It’s that time of year, folks. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, baseball is back, and so are our meters, which provide the community with a nice little snapshot of how each player is performing. To be transparent right from the jump, this year I am doing something new with the meters: instead of weekly, they will be posted biweekly (as in, every other week, not twice a week). This cadence is much more manageable with my schedule and I also think a two-week sample size is more meaningful
to look at than a one-week sample. In the case of this first set of meters, because the first week of the season was not a complete one, these numbers cover the first ten games of the season. Hereafter, meters will appear on the site every other week on Mondays—maybe occasionally on Tuesday if your imperfect Mets Meter Maid (that’s me) is having a bad week.
Now we’re onto the more fun meter of the two in our first set: the pitchers. The Mets are second in the National League in both team ERA and pitching fWAR over these first ten games. The Mets’ losses in the early going have overwhelmingly been due to a lack of run production, but not a lack of run prevention. The pitching has been immaculate. Outside of David Peterson’s one clunker, no one in the rotation has had a bad game and bad bullpen performances have been limited to guys who may not even be on the roster in a few weeks. The Mets’ high leverage relievers—Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, Brooks Raley, and Huascar Brazobán—have yet to give up an earned run. Tobias Myers has emerged as a potent multi-inning threat. Kodai Senga is looking more like the pitcher with ace potential we’ve seen in the past, Freddy Peralta is as advertised, Clay Holmes hasn’t missed a beat, and Nolan McLean is looking like a potential Rookie of the Year candidate. Sean Manaea’s velocity is certainly a concern, but he has gotten positive results out of the bullpen. There is a hell of a lot to like here and almost no red to be found.
| Player | This week |
|---|---|
| Huascar Brazobán, RHP |  |
| Luis García, RHP |  |
| Clay Holmes, RHP | |
| Richard Lovelady, LHP |  |
| Sean Manaea, LHP | |
| Nolan McLean, RHP | |
| Tobias Myers, RHP | |
| Freddy Peralta, RHP | |
| David Peterson, RHP | |
| Brooks Raley, LHP | |
| Kodai Senga, RHP | |
| Luke Weaver, RHP | |
| Devin Williams, RHP | |
We’ll start with Opening Day starter Freddy Peralta, who is the one new face in the Mets’ rotation this year. I waffled back and forth about whether to give him a positive grade despite the fact that he had mediocre results in his first game and good results in his second game, thus balancing out to a side arrow. Because he really did pitch better on Opening Day than his line indicates. Yes, he gave up two home runs. But one of them was sort of a cheapie, if you ask me—and if you ask Peralta, who said he made one mistake that day. And the Mets won the game anyway thanks to plenty of run support. In his second start, Peralta had the opposite problem. He gave up just one run on three hits in 5 1/3 strong innings of work, but got no run support and the Mets lost the game. Across his first two starts, Peralta has struck out fourteen batters and walked only two—a very good ratio. I would argue that so far Peralta has been exactly as advertised—a front-end starter who is somewhat prone to the home run ball and racks up a lot of strikeouts, but is not going to go deep into the game.
The starter that has pitched the most innings across his first two starts is Clay Holmes, who has started strong in 2026, earning the win in both outings. A week ago in St. Louis, Holmes gave up two runs on four hits in 5 2/3 innings, striking out five batters and walking three. He was even better in San Francisco on Saturday, delivering the best starting pitching performance for the Mets so far with seven scoreless innings—matching his career high from last year—over which he gave up just three hits. He may not be striking batters out at the impressive rate of some of the Mets’ other arms, but he has been an expert in inducing soft contact and limiting damage.
Saturday’s game was a nice tidy victory for the Mets, as Holmes handed the ball right over to Tobias Myers, who pitched the final two innings of the game without allowing a base runner. Just ten games into the season, Myers has already made himself indispensable as a multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen for the Mets. All four of his outings thus far have been more than one inning in length and he has only allowed one earned run in eight total innings of work—a solo homer on Opening Day, on which he pitched three innings in relief of Peralta. It’s true that his unearned run was an important one—the decisive run in the series finale in St. Louis, which was the Mets’ third extra inning game in a young season. But Myers features a starter’s arsenal out of the bullpen and Carlos Mendoza has not shied away from using him in high-leverage spots and Myers has risen to the occasion more often than not.
Sean Manaea is another starting pitcher currently being featured out of the bullpen due to the diminished velocity he showed in spring training. His velocity is still not back yet, but it is creeping upwards with each appearance. Though his fastball may not be where he wants it yet, his sweeper is still a devastating pitch and he is getting results with it. So far Manaea has appeared in two games—the series finale against the Pirates and the series opener in San Francisco. Both were ultimately Mets losses, but neither was Manaea’s fault. He was shaky in his first appearance against the Pirates, but didn’t allow a run in his 1 1/3 innings of work. In San Francisco he did mop-up duty for David Peterson, giving up one run in 3 2/3 innings of work, striking out two batters and walking two.
Speaking of that David Peterson performance, it was ugly and the only starting pitching performance in these first ten games one could really classify as poor. He got knocked around for six runs—five of them earned—on a whopping nine hits in 4 1/3 innings of work. However, he avoids a bad grade because his other outing was a good one. Peterson started the thrilling extra inning victory in the opening series against the Pirates and pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings in that game, matching zeroes with Mitch Keller. He did give up six hits, but managed to wriggle his way out of trouble each time, as the Pirates ended up leaving 17 men on base in total in that game.
