Aug 3, 2025; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Frankie Montas (47) reacts while walking off the field after the top of the first inning against the San Francisco Giants at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
QUEENS, NY — Frankie Montas was non-competitive when it came to ending an alarming trend by Mets starting pitchers this summer.
The 32-year-old right-hander was pulled after walking the lead-off man in the fifth inning on the heels of allowing seven runs across the third and fourth frames of Sunday’s 12-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants at Citi Field.
His first season of a two-year, $34 million contract has been nothing short of a dud. His debut campaign began with a lat injury that pushed his 2025 debut back until late June. When he has been on the mound, he has failed to conjure anything close to the middle-of-the-rotation arm that the Mets have been hoping for.
Sunday’s seven-run dud raised his season ERA to 6.68, as he yielded seven hits — including a three-run, upper-deck bomb to Rafael Devers in the third — with two walks compared to three strikeouts.
“He’s got to be better, he knows that,” Mendoza said. “It comes down to execution, pitch selection, using his pitches effectively… It’s got to be better. He’s got to be able to execute and he’s not doing that right now.”
While his struggles are making him a candidate for the biggest disappointment of the Mets’ rotation, his inability to go deep into a game is not exclusive to him. In fact, New York starters not named David Peterson have done nothing to ease the load on a new-look, yet overworked bullpen.
In the Mets’ last 47 games dating back to June 8, Peterson is the only starter who has completed at least six innings, which he has done seven times during that stretch. Meanwhile, other New York starters have combined to have 22 starts in which they failed to complete five innings.
This is supposed to be David Stearns’ full-strength five-man rotation, which has not been intact for long due to the litany of injuries suffered by Montas, Kodai Senga, and Sean Manaea.
But Senga has allowed three or more runs in each of his last three starts, including Saturday’s outing in which he lasted just four innings. Following the bullpen’s five innings that night, Mendoza was relegated to using Austin Warren for four scoreless innings on Sunday before Ryne Stanek was tagged for five runs in the ninth. The Mets turned to catcher Luis Torrens to get the final out.
“It’s a tough spot,” Mendoza said. “We did it [Saturday]. I don’t know if we had enough to get through nine innings. We threw all the high-leverage guys, but I thought Warren saved our bullpen big time there. Him going four innings was unbelievable… But going back-to-back games [with no starter depth] is almost impossible.”
Clay Holmes, who has now thrown double his career-high in innings after transitioning from reliever to starter, has a 4.62 ERA over his last eight starts.
Manaea, who didn’t debut this season until July 13 due to oblique and elbow issues, is only now getting fully stretched out with 86 pitches in his last start on July 29, but it was only good for five innings.
“We went for, like, three weeks where [Manaea and Senga] were on a pitch limit, right?” Mendoza began. “That’s going to take a toll. You talk about starters going four because of their pitch count, now they’ve gotten to a point where they’re all [OK to throw 90-plus pitches]. But now we’ve gotten two starts in a row from Senga, two from Montas, and they’ve struggled. They gotta get better. They know that.”
It all adds up to an overtaxed bullpen, which is one of just eight units in Major League Baseball this season that have thrown more than 420 innings. Stearns did well to beef it up with the acquisitions of Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley at the trade deadline, but this current rate suggests that they will be in the throes of the same issue sooner rather than later.
“We want to push starters when we need to because it’s hard to ask for 15 outs out of our bullpen for the next 50 games that we got here,” Mendoza said. “That’s not going to be sustainable. We’re going to need our starters to go deep in games.”
The options to right the ship are slim. Stearns opted not to make a move for a starter at the deadline, while Tylor Megill and Paul Blackburn — both of whom are working their way back from the IL — struggled before hitting the shelf.
It leaves the most drastic option being the promotion of one of their top prospects, whether that be Jonah Tong or Brandon Sproat.
“I like what we have here and I like the fact that we got names like that at the Triple-A level,” Mendoza said. “We believe in the guys that we got here. I know they’re capable. They’ve shown it before and they will [again].”
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