When I was growing up, “X-Force” was my favorite comic book. An X-Men offshoot, the team was a ragtag band of mutant soldiers who took a more aggressive and proactive approach towards their enemies and threats to mutantkind. Among those early team members was a character named Domino, whose mutant power was the ability to subconsciously alter the probability of events to end in beneficial outcomes for her; in other words, luck is always on her side.
Xzavion Curry must also be a mutant with similar
luck-influencing powers, because very little about his 2026 season makes sense.
The Mets signed the right-hander to a minor league contract in early May. Prior to joining the organization, he spent the 2025 season in the Miami Marlins and the Colorado Rockies organizations, as well as the Tigres de Quintana Roo of the Mexican League. He struggled at the MLB level with Miami and struggled with their Triple-A affiliate, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. He was solid in a handful of games with the Tigres, but struggled with Colorado’s Triple-A team, the Alburquerque Isotopes. Suffice to say, when Curry was signed, expectations were not particularly high.
The right-hander spent the first two months of his Mets tenure in Triple-A Syracuse, posting a surprisingly solid 4.74 ERA in 49.1 innings, used primarily as a starter. In early July, the Mets called Curry up to the big leagues, and he appeared in four games out of the bullpen, improbably allowing just two runs over 6.0 total innings. He would get sent back down to Triple-A near the end of the month but would find himself back with the Mets before long. Altogether, Curry was optioned and recalled a total of six more times between late July and the end of the season.
In total, the right-hander had a strangely effective season. He pitched the bulk of his innings with Triple-A Syracuse, where he was used as a starter, and emerged as arguably the team’s best pitcher, posting a 3.36 ERA in 72.1 innings over 14 starts and a pair of bullpen appearances, allowing 68 hits, walking 18, and striking out 41. With the Mets, he appeared in 9 games, making 1 start, and posted a 5.48 ERA in 21.1 innings, allowing 22 hits, walking 9, and striking out 15. While a 5.48 ERA is not particularly good, nearly half of the total runs he allowed as a big leaguer came in a singular doomed outing against the Baltimore Orioles, where he allowed six runs in 3.0 innings; if you erase that outing from his ledger, Curry would’ve posted a 3.44 ERA in 18.1 innings at the MLB level.
Now, let’s be frank here: Xzavion Curry really isn’t a good baseball player. He’s better than you or I, obviously, but as compared to his peers and contemporaries, the right-hander is lacking. Over the past few years, statistically, the numbers aren’t great. The stuff? Well, let’s just say his Baseball Savant page is bluer than the Meanie listening to Eiffel 65 while depressed.
Yet, somehow, Xzavion Curry was an above-average pitcher in Triple-A and a fairly cromulent pitcher with the Mets—I’m talking about a Palpatine level of somehow. I spend a lot of time dissecting what players are doing and what they aren’t doing and seeing what works and what doesn’t work, and I’m not really sure how Curry achieved it. Despite all that, Curry made it work where and when it counted, and no one can take that away from him. At 28-years-old, I’m sure he still has the drive to go out there and pitch, and his 2026 likely bought him at least another year in affiliated baseball.
