As the 2025 regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world headed into the weekend:
1. Ragans nursing groin issue:
The Royals swept their doubleheader against the Rockies yesterday, but the pair of wins came at a cost when southpaw Cole Ragans was pulled from his start after just three innings due to left groin tightness. The lefty is set to undergo additional testing today to determine the severity of the issue, at which point we’ll likely know more about if he’s going to miss significant time or be back on the mound in relatively short order. Ragans has pitched to a lackluster 4.40 ERA across his six starts this season, but the underlying metrics look phenomenal nonetheless as he’s struck out 35.9% of his opponents while walking just 7.0%, leaving him with a 2.69 FIP. That wouldn’t be easy production to replace at the front of the rotation, though Luinder Avila and Noah Cameron are in Triple-A and already on the 40-man roster as potential depth options.
2. Will the Mets’ streak continue?
The Mets have won seven games in a row, giving them an 18-7 record overall that’s good for the best in baseball. They hold a relatively commanding five-game lead over the Phillies in the NL East currently that’s all the more impressive given the early point in the calendar, and at 6:45pm local time this evening they’ll go for eight straight wins when they take on the Nationals. Right-hander Kodai Senga will be on the mound and looking to build upon a brilliant first four starts this year during which he’s posted a 0.79 ERA and a 2.89 FIP while striking out 23% of his opponents. Opposite Senga on the mound will be Nationals righty Jake Irvin, who has offered D.C. solid mid-to-back of the rotation results so far with a slightly above-average 3.68 ERA across five starts but a somewhat lackluster 4.66 FIP in 29 1/3 innings of work.
3. Pitchers’ duel in Los Angeles:
A match-up between two of the league’s top starters is always intriguing, but tonight’s game between the Pirates and Dodgers in L.A. figures to stand out even among other potential pitchers’ duels. At 7:10pm local time, Dodgers righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto will take the mound opposite Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes. The two most talented rookie pitchers in all of baseball last year are now emerging among the early potential front-runners for this year’s NL Cy Young award. Yamamoto has put the shoulder injury that cost him much of his debut season entirely behind him as he’s posted a microscopic 0.93 ERA in five starts, pairing it with a 2.02 FIP and 35.2% strikeout rate. Skenes, meanwhile, is building on last year’s dominant NL Rookie of the Year campaign with a 2.87 ERA, a 2.00 FIP, and 25.4% strikeout rate in his own five starts to this point in the season.
Dodgers and Pirates game is worth staying up for tonight. Can’t get much of a better pitching match up then that.
The kid with the Skenes debut card chose wisely.
I don’t think it was much of a choice for most of us.
That mets lab is remarkable & full of magic & sorcery . Careers have risen from the dead. Its unbelievable
As someone who has only been able to follow the Mets by the crawl on MLB Network, it seems as if re-signing Alonso was a good move. Yes or no?
The fact that 29 tms didnt so much as offer him a dime is a crime. Now he’s gonna cash in big time. Hopefully mets keep him bc vladdy’s no longer an option & clearly pete is perfect in queens. I never doubted it for a second, and was sad when he remained a FA so long & thrilled when mets resigned him
It’s still early in the season and old habits are hard to break. Right now he’s laying off the chase and with Lindor and Soto in front of him, at some point the pitcher needs to throw one over the plate, hence the RBIs.
Give it time and he’ll be chasing 10’ sliders and making bad throws to second.
And yet their fans are still paranoid conspiracy theorists who blame the schedulers, their foes’ opponents, and the curse of the ’86 Mets.
@simon
Huh? Who is paranoid? What schedulers? The f r u talking abt? Im a fan & this yr is magical just like last. Amazin!
I’m not a gracious person, I’m petty and I hold grudges so I won’t let the fact that it’s only been 0.15% of the season stop me from pointing out that 9/10 people here said Mets pitching was doomed from game 1 through 162
Cubs have shown they can beat anybody.
PiazzaParty:
Yes, thank you. I remember all those absurd comments that the Mets pitching is horrible. I could certainly accept if people were saying the Mets pitching was average and maybe they were off the mark and it’s better than that. However, the comments were absolutely ridiculous and not based in reality when some of these guys have had recent successful track records. Also, we saw what the Mets did last year with guys off the scrapheap so they deserved the benefit of the doubt.
