A quick review of how the Mets’ pitchers fared over the first three series of the season.
Unlike the offense, which has been inconsistent, the Mets’ pitching staff has been nothing short of a revelation through the first nine games of 2025. Put simply: the Mets have the record that they do mostly because of the pitching staff. The Mets have a sparkling 1.91 staff ERA so far in 2025—the best mark in baseball. (Note: All stats in this piece are as of Monday morning and do not include last night’s game, which will be included in next week’s meter.) They are one of only two ball clubs to have amassed 2 fWAR or more on the pitching side. This is especially incredible considering the Mets began the season with two of the projected five members of the starting rotation on the injured list. The bullpen has been damn near spotless with some amazing standout performances. This is just about as good of a pitching meter as we could have hoped for to begin the season.
As this is the first meter of the season, we’ll start with a quick rundown of the injuries. Frankie Montas was the first pitcher to go down with an injury this season. In February, the Mets announced he had a lat strain and would be shut down for 6-8 weeks. Montas has started throwing from 75 feet, but it will still be awhile before we see him take the mound for the Mets. Sean Manaea began the season on the injured list with an oblique strain. He wasn’t projected to miss too much time, but unfortunately he had a setback and required a PRP injection and has not yet resumed throwing, so his timeline for return is starting to look closer to Montas’. Paul Blackburn was competing for one of the rotation spots vacated by Montas and Manaea, but is also currently on the injured list with knee inflammation. It is likely we will see Blackburn in the rotation at some point, especially if the Mets decide to go to a six-man rotation at some point for Kodai Senga’s benefit. Christian Scott is here for the sake of completeness because he is on the big league 40-man roster, but he is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and will miss the entire season. Dedniel Núñez is not on the big league 40-man roster so he is not on this meter, but that is only because he wasn’t quite fully back from injury to start the season. It is likely we see him back in the big league bullpen at some point soon.
Losing two of the five members of the starting rotation is a huge blow to any roster, but the Mets have weathered it incredibly well thus far thanks to the depth that David Stearns has built. Griffin Canning was a less heralded signing in an offseason that included the splashiest of splashes in Juan Soto, but he won a slot in the rotation with his strong performance in spring and he has continue to produce results into the regular season. He took a tough luck loss in a close game in his first outing of the year in Houston, but it is hard to blame him for Carlos Mendoza leaving him in to face Yordan Álvarez in a key spot. All told, Canning put forward a solid performance in his Mets debut, giving up two runs on four hits, striking out four batters and walking two over 5 2⁄3 innings. He followed that up with another good, albeit shorter, outing on Saturday. Canning did not factor into the decision, lasting just four innings, but he limited the damage to just one run on four hits and struck out an impressive six batters. The Mets went on to win the game in walk-off fashion.
As I have been saying for many seasons now, Tylor Megill is inevitable. Injuries have opened the door for him once again and this time, he has taken every advantage of the opportunity so far. Megill has been just about spotless in his first two starts of 2025. In fact, Megill is the only pitcher on the staff with two wins already this season. Megill pitched the only game the Mets won in the opening series of the season, yielding just one run on three hits through five innings of work. Then in Friday’s home opener, the Mets cruised to an easy 5-0 victory and Megill shut out the Blue Jays for 5 1⁄3 innings, over which he gave up just two hits and struck out four batters. “He’s keeping it simple and attacking hitters,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Friday’s win. If this is the year Megill finally breaks out then that would be huge for the Mets.
After being lights out this spring, Clay Holmes was a little shaky on Opening Day in his Mets debut. He gave up three runs—two of them earned—on five hits in 4 2⁄3 innings of work. He struck out four batters, but also walked four batters, which elevated his pitch count. But Holmes bounced back and did a much better job of limiting the damage in his second outing in Miami on Wednesday, which ended in a come from behind victory for the Mets. Holmes still only lasted 4 2⁄3 innings and gave up six hits, but limited the Marlins to two runs—only one of them earned. That was thanks in part to six strikeouts and only two walks. Holmes’ transition from the bullpen to the starting rotation is still a work in progress, despite his spring performance setting the bar high.
