Coming into the 2026 season, the Mets were seemingly blessed with an overabundance of starting pitching. They traded for Freddy Peralta, who joined Nolan McLean, Kodai Senga, Clay Holmes, and David Peterson in the rotation. They also acquired Tobias Myers, who is capable of starting, in the Peralta trade, and they had Sean Manaea, Christian Scott, and Jonah Tong as depth.
Heading into June, the rotation has become a big question mark. While the team got good news that he doesn’t need surgery, Holmes
is out for the foreseeable future with a fractured fibula. Senga is has made a pair of appearances on a rehab assignment as he recovers from lumbar spine inflammation, but there’s no guarantee he can be an effective major league pitcher when he does return.
As for the other starters, here’s how they’ve fared in the month of May:
- Freddy Peralta: 2-1 with a 3.52 ERA
- Nolan McLean: 1-2 with a 6.92 ERA
- David Peterson: 3-1 with a 4.30 ERA
- Christian Scott: 0-0 with 3.00 ERA
Myers isn’t stretched out and has been used both as an opener and a long man. He is 0-0 with one save in ten appearances in May. His ERA is 5.54 in those ten games. Jonah Tong has been fantastic since his call-up, but he has yet to start a game. In his two games, he has yet to give up an earned run in 6.2 innings.
And then there is Manaea. Overall his numbers look terrible, as he’s 0-1 with a 5.56 ERA in 34.0 innings pitched this season. And the fact that he’s coming off a 2025 season in which he struggled with both injuries and ineffectiveness isn’t exactly inspiring. In the month of May, however, he is 0-1 with a more respectable 3.75 ERA. He has been fine serving as the long man out of the bullpen when called upon.
At this point the team has nothing to lose giving Manaea a chance to start. They are in desperate need of arms, and he is capable of giving them some innings. Carlos Mendoza would not commit to giving Peterson another start after his last disastrous outing so there is an opportunity to piggyback the two. Plus in that scenario the team wouldn’t need to burn an opener like Huascar Brazobán, meaning crucial bullpen arms will be available in the later innings.
The current state of the rotation is a mess, so now is the time to get creative with the arms you do have and that means giving Manaea an opportunity to prove himself as a stater. There is still every chance that he will not succeed, but with the Mets already in last place, why not see what you have? The only way to go is up, right?
