Jacob deGrom’s 2024 debut finally appears imminent, after the two-time Cy Young Award winner completed his fourth and likely final minor league rehab outing on Saturday. DeGrom has seemingly come out of that four-inning, 49-pitch appearance in good health, and is now set to make his return to the majors at some point during the Rangers’ upcoming six-game road trip that begins Tuesday.
“If it all goes well, he’ll be pitching for us next time around,” manager Bruce Bochy told MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry and other reporters. “It’s pretty cool because it’s been a long road as these guys go through the rehab on the Tommy John.”
DeGrom had his Tommy John surgery in June 2023, and last pitched in a big league game on April 28, 2023. After signing a five-year, $185MM free agent contract with Texas during the 2022-23 offseason, deGrom’s only contribution to the Rangers’ World Series season was six starts and 30 1/3 innings, albeit with a very impressive 2.67 ERA and his typically excellent strikeout and walk rates.
Statistics compiled during minor league rehab stints should always be taken with a grain of salt, but deGrom has looked quite sharp in posting an 0.84 ERA over 10 2/3 total innings in the minors. As Landry noted, deGrom has been so dominant that he hasn’t been able to entirely hit his assigned rehab checkpoints. In his start on Saturday, Bochy said deGrom was assigned for four innings or 60 pitches, yet deGrom breezed through Double-A opponents on just 49 pitches — the most he has thrown in any of his four rehab starts.
As the season enters its final three weeks, the Rangers’ title defense has resulted in only a 70-74 record and a longshot bid at a wild card berth. DeGrom won’t be returning to a pennant race, but there’s some obvious benefit in getting back on a big league mound and shaking off some rust in advance of a hopefully normal offseason, and then a standard ramp-up in Spring Training. At age 36 and with just 186 2/3 MLB innings pitched since Opening Day 2021, deGrom’s health history will always make him something of a question mark, yet he has continued to deliver whenever he has been able to pitch.
DeGrom could soon be joined by another veteran ace in Max Scherzer, whose minor league rehab stint got underway Saturday at Triple-A with four hitless innings of work on 53 pitches. Right shoulder fatigue and then triceps discomfort has kept Scherzer on the injured list since the start of August,…
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