Mendoza said. <\/a>“But we gotta get through today. We gotta get through tomorrow, and then we’ll go from there.<\/p>\n“We just want to keep him in play in case there’s a need here.”<\/p>\n
Tong shot up New York’s minor-league affiliates in 2025, striking out 179 batters in 113.2 innings split between double-A Binghamton and triple-A Syracuse. Along with his monster punchout numbers, Tong carried a 1.43 ERA in the minors and was named the MiLB pitcher of the year.<\/p>\n
His strong showing earned him a late-August recall to the Mets. And while Tong battled inconsistency against major-league hitters, he still struck out 22 in 18.2 innings and made five starts for the Mets down the stretch.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old was optioned back to triple-A to begin the 2026 season, where he has been tasked with improving some of his secondary offerings.<\/p>\n
So far, the results haven’t quite been as solid as they were in 2025. Over nine starts, Tong owns a 5.68 ERA, but he has still racked up 55 strikeouts in 38 innings.<\/p>\n
Amid the disappointing start to their season, the Mets have lost a number of players to the injured list. That includes starters Clay Holmes and Kodai Senga, creating a need that Tong may be tabbed to fill.<\/p>\n
“We don’t know,” Mendoza said when asked if Tong would be brought back to pitch as a starter. “It depends on the way we finish the game today and where we’re at, pitching-wise. It’s kind of a day-to-day, but in the meantime, he’s available.”<\/p>\n
New York wraps up its series against the Washington Nationals on Thursday before heading to Miami for a weekend set with the Marlins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Canada’s top young pitchers could be in position to return to the majors this weekend. New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-684301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}