Jonah Tong’s Third MLB Start Goes Disastrously

It was too much to reasonably ask of Jonah Tong to be a savior.

Nolan McLean‘s start has been extraordinary to watch, but most pitchers don’t just come up and dominate right away — even if they were mowing through the minor leagues.

As the Mets’ losing streak hit seven on Friday, Tong looked like he perhaps wasn’t quite ready for the big leagues.

This series could have been a fresh start for the Mets. They were back at home with a new team in town. It was billed as a showdown between the ace of the future and the ace of the past. But Jacob deGrom didn’t even take the mound before Jonah Tong was chased by a merciless Texas Rangers offense.

Tong surrendered six runs. He gave up four hits and walked three. He recorded only two outs. His ERA rose to 8.49.

“It’s just life,” Tong told reporters after the game. “So, I mean, take it one step at a time.”

Neither of Tong’s first two starts was perfect. But he was able to settle down in each one. There was no settling down in the first disaster of his young MLB career on Friday — dooming the Mets in an eventual 8-3 loss to Texas.

Tong’s outing started innocuously enough, with a leadoff walk. He missed with a 3-2 changeup. He went back to the changeup against Wyatt Langford, and he caught Langford looking, sending him down on three pitches.

He continued leaning on his changeup against Joc Pederson. He missed low with three of them, and he issued his second walk among the first three batters. After 14 pitches thus far, it prompted an abrupt mound meeting from Jeremy Hefner.

Tong had gotten burned on his fastball when he gave up three home runs in his previous outing. But he was overcompensating early on Friday.

He threw three changeups and a curveball to Jake Burger. On another 3-2 count, he eventually got a fly ball to center for the second out.

Despite Tong’s early shakiness, he was an out away from escaping with no runs. He had thrown 20 pitches, 11 of which were changeups. The Rangers had runners on the corners.

It’s almost hard to process how rapidly things unraveled from there.

He even got ahead of Josh Jung 0-2 with a pair of fastballs. His next two pitches were also fastballs — but they were hit by Jung and Alejandro Osuna for run-scoring singles. Tong started dancing around the zone again, and he walked Jonah Heim on five pitches.

Jammed with the bases loaded, Tong only continued to dig himself a hole. After falling behind 2-0 on Cody Freeman, Francisco Alvarez gave Tong a quick pep talk. Hefner got on the phone with the bullpen, and Huascar Brazobán started warming.

After a brief break, Tong fought back to even the count at 2-2. Once again, he was a strike away from stopping the bleeding — but Freeman swatted a high fastball into right field for a two-run single. The Rangers doubled their lead with one swing.

On what turned out to be Tong’s last batter, he fell into his third full count of the inning. Michael Helman ended up driving a fastball on the outer half into the left-field corner.

That was the final dagger. The two-run double ballooned the Mets’ deficit to six — the same number of their losing streak entering the night.

Tong threw a whopping 40 pitches while only getting two outs. Just 20 of them were strikes.

With Brazobán in, Brandon Nimmo made an adventurous catch to end the inning. Nimmo, the longest tenured Met, told reporters after the game that his advice to Tong is “to not take it too hard, honestly.”

Nimmo continued: “He’s a young kid in a very big situation here on the brightest lights in the country in New York. … There’s gonna be times like this, and I would just go there and console him and just say, ‘Listen. It’s not gonna be the last time this happens to you. And it’s not fun to go through.’ But this is not gonna define him or his career.”

As for the immediate future, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was non-committal about whether Tong will make another start.

Regardless, it’s a learning opportunity for the youngster. And some of the Mets’ veterans offered their guidance to get through it.

“Keep your head up. The sun’s gonna rise tomorrow,” Tong said of the older players’ message. “We’re gonna have some time to reflect on this. Get ready for the next one and just go from there.”

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