Even the most optimistic of New York Mets fans could not have anticipated how well the team’s starting rotation has performed this season.
All five of the Mets starters have an ERA below the league average without missing a turn of the rotation. Leading the way is Kodai Senga, who has rebounded from an injury-plagued 2024 season with a National-League leading 1.59 ERA. Right behind him is David Peterson with his 2.80 ERA, while converted reliever Clay Holmes has excelled in his first season in a Major League Baseball rotation with a sub-3.00 ERA of his own. Griffin Canning has perhaps been the most surprising rotation standout, as he has cut his ERA by nearly two runs from his 2024 season with the Los Angeles Angels. Finally, Tylor Megill has been the best number-five starter in baseball and actually leads the team in 84 strikeouts.
As good as this quintet has been, they might actually be getting even better. Postseason standout Sean Manaea is set to return from the injured list in the coming weeks, as is free-agent acquisition Frankie Montas. Veteran Paul Blackburn, meanwhile, was activated off the IL last week and tossed five scoreless innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers in his debut.
The old adage is that you can never have too much pitching, but the Mets will have some tough decisions to make. Coupled with the startling amount of depth are the workload concerns that many of the Mets starters face. Megill and Peterson have never made more than 25 starts in a season, Holmes has never thrown more than 70 innings in his eight-year career, and Senga is coming off a season in which he threw just 5.1 regular-season innings. Manager Carlos Mendoza has his work cut out for him, and The Athletic’s Tim Britton believes that sorting out the rotation is the biggest question facing the Mets.
“While the preliminary concern is who gets bumped from the back end, the longer-term one for a team thinking into October is how it shapes the front part,” Britton wrote. “It’s great when Paul Blackburn tosses five scoreless at Dodger stadium; who are the guys the Mets think can do that in an NLCS? Will Manaea and Montas be up to that task? Will Kodai Senga survive his eventual regression? Can Clay Holmes start for seven months?"
With the Mets possessing the National League’s best record and beginning to pull away in the National League East, it’s likely that the focus of the second half will be figuring out which starters can be trusted in October.
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