Rangers ace Jacob deGrom finally notches a huge career milestone with win

It took three weeks and four starts, but Ranger ace and two-time Cy Young award winner Jacob deGrom finally notched his 100th career win, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 on Monday. It's a massive milestone for the master pitcher, and honestly, it feels like an achievement that should have happened a long time ago.

Playing for some very bad teams for most of his career with the New York Mets, and several serious arm injuries have delayed what seemed like a fait accompli as the flamethrower announced his dominating mound wizardry with a Rookie of the Year award in 2014.

It wasn't a typical Jacob deGrom masterpiece, but the Rangers star did enough to finally get win number 100

Almost 38 years old, deGrom hasn't been as dominant this season, and he didn't dominate the Cardinals on Monday. He was a touch off with his four-seamer and diabolical slider, racking up 91 pitches in five innings. Still, he executed his strikeout pitches when he needed to before handing the game over to the trusted Ranger bullpen with a 2-0 advantage.

Peyton Grey, Tyler Alexander, and Jakob Junis delivered a 2-1 lead to Rangers' closer Jacob Latz, who did what he has done all year and slammed the door shut in the 9th, striking out the final two hitters.

It has been a long time coming for deGrom, who is now in his 13th major league season. The fact that he played for the offensively challenged Mets for nearly a decade is one of the reasons he is just now getting to 100 wins.

He won the Cy Young in 2018 with a 10-9 record but a minuscule 1.70 ERA, and otherworldly .091 WHIP. He then proceeded to win the award the following season despite having an unremarkable 11-8 record.

deGrom would surely have hit this milestone many years earlier if it weren't for a series of very serious arm injuries that began in 2020 and limited him until 2025. In those five years, during which he suffered two separate Tommy John reconstructions, he didn't pitch more than 92 innings and missed virtually three entire seasons.

The offense hasn't been much better for him since he arrived in Arlington, but he has been able to stay healthy enough to attain this career milestone in an era where the overall value of wins has been recalibrated properly. The most dominant starting pitchers are no longer penalized for an arbitrary statistic out of their control.

With his 100th victory, deGrom now has a major bullet point on a Hall of Fame resume that will not be measured in wins, but in a mastery on the mound that few major league pitchers have ever realized.

deGrom is now 100-69 for his career with a 2.62 ERA. Next up: 2,000 strikeouts. He needs just 71 more to hit that milestone.

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