I would like to preface this article with a hopeful message to all Mets fans worried that all hope is lost for the season:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last season, as we all remember, the Mets finished 16 games above .500 and proceeded to come within two games of reaching the World Series. They beat two NL powerhouses, the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies, before losing 4-2 in the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, the Mets were a measly 64-60 on August 18 of last year, the day I wrote this article. Despite the recent skid, at the time of this article\u2019s writing, the Mets hold a 65-58 record. Hope is not lost. The Mets should be a 2025 playoff team. However, if the pitching, both starting and relieving, and the managing remain a problem, meaningful September games may be as far as the Mets get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pitching was the main reason for the Mets\u2019 first-half success. Even though starting pitchers only recorded approximately fifteen outs (five innings) per start before the All-Star Break, all five primary starters, Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Clay Holmes, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning, had incredible success. Upon reaching the break, Mets starters held a 3.38 ERA, much better than league average; impressively, every starter had a sub-4.00 ERA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Complementarily, the bullpen held its own. Even with closer Edwin D\u00edaz the only standout, the Mets received effective work from Ryne Stanek, Huascar Brazob\u00e1n, Reed Garrett, Jos\u00e9 Butt\u00f3 and Max Kranick. Recording just under twelve outs per game and facing sixteen batters per game, the bullpen pitched to a 3.83 ERA, won 20 games and saved 28. With the successful pitching and a 55-42 record before the break, most felt comfortable praising Mendoza\u2019s managing, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner\u2019s \u201cpitching lab\u201d and President of Baseball Operations David Stearns\u2019 offseason acquisitions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the break, all hell has broken loose for the Mets. Though the hitting has remained competent (thanks to Pete Alonso, Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez), both the starting and relief pitchers have faltered incredibly. With the starters, it seems that Clay Holmes, Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga have all forgotten how to pitch past the third inning. I\u2019ve tried to come up with an explanation for each of the three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clay Holmes<\/strong> had an incredible first half with an ERA just over 3.00, but the innings have finally caught up to him. Before this season, the most innings that the former reliever had thrown in a season was 70. Halfway through August, he\u2019s already up to 131. The solution? Instead of having him throw three scoreless innings then blow up in the next two, forcing the bullpen to labor anyway, remove him from the rotation for a few starts. Very easily, the Mets could claim that Holmes is experiencing arm fatigue, place him on the 15-day IL and call up prospect Brandon Sproat to make starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sean Manaea<\/strong>, whose 2024 second half led to the Mets\u2019 success, <\/strong>made his first appearance of the season July 13 against the Royals after experiencing elbow and oblique injuries. The southpaw hasn\u2019t completed six innings, and currently holds a 4.78 ERA, more than a run higher than that of 2024. Baseball analysts would likely claim that Manaea is actually having a decent season, given his high strikeout-to-walk ratio and xERA, but the reality is that he\u2019s just giving up too many home runs (six in 32 innings). The solution? Revert to throwing two-seam fastballs and inducing groundballs. Last season Manaea threw nearly equal four-seam and two-seam fastballs, actually throwing the latter with slightly better velocity. This season, he\u2019s utilized almost exclusively four-seamers, and throwing them 92 mph up in the zone leads to home runs. Manaea and Hefner know this, and should make an adjustment in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kodai Senga<\/strong> literally looked like the best pitcher in history in the first half. With a 1.39 ERA, seven wins and more than five-and-a-half innings per start, Senga was a Cy Young frontrunner. In five second-half starts, though, the 32-year-old has a 5.73 ERA and hasn\u2019t recorded a win. The main problem: walks. Though Senga\u2019s walk rate is never ideal, it\u2019s recently soared to more than twice the average. This has, in turn, limited him to less than five innings per start. The solution? Just keep pitching. Senga is the only Mets starter who doesn\u2019t have a very \u201cfixable\u201d problem. If he continues to start games, and if Mendoza removes his little league-esque pitch count, the numbers should turn around, and he should once again look like an ace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mets have the skill to turn the ship around over the next month to solidify their place as a playoff team. The hitters will continue to hit, and the pitchers will adjust. The most important issue, though, remains Mendoza\u2019s style. Expecting four innings from the bullpen every night will not work. Last year, the Mets got lucky when David Peterson became so successful out of the \u2018pen. This year the Mets don\u2019t have someone like that. Starters, besides Holmes, have the ability to throw 110-115 pitches in a game; Mendoza must utilize this ability instead of limiting everyone to 85-90 pitches per start and hoping the bullpen will do its job every night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I would like to preface this article with a hopeful message to all Mets fans worried that all hope is lost for the season:\u00a0 Last season, as we all remember, the Mets finished 16 games above .500 and proceeded to come within two games of reaching the World Series. They beat two NL powerhouses, the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies, before losing 4-2 in the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers. That said, the Mets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":12070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[318,317],"tags":[],"coauthors":[646],"class_list":["post-12069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-2025-09-01-at-11.45.16-PM-e1756784947232.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12069"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12072,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12069\/revisions\/12072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12069"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}