Mets Player Performance Meter: Pitchers, August 25-31

The youth movement has arrived to the Mets’ pitching staff. Jonah Tong made his major league debut this week and while he was not as dominant as Nolan McLean has been, he still delivered a strong outing, which is more than one can say about most of the rest of the rotation this week. The bullpen was a mixed bag; some relievers turned things around from last week, but Ryan Helsley still looks awful, despite getting better results occasionally. The Mets cycled through a lot of pitchers this week and most of the up-and-down

guys did a fantastic job of soaking up innings. They are the unsung heroes of this week’s pitching meter.

Player	Last week	This week
Huascar Brazobán, RHP
José Castillo, LHP	—
Chris Devenski, RHP	—
Edwin Díaz, RHP
Ryan Helsley, RHP
Kevin Herget, RHP	—
Clay Holmes, RHP
Sean Manaea, LHP
Nolan McLean, RHP
David Peterson, RHP
Brooks Raley, LHP
Tyler Rogers, RHP
Kodai Senga, RHP
Gregory Soto, LHP
Ryne Stanek, RHP
Jonah Tong, RHP	—
Brandon Waddell, LHP	—

Nolan McLean: my goodness. Where would the Mets be without him? I don’t know exactly, but I do know they’d be worse off. McLean twirled eight scoreless innings against the Phillies on Wednesday to help secure the series sweep. He allowed just four hits while striking out six batters and walking none. He becomes the first Mets starting pitcher in franchise history to earn the win in his first three big league appearances. One of the easiest and fastest fireballs I have ever bestowed.

Brooks Raley pitched a scoreless ninth inning on Wednesday in relief of McLean to cap off the victory and the sweep. It was a clean sheet for Raley this week across three appearances, as he logs his second straight week in the green again after a brief misstep. Raley earned a hold with a scoreless seventh in Monday’s victory and pitched a scoreless sixth inning with two punch outs in Saturday’s game.

The only other fireball in this week’s meter belongs to Brandon Waddell for soaking up 4 1/3 innings in yesterday’s loss right after his promotion back to the big leagues. He held the Marlins right where they were, at least giving the Mets a chance to bounce back. They did not, so he will be an unsung hero rather than a lauded one, but I recognize his efforts in this meter nonetheless. Waddell allowed three hits in the outing, striking out four batters and walking two.

Waddell’s Herculean effort came in relief of Kodai Senga, who was mediocre this week yet again. He took the loss in yesterday’s game, allowing five runs on seven hits in 4 1/3 innings of work. He struck out six batters and walked two. Senga also started Monday’s game and wasn’t exactly good, but luckily the Mets had their hitting shoes on in that contest. Senga allowed three runs on six hits, walking three batters and striking out four in that outing. The problem with Senga is longevity at this point. On Monday he lasted just 4.0+ innings; he came back out for the fifth, hit the leadoff batter with a pitch, and was then removed from the game.

José Castillo replaced him and induced a key double play from Alec Bohm to help navigate his way through a scoreless fifth inning. Castillo ended up earning the win in the game, as the Mets took the lead in the bottom of the inning and then feasted off the Phillies’ bullpen to open up a much larger lead. Castillo also pitched two innings in Friday’s lopsided victory. He gave up a run in that outing, but with the Mets up big, the run was inconsequential. Like many of the rest of the unsung heroes this week, Castillo’s reward for his efforts was being removed from the roster; Castillo was designated for assignment after Friday’s appearance.

Chris Devenski was called up to replace him and he was the unsung hero of Saturday’s game. He pitched three hitless innings of relief after David Peterson’s early exit from the game. Those innings ended up being significant, as the Mets came back from a large deficit, only to lose in the late innings. Devenski struck out three and walked one in the workmanlike outing, after which he was sent back down to Triple-A in favor of Waddell. Peterson gets tagged with the poop emoji for getting shellacked by the Marlins to the tune of eight runs in two innings of work. Peterson was excellent last time through the rotation, but this one was a stinker—one of his worst starts of the season.

After the Mets came storming all the way back on Saturday, Tyler Rogers took the loss for allowing the go-ahead run in the seventh. To be fair to the contact-oriented Rogers (and the rest of the Mets’ pitching staff, to varying extents), the Mets’ defense has not been doing him any favors, but it was still a significant run that proved to be the difference in the game. Rogers’ other outings this week were more successful. He followed Castillo in the sixth on Monday and earned his 25th hold of the season with a 1-2-3 inning. He followed that up with an even more important hold in Wednesday’s series finale. He protected what was a two-run lead at the time with another 1-2-3 seventh.

