The New York Mets are having a fantastic season. What has made it truly impressive is that they have done it without their ace, Jacob deGrom, for almost the entirety of it. The Mets starter made his season debut earlier this week, tossing five innings of one-run ball. Clearly, Mets manager Buck Showalter wants to ease his pitcher back into the rotation.

He earned his second start of the season Sunday against the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves. In the first inning, deGrom retired the side in order, including two strikeouts. One of those strikeouts came against Matt Olson, with an impressive fastball.

DeGrom blew a 101.6 mile-per-hour fastball by Olson for the strikeout. According to MLB's Sarah Langs, that is the fastest strikeout pitch of deGrom's career.

That's particularly impressive considering the amount of strikeouts Jacob deGrom has racked up during his illustrious career. He has amassed 1,511 career K's over his eight plus year career. The last couple of years he has struggled to stay healthy. DeGrom has only made 28 starts since the beginning of the 2020 MLB season. He missed this whole season until recently with a stress reaction in his right shoulder.

On Sunday, he is cruising through the first three innings, without allowing a hit or walk, and racking up six strikeouts.

The Mets have World Series ambitions this year as long as they can remain healthy. Fellow Mets ace Max Scherzer also missed almost two months with an oblique injury. However, the Mets maintained first place of the NL East.