an IL stint for side tightness is concerning.

With the loss of deGrom, manager Luis Rojas brought in Miguel Castro, who almost immediately got hit hard.

In the top of the seventh, Castro allowed a one out double to Fernando Tatis Jr., before Jake Cronenworth cranked a two-run shot in the next at-bat. And just like that, we had ourselves a 3-2 game with deGrom out. 

After walking Manny Machado, Castro exited with a stiff neck. As a result, Rojas went to Seth Lugo to get the final two outs, who got the job done with a strikeout and line out to bail out Castro with the lead still intact. 

Aaron Loup started the top of the eighth, and after allowing a leadoff single, the lefty got the next two batters out. However, he was struck with a come backer, which caused Rojas to take him out for closer Edwin Diaz, who would be asked to get the four-out save.

Jorge Mateo stole second, which put the tying run in scoring position. Things then got dicey when Tommy Pham smoked a ball to right, but Billy McKinney came to the rescue again with an impressive running catch to get Diaz out of the jam.

In the bottom of the ninth, Diaz struck out two batters on his way to locking down the save and victory for the Mets, who improved to 31-24 on the season.

Unfortunately, it was not all sunshines and rainbows in Mets land, as they now shift their focus back to their ailing ace, with the hope that they avoided anything serious.