On the anniversary of his career debut, Sweet Melons De Grom delivered another 8 rounds of brilliant pitching masterpieces

On May 15, 2014, a Mets rookie named Jacob DeGrom made his major league debut at Citi Field, losing one point in seven innings against the Yankees that night.

Eleven years later, on the same day, two-time Cy Young Award winner De Grom made another show at the Globe Life Field, leading the Rangers to a 1-0 win over the Silver Boot Series opener against the Astros without conceding eight innings. Bruce Bochy, the assistant coach of the Rangers, overtook Sparky Anderson with 2,195 wins to sit alone in sixth place on the all-time winning list.

The eight-innings clean run was De Grom's longest number of starts since April 23, 2021, when he finished against the Nationals while playing for the Metropolitans. Another Jacob, Jake Burger, blasted a bomb from Astros starter Hunter Brown in the sixth inning, becoming the only scorer of the game. While Brown was in full play for the first four innings, De Grom showed his ability to handle the crisis.

De Grom ended the half with a strikeout strikeout from Jake Meyers after back-to-back runs at the second inning. After four innings, he faced back-to-back base, luring Zach Dezenzo with a curveball to defuse the crisis. After two outs in the fifth inning were knocked out by Jeremy Peña, he struck out Jose Altuve with a 98mph speedball.

Throughout the game, the Astros played no one to break through second base. De Grom completed eight innings with a total of 112 goals (74 good balls), dished out eight strikeouts and landed just four sporadic hits.