Jacob deGrom versus Jonah Tong. The Jonah Tong of the past versus the Jacob DeGrom of the future. The Met pitching prospect who excelled amid a glittering class of his promising peers versus the Met pitching prospect at the outset of a journey he’s pursuing alongside those possessing arms full of potential like his.
It was too good to be true. It really was.
The Jacob deGrom we knew and loved and were forsaken by when the money was too good to pass up elsewhere returned to Citi Field Friday night, and Jacob came home with a vengeance. Actually, Jake went about his business as he usually did as a Met. He was elegant, he was efficient, he walked off the mound with nothing to regret on his end. The only difference from the deGrom we savored as ours from 2014 to 2022, besides the TEXAS on his chest, is he’d had eight runs scored on his behalf by his teammates.
The Jonah Tong with whom we’ve just commenced to acquaint ourselves and we wish to embrace as part of the solution to all that ails us was the collateral damage in deGrom’s homecoming. He’d looked so ready to rock against the Marlins and Reds. He did rock in those starts, one a win, one a loss, but both revelations in their own manner. Friday night revealed a 22-year-old pitcher, no matter how highly rated for what it is believed he can do, is sometimes simply a 22-year-old kid who has a ways to go.
The Rangers were immune to Tong’s talents. One struck out against him. One flied out. The other seven reached base. He faced all nine only once. Two walks preceded four two-out hits, two before and two after another walk. It didn’t feel as if balls were being whacked unmercifully, but it did feel like the pitcher was. None of it felt good. You wanted to see Tong take a breath, find his poise, assert his authority. You would have settled for a line drive finding a glove, anything to get him out of the first inning. Instead, the first inning went on without him. He threw forty pitches. Twenty of them were balls. Six batters crossed the plate. The night that began with visions of a transcendent pitching duel didn’t get to the bottom of the first before it was over.
If I’d let myself, I could have teared up watching deGrom get loose as a Texas Ranger inside Citi Field. This shouldn’t have been happening. For all the business reasons I accepted three Decembers ago, it killed me to see this century’s Seaver pitch against us rather than for us. But a game was about to be played, and I wanted deGrom’s team to lose, so I didn’t bother with tears. And as Tong sunk in the quicksand that enveloped him, I could feel another tear or two developing, indicative of emotions that don’t materialize as a matter of course when the Mets routinely fall behind. I felt so bad for the kid. He was flailing and groping, and as batter after batter got the best of him, it was clearly crushing him and me. But a game was in progress. No time for tears.
When the game was over, my eyes were dry. Sadness isn’t coming to the fore when it comes to watching the 2025 Mets let a playoff spot get away. After falling behind, 6-0, they didn’t dent deGrom until the third, compiling three runs, which would have been fantastic had it not merely halved their deficit and if they weren’t up against a guy who was in no mood to give up anything more. Sure enough, deGrom pitched the fourth through seventh like Jesus Luzardo pitched the second through eighth the night before in Philadelphia. The Mets are in the habit of getting nothing going. Friday it was twelve up and twelve down after the Mets crept to within 6-3.
Tong’s two-thirds of an inning was just sad. Everything else about the Mets this evening was embarrassing. Huascar Brazoban failed to promptly cover first base on a grounder to Pete Alonso in the second. By the time Brazoban scurried to the bag — too late to beat a hustling Jake Burger — Alonso flung the ball in the general direction of his pitcher’s face before it landed in the dugout. Burger wound up on second, which was the least worst aspect of that sequence. In the fourth, Jeff McNeil got called out on a borderline strike three and couldn’t resist to drop some magic words in the direction of home plate ump Scott Barry, who heard them and ejected him. In the seventh, with Gregory Soto on and needing by law to face a third batter, Bruce Bochy sent up a righthanded pinch-hitter, Dylan Moore, to torment Carlos Mendoza. Moore blasted a two-run homer off lefty Soto to provide deGrom the kind of cushion he rarely had in Queens. Up 8-3, the visiting starter finished his seven innings with minimal fuss. The Ranger bullpen went similarly unbothered, and Jake emerged as the winning pitcher at Citi Field
It doesn’t show up in the box score, but the Mets’ A/V squad could have let deGrom’s initial trot to the mound where he earned his two Cy Youngs go unaccompanied by whatever idiotic DJ prattle they insist on inflicting on their crowd for a few seconds. Not to honor Jake — they played him a thanks-for-the-memories video at 6:45 — but to give the people who show up to Mets games with a sense of what’s come before a moment to take in what they’re seeing. Six runs off Tong had warped the vibe, but it was still Jacob deGrom pitching at Citi Field for the first time in three years. SNY withheld commercials so the home viewers could soak it in. All we got was some shouting and throbbing, the essence of inane dronery.