But the Phillies tied the game on Wednesday in the following inning when Ryan Helsley had yet another rough outing. He walked Nick Castellanos with one out in the eighth and then gave up a game-tying home run to former Met Harrison Bader. That poor performance was sandwiched between two better results for Helsley in his other outings this week. To get himself right, he pitched in a low leverage situation in the eighth inning of Monday’s game with the Mets up big and pitched a scoreless inning. He did the same on Friday, working around a hit to pitch a scoreless sixth inning. But even in his outings where the results are good, hitters are still squaring up against his stuff and it’s clear that he still shouldn’t be trusted in high leverage for the time being.

Helsley’s blowup on Wednesday necessitated the use of Edwin Díaz in the eighth inning. The lightly-used Díaz kept the game tied in the eighth and pitched a scoreless ninth as well, setting things up for the walk-off victory, which earned Díaz his sixth win of the season. Díaz continued his dominance of the Phillies, recording four of the five outs via the strikeout. However, Díaz was less successful against the Marlins on Saturday. He came in the game with the Mets down a run and yielded two insurance runs to put the game further out of reach.

Gregory Soto also appeared in both Wednesday and Saturday’s games and much like Díaz, his week was a mixed bag. He entered a scoreless game in the fifth on Wednesday with two outs and two runners on. A wild pitch advanced the runner on first base to second base and then he allowed an RBI single to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. Both of those runs were charged to Sean Manaea and that soiled his line. Like many of his other outings lately, Manaea cruised early, but then got gassed in the fifth. He was able to limit the damage though, scattering six hits and striking out eight batters while walking none. Soto finally struck out J.T. Realmuto to end the inning with the Mets only down by two—a deficit they managed to come back from. Soto’s most damaging outing came on Thursday and he took the loss in that game. Once again, the Mets’ defense was the real culprit; none of the three runs Soto gave up in the inning were earned. But that disastrous seventh was the difference in the game. Soto bounced back to pitch a scoreless eighth inning in Saturday’s loss sandwiched between Rogers’ and Díaz’s poor outings.

Kevin Herget, freshly up from Triple-A, came in the game on Thursday to finish the seventh when Soto and the Mets’ defense were only able to record one out. The Marlins scored another (unearned) run on a sacrifice fly, but no other damage was done against Herget, who soaked up the final 2 2/3 innings of the game. He struck out two and walked none in the outing, after which he was sent back down to the minors (sensing a pattern?).

Clay Holmes started Thursday’s game and delivered a solid performance, despite the Mets being two runs down when he left the game. He gave up four runs in five innings of work, but only two of them were earned because of the crappy defense played behind him. Much like Rogers, Holmes is a pitcher that thrives on inducing soft contact and that only works when his fielders make the plays. So only recording two strikeouts on a day when the Mets made several miscues in the field was not a recipe for success.

Ryne Stanek worked around two walks to pitch a scoreless sixth inning in relief of Holmes in what was a bounce back week for him. Stanek finished off the lopsided victories on Monday and on Friday. Friday’s outing in particular was admirable because he was not expecting to pitch and was forced into service after the Mets used Luis Torrens to pitch to begin the inning and he was only able to record one out before things started getting somewhat dicey. Carlos Mendoza relented and decided to use a real pitcher to finish the game and so Stanek was forced to warm up quickly. He struck out the final two batters of the game to put an end to the nonsense.

That performance from Stanek ensured that like McLean, Jonah Tong earned the victory in his major league debut. Tong was not as dominant as McLean, but he did very well. The Mets gave him a historic amount of run support to work with and he navigated two long layovers in the first two innings. Things didn’t really get iffy for him until the fifth, which he struggled to get through, but did so with the cushion of the large lead in order to line himself up for the win. The Marlins scored four runs in that fifth inning, but only one of them was earned because of a pair of fielding errors by Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso. Tong struck out six batters and walked none in his incredibly successful big league debut.

Huascar Brazobán gave up a run in his only appearance of the week on Wednesday, after which he was sent back down to Triple-A Syracuse. That run came in the sixth and it brought the Phillies within two runs, but Brazobán still held the lead, so that earned him his 12th hold of the season. According to Carlos Mendoza, Brazobán has been dealing with some discomfort in his side, so he went for an MRI, but it was clean, so he was optioned rather than placed on the injured list.