David Peterson earned a win in his first start of 2025, giving up just two runs in six innings in the series opener in Miami to notch a quality start to kick off his season. He struck out a whopping nine batters and walked three batters. Things seemed dicey early when he gave up a solo homer to an unlikely power threat in Otto Lopez, but luckily the Mets had their hitting shoes on and Peterson settled in. Peterson’s second start of the season on Sunday did not go as well, as he struggled with his command, walking five batters in 4 2⁄3 innings. Despite his best efforts to battle through the fifth inning, obvious discomfort that turned out to be a bout a nausea forced his early exit from the game, but luckily the Mets were able to cling onto their one-run lead and emerge victorious.
Kodai Senga is the only starter to have just one start for this first meter (yesterday’s game will be covered by next week’s meter, as I mentioned). Senga unfortunately took the loss in his first start of 2025. He was definitely not his dominant ghost fork self, but he was also hurt by bad defense behind him. The Marlins got out to an early lead by dropping a two-spot on Senga in the first inning on a Kyle Stowers two-run homer. Senga seemed to settle in a bit after that, but a Francisco Lindor error in the fourth resulted in two unearned runs that ultimately turned out to be the difference in the game. Despite not being at his absolute sharpest, Senga still struck out eight Marlins in the outing.
Where do I even begin when it comes to singing the praises of this Mets bullpen through the first nine games? I have so much to say about this that I have a full piece dedicated to the topic coming later this week, but for now I’ll just say the bullpen has been this team’s strength in this young season. I tried to be restrained in my fireball allocation, so there are only three of them in the group, but really there could have been more. We’ll start with Max Kranick—arguably the pleasant surprise of the 2025 season so far. But he’s not a complete surprise. He was the 2025 King of Spring Training (overcoming the “Pitcher as KoST” penalty, no less) for a reason, after all. There is no denying his stuff is nasty. He won a spot in the Opening Day bullpen on the back of his spring performance and he has continued rolling right into the regular season. Kranick’s Mets debut came in the highest leverage situation imaginable—a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning with the Mets down a run and facing down Yordan Álvarez and Christian Walker. It was his first big league appearance in three years. He got Álvarez to pop up in foul territory to the first base side and got Christian Walker to ground out to end the threat. It was an absolute “ice in his veins” moment right of the gate from Kranick. Kranick has made three more appearances since then and has not been scored upon in any of them. Kranick followed Senga on Tuesday and kept the game close, pitching the final three innings of the game to avoid burning the rest of the bullpen. He put forward another two scoreless frames in Friday’s home opener and then found himself in a very high leverage situation again on Sunday after Peterson’s early exit. Peterson had already loaded the bases and forced in a run on a hit by pitch, so Kranick entered the game with the Mets up only by a run and the bases loaded. He got Alejandro Kirk to pop out to maintain the lead and then pitched a 1-2-3 sixth inning after that, earning the win. It’s very early, but so far, Kranick has really been That Guy.
Reed Garrett followed Kranick on Sunday with a 1-2-3 seventh inning complete with a strikeout. The fact that the performance earned him his third hold of the young season is an indicator of how well Garrett has pitched so far this year. Like Kranick, Garrett has four appearances so far this season and has yet to allow a run. He pitched the sixth inning in relief of Megill in the Mets’ only victory in Houston. He then followed that up with 1 1⁄3 scoreless innings in relief of Clay Holmes in Wednesday’s extra-inning victory. In the home opener, Garrett finished up the sixth inning for Megill, striking out the only two batters he faced. In spring, Garrett said that one of his goals this year was to prove that last year’s breakout season was no fluke and thus far, he has lived up to his words.
Rounding out our trio of bullpen fireballs is Huascar Brazobán—another very pleasant surprise so far in 2025. He too holds a clean sheet across four appearances and 7 1⁄3 innings of work so far this season. One of the things that has made the Mets’ bullpen so effective is the presence of multiple pitchers who can throw multiple innings and Brazobán is among that group; three out of his four appearances have been two innings or more. On Opening Day, Brazobán pitched 2 1⁄3 scoreless innings in relief of Clay Holmes to keep that game close. He then pitched two scoreless innings in last Monday’s victory in Miami. Brazobán was crucial to Wednesday’s extra-inning victory in which the Mets had to basically empty their bullpen, recording the final two outs of the eleventh inning and earning his first save of the season. Brazobán also contributed 2 1⁄3 one-hit innings to Saturday’s walk-off victory.