If the sole blemish of the evening was aesthetic, we could laugh it off. Gallows giggles would be welcome at this point. The Mets have lost seven in a row, a sum that should sound familiar, given that the Mets have done that twice before in 2025. Know a lot of playoff teams losing seven in a row repeatedly? After watching Tong have little more success composing himself before reporters than he did against batters, I stayed up to see if the Dodgers could do us a favor and beat the Giants. I’m not programmed to root for L.A. against San Fran, but this wasn’t about them. Soon, it will not be about us. Just as I nodded off, Patrick Bailey launched a tenth-inning grand slam at Oracle Park, and the Giants moved to within a half-game of the Mets for the final Wild Card. The Reds, who hold the tiebreaker over us, lost, at least, though I can’t imagine we’ll be in any position where such minutia will matter to postseason schedulemakers.
Tong, no less promising than he was before Friday, will hopefully process what happened to him for the better and certainly pitch another day, presumably soon. (Also, Kodai Senga produced positive results at Syracuse, so maybe he’ll be back to pick up slack.) Brandon Sproat today, Nolan McLean tomorrow. I seem to be implying there are still some things to look forward to. There are, in the sense that we’re still Mets fans and we can still relish young pitchers coming along, even if not every one of them comes along all at once. As far as what it means to an unforeseen sizzling “pennant race,” you’ve gotta be kidding. I’m past attempting to solve “they’re too good to play this bad” puzzles. They’re not good. Those who constitute the everyday lineup have shown no signs of succeeding meaningfully as a collective, and as individual performances go, honestly, who cares? I like an upbeat statistic as much as any fan, but I can’t remember the last time any hit or home run or stolen base made any kind of tangible difference to the Mets’ fortunes. The pitchers who aren’t the kids are just as culpable for where we are.
It’s not a good team, and they’re not in a good situation. The part where we say they “yet somehow, they’re still in playoff position” figures to turn inoperative imminently, and we won’t need to ask how it’s possible that a team this good can be this bad. It’s not a team that’s that good. Fourteen games remain to change that answer. Breath will not be held in advance of that happening.
I felt bad for Tong. The control wasn’t there but what really let him down was how the game was called whether by him, Alvarez, the dugout, who knows? He started out throwing almost all changeups – then the Rangers, as big league hitters will, started to time it and smack it all over the place. Then he switched to all fastballs which worked a little, until they started to time it and smack it all over the place. I never thought he or Sproat were ready to come up this season but so long as no mental damage is done, so what – it’s not like the vets were pitching worth a damn. But last night showed why he wasn’t ready. The stuff is there, the ability to manage a game is not.
This season will, in the end, be interesting as it will offer a chance to reflect on the question that has tormented sports fans ever since naked wrestlers squared off in Athens, “Is it better to have hoped and lost than to have never hoped at all?”
Bad Mets baseball–even the high-proof lolMets stuff we’re seeing now–is always better than no Mets baseball (off season, off day, COVID delay, strike, lock-out, etc).
