NEW YORK — Out of the dugout, like a hirsute cannonball, shot Jesse Winker.
The looping single from walk-off hero Starling Marte hadn’t yet touched outfield turf, meaning the game-ending play of New York’s 4-3 victory on Wednesday was very much still in motion. This meant nothing to Winker, the long-locked and expressive Mets designated hitter, for whom Marte had pinch hit earlier in the game.
While the rest of his teammates waited for the action to conclude so they could rush the field, Winker broke protocol and broke toward home. By the time Pete Alonso slid across as the winning run, Winker was just a few feet away, perfectly placed to greet the sprawled-out Polar Bear with a bear hug.
It was a delightfully unhinged thing to do, the perfect representation of what a Mets fan — brain off, heart pounding, serotonin on max — might’ve done if given the opportunity.
Marte’s hit (and Winker’s reaction) provided the perfect conclusion to a storybook homestand. Seven games, seven Mets victories: four over a pesky St. Louis Cardinals team, then three against a fierce division rival in the Philadelphia Phillies, a club the Mets bounced from postseason play in October.
After 25 games, the New York Mets, at 18-7, have the best record in baseball. They are 12-1 at home. Their pitching staff has a 2.34 ERA. Alonso and shortstop Francisco Lindor are both playing like MVP candidates. The rest of the lineup has been good enough, timely enough, to overcome a relatively sluggish start from headline free agent Juan Soto. The vibes in Flushing, as they say, are immaculate.
Here’s a grab bag of thoughts from the most telling NL series of the season thus far.
The Phillies’ bullpen is a bigger concern than the lineup
In Philadelphia, the vibes are much more sour. The Phils are 6-10 in their past 16 games and have yet to win a series on the road. They’ve hit just 21 homers and allowed 31. Despite tallying 11 knocks in the series finale, they didn’t register a single extra-base hit. Among NL teams, only the Rockies and Pirates have a lower slugging percentage than the Phillies, a shocking statistic given how stellar Philadelphia’s lineup has been the past few seasons.
Understandably, Phillies skipper Rob Thomson expressed confidence that his star-studded group will turn things around. And he’s probably right. On Wednesday, the Phillies cranked 16 balls at 95 mph or higher, their second-highest mark of the season. The baseball gods, as they occasionally do, turned many of those lasers into outs.
But with this group, the doubles and long balls should come eventually. And amidst the drudgery in Queens, there were a few signs of life. Alec Bohm, an offensive bupkis to start the season, seems to have turned a corner and is carrying a 10-game hitting streak. J.T. Realmuto scorched three balls Wednesday, none of which turned into hits. Nick Castellanos has sliced down his chase rate. Bryson Stott, leading off against right-handed starters, looks like an improved player.
In the bullpen, however, there are much fewer reasons for optimism. During this current run of contention, the Phillies have generally operated with four, preferably five, arms they trust in high leverage, rather than deploying a rigid reliever hierarchy. The specific personnel has fluctuated over the years, but the strategy has endured.
Except this season, the Phillies seem to have just three relievers worth trusting, one of whom, Orion Kerkering, has scuffled in the early going. Losing Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estevez in free agency was a blow, but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski hoped that new addition Jordan Romano would help pick up some of the slack. So far, Romano has been abysmal, though his velocity was better against the Mets on Wednesday.
Quite simply, the Phillies don’t have enough good relievers right now. And unless Romano rediscovers the goods, it’s hard to see where any improvements will come from. José Ruiz, respectfully, does not appear to be the answer.
The Mets’ rotation continues its brilliance
Coming into the 2025 season, New York’s starting staff was labeled a potential Achilles’ heel. Such critiques only grew in volume after a pair of to-be-relied-upon starters, Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas, went down with injuries. The Mets’ highly touted pitching development apparatus pulled off a slew of jaw-dropping magic tricks in 2024, but few expected an encore such as this.
So far in 2025, the team’s 2.34 ERA is the best in MLB by more than half a run, as is its rotation ERA of 2.33. Through five turns, the quintet of Clay Holmes, Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning has been downright sublime; Peterson’s 3.29 ERA is the worst of the bunch.
Canning’s turnaround is perhaps the most shocking, given that he ranked as a bottom-five starter in baseball in a number of metrics last year, and nobody allowed more earned runs. But this season, he has been a revelation, powered by an effective uptick in his slider usage.
What happens when Manaea and, eventually, Montas return remains to be seen. For these Mets, that’s a good problem to have.
Soto is still waiting for home homer No. 1
It has been an underwhelming first month for the $765 million man. Through 25 games, he has a batting average below .200 and an OPS below .700. Still, nobody around the club is doing anything remotely close to panicking. Even generational players such as Soto go through fallow periods.
The home crowds, however, have taken notice. Each time Soto came to the plate against the Phillies, Citi Field responded with a notably loud standing ovation. Possibly, that’s because all three of Soto’s Mets home runs thus far have come on the road. In Game 1 against Philly on Monday, he clobbered a ball down the right-field line that was originally called a home run, only for it to be ruled a foul ball via replay.
What to make of Edwin Díaz’s injury scare?
In the 10th inning of Wednesday’s game, New York’s fire-breathing closer stepped off the mound and motioned for the trainer. Díaz was promptly removed from the game. But the issue seems to be more smoke than fire. Afterward, both Díaz and manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters that Díaz was simply experiencing hip cramps. Nobody expects the problem to be long-term.
In other uplifting Mets injury news, catcher Francisco Álvarez and veteran infielder Jeff McNeil are expected to rejoin the big-league club this weekend for the series against the Washington Nationals. That likely means Hayden Senger will be optioned to Triple-A, and Luis Torrens, who has been serving as the starter in Álvarez’s stead, will assume the backup role. Who gets sent down for McNeil is a more complicated conversation.
New York is already down an outfielder with Jose Siri on the injured list. So while José Azocar might seem like the obvious guy to jettison, given his paltry offensive track record, sending Azocar down would leave the Mets without a backup center fielder behind Tyrone Taylor. That puts both Luisangel Acuña and Brett Baty, who went deep off Zack Wheeler on Wednesday, in danger of being sent down. If Azocar is the choice, don’t be surprised to see McNeil and Acuña get some action in the grass.
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