MILWAUKEE — The Mets can go ahead and launch a “Rookie of de Year” campaign.
Jacob deGrom’s candidacy has reached full bloom after a fourth straight dominant performance by the right-hander that Sunday allowed his team the respectability of a .500 road trip.
With deGrom carrying the load, the Mets escaped Miller Park with a 2-0 victory over the Brewers to split the four-game series.
DeGrom fired 6¹/₃ shutout innings in which he allowed four hits and two walks with four strikeouts. He won his second game on the 5-5 road trip and fourth straight overall.
“He’s a guy you want to see every fifth day out there,” David Wright said. “He’s just seizing an opportunity.”
Manager Terry Collins gambled, sending deGrom to the mound for the seventh at 109 pitches, but removed him after Jean Segura delivered the Brewers’ second single of the inning with one out.
Vic Black got the next two outs before Jeurys Familia and Jenrry Mejia each pitched a scoreless inning. The save was Mejia’s 15th-in-17 chances.
The fact deGrom will receive an extra day to rest before his next start because of Thursday’s off day made Collins comfortable sending deGrom out for the seventh.
“That means a lot, that they have confidence in me to go back out there in the seventh inning, with that many pitches,” deGrom said.
Lucas Duda’s two-run homer in the sixth against Jimmy Nelson accounted for the Mets’ scoring. The Mets (50-55) scored three runs or fewer for a ninth straight game.
DeGrom (5-5, 2.79 ERA) got the Mets a victory in Seattle earlier in the trip. Over his last four starts, he is 4-0 with a 0.66 ERA.
“He’s been very good,” Collins said. “We keep talking about it and I guess he has to go out each time and prove it that we’re not kidding anybody. He was very good today. A lot more pitches than we wanted, but against a good lineup you can’t make mistakes and he stayed away from mistakes.”
The pitcher Nelson’s single in the third was the Brewers’ only hit against deGrom until Rickie Weeks singled in the sixth. The Brewers got their final two hits against deGrom in the seventh.
“Early on they battled me and fouled off a lot of pitches and kind of got my pitch count up, but I stayed with it,” deGrom said. “I was thinking eventually I would get one by them. I just tried to keep a positive mind-set out there and it’s kind of frustrating when they foul off a bunch of pitches, but I really wasn’t leaving any over the middle of the plate for them to get so that helped out.”
Daniel Murphy delivered a leadoff double in the sixth before Duda cleared the right-field fence on an 0-2 pitch for his fourth homer in six games.
It came after Duda hit a two-run homer in the ninth on Friday to put the Mets ahead against Francisco Rodriguez in a 3-2 victory over the Brewers.
Considering the fact the Mets were outscored 36-22 on the trip — which also included stops in San Diego and Seattle — Collins was satisfied to finish .500. The Mets will open a seven-game homestand on Monday, when they face the struggling Phillies.
“We’ve come out in the past in the second half at the start of it and not played very good,” Collins said. “When you start the second half with a 10-game road trip and play two teams that are fighting for the playoffs, it’s a big test and our guys rose and played pretty well.”