Jacob deGrom made his second start of spring training Wednesday, headlining the Mets' 7-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Five days removed from his latest simulated game last Friday, he fired four near-perfect innings, striking out three with one run on one hit -- a solo home run to Matt Carpenter in the top of the fourth inning.
Following up on his March 1 debut in the Mets' 3-1 victory against the Washington Nationals, when he threw three shutout frames with two strikeouts and one hit.
"I feel good, felt really good today," deGrom said Wednesday. "Like I said, I was able to locate to both sides of the plate. Changeup was good. Slider -- I threw a couple good ones, couple bad ones, but that's just something that I'm going to continue to work on in between."
DeGrom built off the start 10 days ago and the simulated game in between. On Field 7 of the Mets' spring training complex, deGrom competed against hitters such as Yoenis Cespedes, Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis. He allowed one run and two hits in roughly three innings against his teammates, mostly getting easy outs, but deGrom admittedly wasn't satisfied.
"In the sim game, I didn't feel that good out there," deGrom said. "I was yanking everything. And today, I felt like I was staying through the fastball. I had good ride on it, backspin -- kind of how I want to throw it. One of the things I look forward, when I throw a pen, kind of try to throw it through the catcher and have good ride on it. So I felt like that was kind of where I wanted to be today."