The last hope is that with the Mets now tied in the loss column with the streaking ex-Met-laden Giants, cornered or at the proverbial cliff’s edge, or maybe it happens when they drop to .5 out of the 3rd wildcard, that’s the wake-up call the Mets need to flip the switch and go on a hot streak to reclaim the 3rd wildcard just in time. That’s unlikely with problems blooming in every department of the team, but that’s where we are.
all so well put here, greg.
when sny didn’t go to break i was brouhht back to those long ago days, watching the mets on wpix, when we always watched mets pitchers’ warmup tosses. but yes, the ‘entertainment’ killed it. a moment of silence would have been mote appropriate.
days ago i wondered how coming up to the big for these three young starters, to a team in the midst of a long but epic collapse – and being thrust into the role of saviors might do to them. last night was a saf and bitter taste of that.
it waa good to see a healthy jake again. after the 6run cushion i was almost rooting for him to no-hit the mets
and have something special come to one of our best ever. against this team that has lost my support, nearly to a player. once the no-no was off the table there was little reason to watch. i did catch mendoza and tong’s post-game comments. one of the more sad moments in a sad excuse for a season.
wishing jonah support until – and and a fire in his belly when he pitches again.
had there been a viable pitching staff present after the deadline, the young man could have built a better history for himself – with more than 2 starts at AAA!
yes, sproat and mclean. they’ll need to dig this team out of this hole and take honah under their wings
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2 Ks: The Mets did make a lot of contact on deGrom, a good deal of it hard contact, but other than the 1 inning, it was all being caught. Whereas the contact on Tong, hard and soft, was all falling in. DeGrom knows how to do that. Tong needs to learn.
Jonah Tong is interesting from a general baseball fan perspective because his ascension to the majors is not premature. On performance, he was dominating the minors, overpowering hitters, and his stuff is an analytics darling. 22 years old is young, but not uncommonly young for a big-league promotion, especially for a star prospect drafted out of high school or signed out of Latin America, which means he’s been a pro for years.
From a development standpoint, there was nothing more to be gained from Tong pitching in AAA. The flaws he has in his game, which are now being exposed by MLB over his 3 progressively worse starts, were marginalized by his superiority at the minor-league level. Finishing out the season in AAA wouldn’t have moved him past the plateau. Having pitches that had been putting away minor-league hitters, no problem, being knocked around by major-leaguers is seasoning that Tong needs to take the next step. It’s evident that he needs to learn how to adjust–how to pitch–in ways that the minor leagues weren’t compelling him to learn.
The problem of course is that the Mets need Tong, Sproat, and McLean to perform right now to make up for the staff-wide failure of the big-league veterans. The play-off run is the immediate priority, not Tong’s development. On the other hand, if the Mets stagger out of the post-season, Tong’s rookie trials will be far down the list of the reasons why. If the Mets were out of it or way ahead when Tong was called up, the move would have been a no-brainer development-wise. For the sake of the 2026 Mets, it’s better to commence Tong’s necessary major-league learning curve now.
I was rooting for deGrom to pitch a no-hitter last night; I was not rooting for Jonah Tong to fall apart to a level where now we might have to worry about whether the poor kid will end up with long-term PTSD as a result of this start.
This team is heartless, disinterested and completely leaderless. There’s no point in calling a desperately needed clubhouse meeting because 1) nobody gives enough of a damn to call one, and 2) if anybody did, nobody would listen, because this is a team full of players who obviously hate each other. (And the Pete Alonso who tried to behead his negligent teammate with a throw to first base, that “lovable” Polar Bear everybody embraces, is the Pete Alonso who was dropping f-bombs in front of kids and families on a live mic after a game in 2023.)
They are playing .400 ball for fully half a season now.
And, in addition to all the issues I cited above, the organization is beyond tone deaf with its stadium operations. Having the Friday night DJ condescendingly urge on the fans after Texas’ six-run top of the first, as deGrom was taking the mound, was right up there with having that “Hawk-tua” woman sing the national anthem on kids’ camp day last year, and with the video board showing a certain non-stars-and-stripes flag during the anthem on June 13 (I know, we’re not supposed to talk about that).
This organization just keeps finding new ways to humiliate itself.
But, hey, let’s run it all back next year and hope for a better result, right?
If the Mets don’t make the post-season, I expect the roster to be overhauled this off-season based on the last 5 or 6 years, including their failure to make the playoffs in the short COVID season. The 2024 Mets that beat the Phillies badly in the NLDS look like the exception.
Right now, I’m doubting the Mets finish at or above .500, let alone hold onto the 3rd wildcard.