That extra-inning game also began the saga of Richard Lovelady’s return to the Mets in 2026. Lovelady was one of the heroes of that game, letting the ghost runner cross the plate in the 11th but nothing more, helping pave the way for a thrilling victory in the bottom of the 11th. He earned the victory for that effort, but gave up at least one earned run in each of his subsequent appearances—sometimes costly, sometimes not. Lovelady was sent back out there the very next day, also in a tie game in extra innings. He gave up a single to lead off the inning and score the ghost runner, but then got a double play to clear the bases and you thought that maybe, just maybe, the Mets would get away with it again. But it was not to be. He then couldn’t put the inning to bed and walked two batters in a row and an RBI single plated a second run, which proved to be the difference in the game. So the day after he earned the victory in an extra-inning game, he took the loss in an extra-inning game. Being the guy that has been DFA’d and then re-added to the roster seemingly more times than we can count, Lovelady has the unfortunate role of simply wearing it sometimes or being overworked so the more “important” relievers are not. Just two days after those back-to-back extra-inning appearances, he gave up a run in the seventh inning in the series opener in St. Louis, only to be sent out again for a second inning of work to save the rest of the bullpen. He also gave up a run in Friday’s lopsided victory against the Giants. All told, a 5.40 ERA for Richard Lovelady is not awful and about what you’d expect from him, especially given how much he’s been abused in the early going.
Lovelady’s two innings of work in the series opener came in relief of Kodai Senga, who pitched well, but was given no run support by his team and so he took the loss, despite putting up a quality start. Over six innings, Senga gave up two runs on four hits, striking out nine batters and walking three. Though he didn’t get credit for the win, the Mets pulled off the victory in Senga’s second start of the season yesterday thanks to Luis Torrens’ late-inning pinch hitting heroics. Senga did similarly well, giving up two runs over 5 2/3 innings, striking out seven (including striking out the side in the second) and walking two. After he struggled so much last season, seeing Senga seemingly healthy and throwing hard and looking like himself is refreshing and a massive relief.
Huascar Brazobán was the pitcher who earned the victory in yesterday’s game for 1 1/3 hitless innings of work. Brazobán has come out of the gate absolutely dealing and alongside Myers is a guy who can handle an up-and-down out of the bullpen, which has been essential for the Mets. Brazobán is one of multiple relievers who has yet to allow an earned run in 2026 across five appearances totaling 5 1/3 innings of work. He hasn’t walked a single batter and has allowed just two hits, striking out three.
As I mentioned in the introduction, all of the Mets’ back-end relievers have been spotless so far. Like Lovelady, Luke Weaver appeared in both extra-inning games in the Pirates series and pitched a scoreless inning in each of them. In fact, Weaver appeared in all three extra-inning games the Mets have played in, pitching a scoreless inning on April 1 in St. Louis as well. Weaver earned his first hold of the season with a scoreless eighth inning in yesterday’s come from behind victory.
Devin Williams, who has also yet to be scored upon, earned his second save of the season yesterday when he worked around two hits to pitch a scoreless ninth. Williams also followed Weaver with a scoreless ninth in the series finale in St. Louis before the Mets lost in extras. He earned his first save as a Met in the series opener in St. Louis, striking out two batters in a 1-2-3 frame to help secure the victory for Clay Holmes. Williams’ first appearance in the orange and blue was in the extra-inning victory against the Pirates, in which he allowed two baserunners, but kept the game tied thanks in part to two strikeouts. Obviously it’s a long season and there will inevitably be some heartbreakers along the way, but early returns are looking great for the Mets’ new closer.
Brooks Raley rounds out the group of Mets relievers who have been nails so far in 2026. Raley is reprising his role as the primary lefty out of the bullpen with incredible mastery. He has yet to allow a run across four appearances and in fact he has only allowed one base runner across those four appearances. Raley has amassed two holds and five strikeouts against zero walks. As the Mets await A.J. Minter’s return to the bullpen, “Where would they be without Brooks Raley?” is a question I often ask myself. And the answer is simply: in a worse place than they are now.
Luis García rounds out the bullpen contingent and much like Richard Lovelady, he hasn’t been great, but he hasn’t been a complete disaster either, which is about in line with one’s expectations. He pitched poorly on Opening Day and gave up two runs, but luckily the Mets had a nice cushion to work with and his performance didn’t cost them. He preceded Lovelady in the second game of the season, giving up the ghost runner in the tenth inning, but nothing more. The Mets went on to tie the game back up in the bottom of the tenth, sending it to the eleventh. García had a far less eventful outing on Friday, in which he pitched a scoreless ninth inning to finish off that lopsided win.
Of the entire pitching staff, perhaps no one has more hype around his 2026 season than Nolan McLean. And though he hasn’t been perfect, he’s been pretty darn good. And throwing video game stuff. Despite striking out eight over five innings in his 2026 debut in which he gave up just two runs, that was the ill-fated extra-inning loss to the Pirates. He did earn the win in his second start though on Friday in which the Mets gave him plenty of run support. In that outing, he was perfect into the sixth, but then faded quickly. He ultimately gave up two runs—only one of them earned—in 5 1/3 innings of work.