Danny Young followed Brazobán both on Opening Day and in Miami to differing results. On Opening Day, he worked around a hit to pitch a scoreless eighth inning, complete with a strikeout. But in the ninth inning on Monday of last week, he got knocked around a bit for two runs on three hits. Thankfully the Mets had given him enough of a cushion to work with that this wasn’t a problem. But the margins on Wednesday were much thinner and Young did not do the job he was tasked with. The Mets went up by two runs in the top of the eleventh and Young took the mound for the bottom of the frame and immediately allowed a single to Xavier Edwards, scoring the ghost runner and bringing the Marlins within a run. He then walked the next batter to put the tying run in scoring position and the winning run on base before bouncing back to strike out Griffin Conine for the next out. Brazobán then came in and held the fort, but Young made things awfully dicey. But all things considered, Young being the only bad grade on this meter is pretty impressive.
José Buttó is another pitcher the Mets have relied on early to pitch multiple innings in relief and he too has been very good so far this season. In last Saturday’s loss in Houston, after Canning allowed the go-ahead run on a Yordan Álvarez double (yeah, that’ll happen), Buttó came in the game and successfully stopped the bleeding to keep the game close, striking out Christian Walker to end the inning. He then went on to pitch a scoreless seventh before getting into trouble in the eighth, which Kranick successfully navigated. Buttó earned the win in Wednesday’s extra inning victory for two scoreless innings of work in the ninth and tenth. The only blemish on his record so far was in Saturday’s game, in which he allowed a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. RBI single that snapped a scoreless tie in the fifth; that run was charged to Canning. Buttó allowed another run of his own in the next inning on back-to-back two-out doubles by Alan Roden and Bo Bichette. But luckily the Mets would come back to win the game in walk-off fashion thanks to Jesse Winker’s triple heroics and Francisco Lindor’s walk-off sac fly.
Edwin Díaz earned the victory on Saturday for a scoreless top of the eighth inning. Díaz hasn’t always been sharp this season, but thus far he has not allowed any runs. He gave up two hits on Saturday, but he struck out three batters to keep the game tied to set the table for the walk-off victory. Arguably Díaz’s best outing so far this season was his first one, which came in the Mets’ only victory in Houston. Protecting a two-run lead, Díaz pitched a 1-2-3 ninth with a strikeout to earn his first save of the season. All concerns about velocity from spring training were promptly erased, as his stuff looked as nasty (and hard) as ever. Díaz worked around a hit to pitch a scoreless ninth inning on Wednesday; the Mets went on to win that game in the eleventh. Díaz’s week ended with his second save of the season on Sunday, in which he successfully protected a one-run lead. But that outing was not without agita, as he hit two batters with pitches to put the tying run in scoring position, but he managed to escape unscathed. Edwin Díaz has been very Edwin Díaz so far this season; it isn’t always easy, but he usually ultimately gets the job done.
Free agent acquisitions A.J. Minter and Ryne Stanek have both been effective so far this season. Minter ended his week on a high note, pitching a scoreless eighth inning with two strikeouts on Sunday to earn his second hold of the season and act as the bridge to Díaz. Minter racked up three strikeouts as part of a scoreless eighth in Friday’s home opener and worked around a walk to pitch a 1-2-3 seventh last Friday in Houston. Minter’s only hiccup so far this season came in the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game. He allowed a ground rule double to Griffin Conine to lead off the inning and balked him over to third with one out. Otto Lopez then singled to drive in Conine and put the Marlins up by two. Minter recorded the second out of the inning, but his woes didn’t end there. Stanek came in the game and allowed a single to Nick Fortes, scoring Lopez; that run was charged to Minter. Stanek stopped the bleeding there and thanks to Pete Alonso’s game-tying home run in the next inning, both pitchers were bailed out. Stanek’s only other outing in the first nine games this season was a successful one; he earned his first hold of the season for a scoreless eighth inning of work last Friday (following Minter’s scoreless seventh) to set the table for Díaz in the ninth.