The Mets will call up Zach Thornton to pitch in Wednesday’s game against the Nationals, according to Carlos Mendoza. It is unclear whether he will get the start or pitch behind an opener, but he will be used in some capacity.
Thornton will pitch in place of the injured Clay Holmes, who suffered a fractured fibula after taking a line drive off the bat of Spencer Jones in his last start against the Yankees. Holmes is expected to miss significant time and not return until well into the summer, leaving
the team in need of a new arm. Other options under consideration including using Tobias Myers (in a potential bullpen game) or calling up another prospect, such as Jack Wenninger or Jonah Tong.
Thorton started the year in Double-A Binghamton, posting a 3.60 ERA in five starts for the Rumble Ponies before being promoted to Triple-A Syracuse. In two starts there, he posted a 2.25 ERA, allowing three earned runs across 12 innings pitched. He has struck out 40 batters across 37 innings this year between Double-A and Triple-A.
Thornton entered the year ranked No. 13 in the Mets’ farm system by MLB Pipeline, and No. 14 by Amazin’ Avenue. In his preview of the left-hander, Steve Sypa wrote:
The 6’3”, 170-pound left-hander throws from a high-three-quarter arm slot and has plenty of deception in his delivery with a funky, up-tempo delivery that incorporates an extremely long arm action through the back and a slingy, crossfire release. Despite all of the movement in his delivery, Thornton has above-average command of all of his pitches. He can pound the zone with pitches, throw borderline pitches to get batters to chase, and work to all quadrants of the zone with all of his pitches. While no one pitch that the left-hander throws is more than an average offering, his large repertoire keeps batters guessing and his impeccable command helps all of those pitches play up to their greatest potential. Coming into the 2025 season, he made attacking batters and putting them in pitcher’s counts earlier a goal, a strategy that paid major dividends for him.
Thornton throws a four-seam fastball and a two-seam fastball, and while the two pitches bleed into each other a great deal, they remain two distinct pitches and two distinct grips that the left-hander uses. Coming into the 2025 season, his fastball generally sat in the high-80s-to-low-90s, topping out as high as 95 MPH, but after doing off-season weight and strength training, his fastball has more consistently sat in the low-to-mid-90s. When thrown up in the zone, his four-seam fastball has averaged a slightly above-average induced vertical break a bit over 15 inches, while his two-seam fastball has roughly MLB average downward and horizontal movement.
The left-hander’s slider generally has been his most effective strikeout pitch. Like his fastball, off-season weight training during the winter of 2024-2025 gave his slider a little extra velocity, and the pitch now sits comfortably in the mid-to-high-80s, previously sitting more in the low-to-mid-80s. The pitch has slurvy two-plane break, and like his other breaking balls, works best down in the zone thanks to its vertical drop.
Rounding out his arsenal is a curveball and changeup. His curveball sits in the mid-70s and has big 11-5 break, while his changeup sits in the low-80s with late fade and tumble. Both pitches generally induce more weak ground balls or lazy fly balls than strikeouts; In 2024, the left-hander had a 49.5% groundball rate and 25.0% flyball rate, and while both have regressed, the 43.2% and 35.2% rates he posted, respectively, still make Thornton an effective pitcher.
It is worth noting that Thornton is not on the 40-man roster, so the team will have to make a move to make room for his return. There are several players who could be options to be transferred to the 60-day IL, including Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr., neither of whom appears close to returning to big league action. Earlier today, the team transferred A.J. Minter to the 60-day IL to make room for Daniel Duarte, whom they recalled from Triple-A (while optioning Joey Gerber to Triple-A).
