ARLINGTON -- For a brief moment in the middle of the first inning Thursday night, Jacob deGrom stood on the mound at Globe Life Field and tipped his hat to the crowd.
The Rangers’ ace opened the series finale against the Nationals with a pair of swinging strikeouts against Daylen Lile and former Texas farmhand Abimelec Ortiz, finally reaching the 2,000 benchmark after sitting on the precipice for his last two starts.
deGrom rolled past 2,000 and tied a season high with 10 strikeouts on the evening, tossing six scoreless frames with just one hit allowed in the Rangers’ 2-0 win over the Nationals.
“It was very cool,” deGrom said. “Obviously I've said it before, personal accomplishments are cool, but the goal is to win. The most important thing tonight was to go out there and put us in a position to win. I go out there and try to leave it all out on the field. That’s how I've always played the game. If I can walk in here, if I can look myself in the mirror and say I gave 100%, then I can live with what happened. I'm proud of this accomplishment, but we’ve still got work to do as a team.”
deGrom finished the night with 2,008 career strikeouts, yielding just one hit and one walk, both by Brady House. It was his third career start of six or more scoreless innings, one or fewer hits and 10 or more strikeouts, the previous two coming during his time with the Mets.
The milestone means a lot in the context of his career. But maybe even more in the context of his season, as the Rangers continue their postseason push. deGrom wants to win. This accomplishment is only a step toward that ultimate goal.
“He's a legend,” catcher Danny Jansen said. “He's an ultimate competitor. He's fearless on the mound. It's definitely special. He's a legend in the game. And it's cool to be a part of that. … If you watch his reaction, he took a little bit, a couple hat tips and stuff. I think that really sunk in right there a little bit. But then you have to go and continue on right after that. He's a team guy, and I really do believe that. But this is a pretty special feat and accomplishment.”
deGrom is the second-fastest pitcher in MLB history to 2,000 career strikeouts by both games (272, behind Randy Johnson’s 262) and innings pitched (1,661, behind Chris Sale’s 1,626).
You can truly encapsulate deGrom’s career by looking at his first strikeout victim -- the now-retired 46-year-old Mark Teixeira in 2014 -- and his 2,000th, which came against the 24-year-old Ortiz. He’s struck out current teammates Corey Seager and Joc Pederson. He faced his manager, Skip Schumaker, but never struck him out.
All that illustrates the span of his career, despite the injuries he’s had to go through to reach this milestone. The injuries may have slowed him down. But they didn’t stop him.
“It’s Chris Sale and deGrom, that's it right now, at that age, doing it still at this elite level,” Schumaker said. “It just means he's done it for a long time at an extremely high level. Today was kind of vintage deGrom. That's what it looked like when I faced him back in the day. I'm not kidding you -- that's exactly how it looked. It was just a dominant performance.”
deGrom is the 95th pitcher in MLB history with 2,000 strikeouts, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He is the ninth active pitcher to reach the mark and the second this season, joining Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola, who hit the milestone Aug. 8.
He’s the third pitcher in Texas history (since 1972) to record his 2,000th career strikeout in a Rangers uniform, joining Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins (Aug. 31, 1974, against Cleveland at Arlington Stadium) and Cole Hamels (June 12, 2016, in Seattle), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“We're watching a Hall of Famer,” Schumaker said. “That's my opinion, and I think you know that it's fun to watch, in my seat, a Hall of Famer go about his business, and at a high, high level.”
At 38, deGrom is well aware of his body of work to this point. He’s proud of his accomplishments, any that have come before and any that are sure to come after. But right now, all that’s on his mind is helping the Rangers get to the postseason.
He was able to do that Thursday.
“The way my mind works is that I have to continue to find a way to get better,” deGrom said. “Maybe whenever my career's over I'll look at that kind of stuff. But even when the season's over, I'm like, ‘All right, I have to figure out a way to figure out the following year.’ That's just the mindset I've always had. It's like that from start to start. ‘Hey, what can I do to be better this time out?’ So maybe whenever I retire from this game, I'll sit down and look at some of the personal accomplishments. But right now, what can I do next time out to help the team win?"