Clay Holmes Finishes Dominant Spring Ahead of Opening Day Start

Five days from now, Clay Holmes will be suiting up for the first start of the Mets’ 2025 season.

It’ll be Holmes’ first start in a regular season game since 2018. But the right-hander eased some concerns with his performance this spring, capping off a pristine first impression with another dominant display on Friday.

Holmes threw 5 1/3 innings, the highest among his five spring starts. His 88 pitches were also the most he’s thrown for the Mets thus far. He kept the Astros off the board, allowing just two hits and three walks as he lowered his spring ERA to 0.93.

“I feel like the plan we had in place from the get-go was right on track, and we wanted to get to 90 pitches by the end of the spring. And we’re here,” Holmes told reporters after the game. “I think it’s just a testament to having some very thoughtful and intentional plans going into this, and it’s nice to kind of see it come to fruition and being in such a good spot right now.”

Holmes’ kick change continued to fuel his effectiveness. He threw it 16% of the time on Friday and got five whiffs on seven swings. He was also throwing a cutter 13% of the time, which averaged 28 inches of vertical break (two more than his sinker, his primary pitch). Both the kick change and the cutter are pitches Holmes didn’t throw as a reliever in 2024.

Overall, Holmes got 15 whiffs in his 5 1/3 innings of work. He averaged 94.2 mph and topped out at 96.2 mph on his sinker, which he threw 34% of the time. He complemented his arsenal with his sweeper (20% of the time) and slider (16% of the time). That makes five legitimate pitches that Holmes has up his sleeve as he transitions into a starting role. He also had a single pitch register as a four-seam fastball on Friday.

Holmes worked around a walk in the first inning with a pair of swinging strikeouts — one on the sweeper and one on the kick change. He survived a Jose Barrero double in the second, once again ending the frame with a swinging strikeout on his changeup.

When Holmes did run into some very brief control issues, most of the misses came on his cutter and sinker. He threw each pitch in the zone only about half the time. The lone four-seam fastball was also thrown well above the zone on a full count in the fifth inning for his third walk. A batter earlier, he’d tallied a looking strikeout using his sweeper. And, a batter after the walk, he got Michael Siani to badly chase a kick change low and away.

Holmes threw his sweeper in the zone 72% of the time, and his slider in the strike zone 57% of the time. He curiously was more accurate with those pitches than he was with the relatively straighter offerings. But his kick change, which was only thrown in the zone 7% of the time, was chased nearly half the time.

More Kick Changes from Clay Holmes.

Gonna be one of the best new pitches in MLB this season. pic.twitter.com/PNBZ73tu9t

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 21, 2025

With 82 pitches through five innings, Holmes somewhat surprisingly came back out for the sixth. He recorded a six-pitch strikeout of Jordan Walker, getting whiffs on both his sweeper and slider. Carlos Mendoza opted to end Holmes’ day right there.

Among Holmes’ five spring training starts, this was the most reminiscent of what the Mets are hoping his regular-season starts will look like. Holmes has spent the last four seasons as a very successful reliever, and it’s only natural to wonder if that’ll translate to a higher workload. But Holmes earned some trust this spring with his shutdown performances and steadily increasing length.

“Pretty good, I am not going to lie, but it’s spring training,” Mendoza said about Holmes’ spring. “He’s got to translate it to the regular season. But he’s put himself in a really good position. He came in at a really good spot and he continues to get better. A pretty impressive camp.”

In 220 games over four seasons with the Yankees, Holmes posted a 2.69 ERA with 9.8 K/9. He was durable, too, appearing in more than 60 games in each of the last four full seasons. And now he has another trick up his sleeve — the kick change — as he stretches out his innings and dives fully into the starting rotation.

“It’s not something I was necessarily striving for, but it just kind of organically came about,” Holmes said about becoming a starter. “And I think for me, I’m a learner, I’m curious, I’m always thinking. And sometimes life takes an uncertain route and you just roll with it. I think it’s meant to be.”

The challenge of going from reliever to starter can’t be ignored, but Holmes has shown that he at least has the tools to make the transition as seamless as possible.

He’ll be put to the test right away with the Opening Day nod against a strong Astros team on March 27.

“I’m excited. I mean, Opening Day is a special day,” Holmes said. “It’s a long offseason, and this is a day you’re kind of working towards, and for it to be here, it feels special… I haven’t been this excited just to attack a season, attack the next day, in a while, so I think it’s just giving me something to look forward to. And I think it’s gonna be a fun year ahead.”

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