The Mets’ Jacob deGrom showed again on Wednesday why he is baseball’s best pitcher. After allowing a leadoff home run to Milwaukee’s Luis Urias, he held the Brewers to one more run across seven innings, with no walks and 10 strikeouts. His earned run average actually rose — to 1.08 — but the Mets won the game, the first of a doubleheader, 4-3, in eight innings.
After the game, though, deGrom said he would reserve his dazzling performances for the Mets. He said he had decided to decline an invitation to the All-Star Game on Tuesday at Coors Field in Denver, where he would surely have been the starter for the National League and perhaps have faced the majors’ home run leader, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels, who was named as both a pitcher and a designated hitter for the American League team.