Two Mets Out with Arm Injuries
Tag: New York Mets
2024 Mets Newcomers: Five Players Make Their MLB Debuts
In 2024, five players with the New York Mets made their major-league debuts.1 The first was Dedniel Nunez, who debuted on April 9, 2024. At age 28, he was the oldest of the five. He had been in the minor leagues since 2017, all but one season with the Mets. He appeared in 25 games and pitched 35 innings with a 2.31 ERA and a 2-0 record. In his last five appearances (6.1 innings) he gave up just four hits, three walks, and one earned run, while striking out 12. A “strained flexor tendon in his right arm” ended his season after his August 24 outing, according to Anthony DiComo on mlb.com.
The second was Tyler Jay, who debuted on April 11, 2024. At age 30, he was the oldest of the five. In three games (4.2 innings), he had a 4.70 ERA with neither a win nor a loss. His July 1 Mets appearance was his last. He pitched twice more in 2024, both times with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Christian Scott was third on May 4. The 25-year-old pitched 47.1 innings over nine games with an 0-3 record and a 4.56 ERA. On September 18, Anthony DiComo wrote that “Scott, one of the Mets’ most promising pitching prospects of the past decade, will undergo season-ending elbow surgery next week and miss the entire 2025 campaign as well.” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza tried to be upbeat about the loss, saying this about Scott: “He took the baseball from us and gave us a chance.” Unfortunately, he won’t get another season to pitch for the Mets until 2026.
Fourth was Paul Orze, age 27, appeared in his first Mets game on July 8. In two appearances, he pitched just 1.2 innings. He notched one loss and had a 21.60 ERA. He should get another chance in 2025 as he pitched well with the Syracuse Mets. In 61.2 innings over 43 games he was 6-1 with a 2.92 ERA.
The last one was Luisangel Acuna. The youngest at age 22, his Mets career on September 14. In 39 at-bats he hit .308. After just four games in the majors, Joe Pantomo’s article about Acuna in amny.com was headlined “Mets’ Luisangel Acuna already ‘looks like he belongs in the big leagues.’” After the game, Mendoza said about Acuna 3 for 4 performance, “It’s a good sign. It tells us a lot.” The Mets manager added, “He’s calm, poised — he just looks like he belongs in the big leagues.”
Pete Alonso also praised Acuna, per the amny.com article, saying, “He’s jelled super quick. He’s been a compete pro so far and he’s been outstanding.”
- In 2024, 255 baseball players made their major-league debut. ↩︎
Mets Facts — June 21, 2024
Sixty years ago, on Father’s Day, June 21, 1964 in the first game of a twin bill, the Phillies’ Jim Bunning no-hit the Mets at Shea Stadium, striking out 10 while walking none in the only perfect game ever pitched against the Queens men. It was Bunning’s first season with the Phils after being traded to them by the Tigers in one of baseball’s most lopsided deals.
Unfortunately for the home team, despite getting three hits in the second game they were again no match for the league-leading Phils, whose three runs in the top of the first were one more than then the Mets scored in the whole game, the Phillies sending nine batters to the plate before the Mets could get their turn in the batter’s box.
The day’s two losses put the cellar-dwelling Mets 21.5 games behind the Phils in the National League standings and 11.5 behind the next-to-last Milwaukee Braves.
At that point in the season, the Mets were the only NL team whose pitchers had yielded more than 300 runs.
At season’s end, their top four starters all had losing records:
| Starter | W | L |
| Jack Fisher | 10 | 17 |
| Tracy Stallard | 10 | 20 |
| Al Jackson | 11 | 16 |
| Galen Cisco | 6 | 19 |
Since 1962, only 15 Mets pitchers have lost 16 or more games in a season and, only in 1964, did four do that. Further, in 1962, three accomplished that feat; in 1963 and 1965, two did.7
The last Mets’ pitcher to lose >= 16 in a season was Mike Torrez, who lost 17 in 1983 while walking 113 batters on a team that won only 68 games.
Mets Facts — June 20, 2024
This season, Brandon Nimmo and J. D. Martinez are tied with the most hits (13) when they swung with a 0-0 count with the Mets. As a team, the Mets rank 13th in first-ptich hits, the Houston Astros first, per Baseball Savant.
Ninety-nine times since 1962, the Mets’ first batter in a game got a first-pitch hit on their first at-bat, per Stathead, with Jose Reyes getting the most, 17, and Jeff McNeil having the 3rd-most at 7.
McNeil is also one of three current Mets in the Top 10 of Mets with the most first-pitch hits, regardless of inning.
#3 is Jeff McNeil with 196.
#8 is Brandon Nimmo with 130.
#10 is Brandon Nimmo with 125.
This season, Jose Altuve leads the majors in 1st-pitch hits with 23. The most a Met has is 13 (Nimmo).
A Historical Look
The first Met to start a game with a first-pitch hit was Dick Smith in 1964. It wasn’t until 1988 that a Met did it more than once in a season, Len Dykstra accomplishing the feat four times. Lance Johnson broke that record in 1996, getting a first pitch, game-leadoff hit eight times, a feat Jeff McNeil fell one short of tying in 2019.
Only six Mets started a game with a first-pitch homer. Jeff McNeil was the last one to do it in 2019 and Jose Reyes the only one to do it twice.
Test Your Mets Knowledge
Which Met has the most hits on his first-pitch swings in all his at-bats?
Bats and Stats 