The Mets are coming off a 3-3 road trip to start the season.
Coming off a six-game road trip to start the 2025 season, the Mets (3-3) are set to host the Blue Jays (5-2) for three games in Queens, weather permitting. Things should be just fine today for the home opener, but there’s enough rain in the forecast on Saturday and Sunday that it’s possible that we might see a delay or perhaps a postponement, particularly of the series finale.
The Mets’ lineup has been a bit uneven over those first six games, as a ten-run performance in their series opener in Miami on Monday was the lone truly outstanding game of the year for the team’s hitters. But they scored just 13 runs in total over the course of the other five games, giving them an average of just 3.83 runs scored per game coming into this series.
Mets pitchers, however, have been excellent—nearly across the board. In total, the Mets have a 2.38 ERA that ranks fourth in baseball at the time of this writing on Thursday evening. The rotation ranks eighth with a 2.90 ERA, and the bullpen ranks second with a 1.64 ERA.
As for the Blue Jays, their strong start has them sitting atop the American League East coming into this series. Toronto split a four-game series with the Orioles to start the season and proceeded to sweep the Nationals in a three-game series to put them three games above .500.
Blue Jays hitters have plated 4.57 runs per game, the tenth-best rate in baseball at the moment, and their pitchers have allowed 4.43 runs per game, which ranks 17th and is a higher number of runs per game than the league average.
The big story surrounding Toronto over the winter, aside from the team’s efforts at getting into the upper tier of the free agent market, was the lack of a contract extension with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with him if the Blue Jays find themselves on the outside of the playoff race by the end of July. But if they are contending for a playoff spot at that time, it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to them hold on to him at the deadline and hope for the best once he hits free agency.
There are some familiar faces on the Blue Jays’ roster, too. Andrés Giménez is the Blue Jays’ second baseman now, having joined them in a trade that sent Spencer Horwitz—grandson of Mets institution Jay Horwitz—to the Guardians as part of the return. Giménez has been on fire to start the year, and he’s rocking a .308/.400/.731 line with three home runs and a 230 wRC+.
He’s not alone in having spent time with the Mets. Chris Bassitt is set to start the second game of the series, and Jacob Barnes, who threw 18.2 innings with the Mets in 2021 before they traded him to the Blue Jays that June. He went on to pitch for the Tigers, Yankees, Cardinals, and Nationals from the 2022 through 2024 seasons before rejoining Toronto for this one.
And if you really want to dig deep, the Blue Jays’ current backup catcher is Tyler Heineman, who the Mets claimed on waivers from the Blue Jays following the 2023 season. The Mets wound up designating him for assignment in late January last year, and they traded him to the Red Sox. He stuck with the organization until Boston designated him for assignment in September, which is when the Blue Jays claimed him.
As of April 3, the PECOTA projected standings at Baseball Prospectus have the Blue Jays winning the AL East, albeit with an incredibly slim margin over the Yankees and only a bit more of a cushion between those two teams and the Rays and Orioles. Let’s take a look at the probable starting pitchers for the series.
Friday, April 4: Tylor Megill vs. Kevin Gausman, 3:10 PM EDT on SNY
Megill (2025): 5.0 IP, 6 K, 1 BB, 0 HR, 1.80 ERA, 1.03 FIP, 49 ERA-
We’ve seen Tylor Megill put up flashy numbers early in the major league regular season before only to eventually end up hovering somewhere around five with his ERA by the end of each of those seasons. Coming off a strong finish to his year last year, which saw him end his major league regular season with a 4.04 ERA, he might be a bit more intriguing now than he ever wound up being before.
Gausman (2025): 6.0 IP, 4 K, 1 BB, 1 HR, 3.00 ERA, 4.16 FIP, 76 ERA-
Believe it or not, this is already Gausman’s fourth season in Toronto. In each of the first three, he’s made exactly 31 starts, and his single-season ERAs have ranged from 3.16 to 3.83, with the highest of the bunch having come last year.
Saturday, April 5: Griffin Canning vs. Chris Bassitt, 7:10 PM EDT on SNY
Canning (2025): 5.2 IP, 4 K, 2 BB, 1 HR, 3.18 ERA, 4.77 FIP, 87 ERA-
First, check out all the double-consonants in the names of this matchup! And second, well, Canning was impressive in his Mets debut. Having started spring training with a major league contract but no certain role, a pair of injuries opened up spots in the rotation. Canning won one of them, and he looked sharp against the Astros.
Bassitt (2025): 6.0 IP, 7 K, 2 BB, 0 HR, 1.50 ERA, 1.50 FIP, 38 ERA-
Now in his third and final year of the contract he signed with the Blue Jays following the 2022 season that he spent with the Mets, Bassitt is in his age-36 season. He racked up 200.0 innings in 2023, a rare feat for any starting pitcher these days, finishing that season with a 3,60 ERA. And last year, he ended the year with a 4.16 ERA in 171.0 innings of work. His first start of this season was a very good one, though.
Sunday, April 6: David Peterson vs. Bowden Francis, 1:40 PM EDT on WPIX
Peterson (2025): 6.0 IP, 9 K, 3 BB, 2 HR, 3.00 ERA, 5.66 FIP, 82 ERA-
Like everyone else who pitched in the Mets’ first turn through the rotation, Peterson looked great. It would’ve been preferable to not give up a pair of home runs, but both of them were solo shots, and his nine strikeouts—many of which came on his slider—were encouraging.
Francis (2025): 6.0 IP, 4 K, 3 BB, 2 HR, 3.00 ERA, 7.33 FIP, 76 ERA-
The 28-year-old right-handed Francis started his major league career as a reliever, pitching exclusively out of Toronto’s bullpen in 2022 and 2023. But last year, he split his time between the rotation and the bullpen, and 13 of his 27 appearances were starts. From August 7 through the end of the season, he put up a 1.53 ERA in 59.0 innings over nine starts. In total, he finished the year with a 3.30 ERA and a 4.36 FIP.