They told me I was an idiot for saying they were top 10.
Miken31: And Manea hasn’t even pitched yet (right?).
nor has Montas or Blackburn.
avenger65:
Yeah, excellent point. Their undisputed best pitcher from last season hasn’t even pitched yet.
0.15% of the season would be about 2 innings.
“0.15% of the season would be about 2 innings.”
This explains a lot about the general competency of the people here
PP,
That was your statement. Are you admitting to a general lack of competence?
Gbs42
“That was your statement. Are you admitting to a general lack of competence?”
Your ignorance is astounding.
If 0.15% = 2 innings then a season would be 13 innings long. Do you need this explained further?
PP,
You said, “it’s only been 0.15% of the season.”
Your ignorance of math is astounding.
It’s been about 15% of the season, or 0.15 seasons, but it’s been much more than 0.15%. Do you need this explained further?
Correct. I’ll delete my account.
A bit of an overreaction, by at least 0.15%.
While I am currently still correct about:
1) the Dodgers’ 10 (now 12) stupid contracts
2) Bryce Harper playing OF or 3B is still an easier fix for Philly than anything they have tried/will try
3) Trade Tanner Houck for anything except OF
4) Trade Triston Casas for pitching
I will take 3 slices of petty pie for saying that the Mets’ pitching wasn’t enough. Cheers
Alright, French Soldier.
C’mon guys this is recency bias. You can’t truthfully say you all saw this coming like Nostradamus and had zero qualms about their starting pitching. I’m not a Mets hater. I don’t have a horse in this race. I try to be as objective as I can. And I still have lots of qualms about this Mets team in regards to starting pitching, bullpen, and everyday lineup. There is going to be some tipping of the balance in the other direction. It’s inevitable. But they have room and space and time to go thru those adjustments and likely stay on top. Certainly not feeling any pressure from the Phils.
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
How could it recency bias if it was PREdicted?
I’m just finding it very very hard to believe any Mets fan was 100% cool and confident with no qualms regarding this patched together pitching staff on Day One of this season. Not calling you a liar; but that was a tall order. Griffin Canning? Clay Holmes as a starter? Just so much initial uncertainty plus all the injuries.
Ignorant
Nothing hinges on you believing me bc we have receipts. There’s tons of posts from the winter where Miken, Mets Thumping Soto Era, myself and others were consistently positive about the outlook of our rotation.
Ignorant Son-of-a-b:
Nobody could’ve predicted the level they’re pitching now, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying people were straight out saying the Mets pitching is horrible and making these comments that they’re starting pitching is going to hold them back. My argument was that it was at least an average staff if not better and people were trying to argue with me left and right. I think we can at least all agree those people were wrong. There will clearly be some regression with the staff, but they are clearly far from bad. That’s my point. Plus, a lot of us saw what the Mets did last year with guys like Severino, Manaea, and Peterson. So I certainly had a lot of hope for Clay Holmes. Canning does surprise me, but Holmes does not.
Just something else to keep in the back of your mind, the Mets have had the 2nd Easiest Strength of Schedule so far in the entire sport. And they’re not exactly hitting the cover off the ball. Lindor & Alonso have been doing all the heavy lifting it seems. We haven’t seen Alonso do that for extended periods of time over the last few seasons. (Not trying to throw cold water, I do like the Mets!)
So when Soto and Vientos go on their tears then it will be lights out? They did just sweep their competition in the NL east. How about they get two starters back tonight? The scary part is that the Mets have been so good with their lineup not producing.
Ignorant Son-of-a-b:
That’s fair, but the pitching hasn’t just been good, it’s been among the best in the sport. So even if there’s some regression, there’s absolutely no indication they would be less than a top 10 pitching staff. The Mets have not gotten off to a great offensive start, but they’ve been hitting the ball much better lately. Plus they get McNeil and Alvarez back now.
They sold their souls.
Let me tell you how decimals and percentages work, son.
I’ll definitely watch it, but it’s not the best of matchups.
Yama is the much better pitcher right now, and the Dodgers have the much better offense.
If skenes is on point none of that will matter
Every skenes game is a pitchers duel with the pirates offense being so bad
At least the finally sent suwinski packing he was awful
Come summer fans at PNC Park will miss the cool breeze that floats through the park three times a game when Swingandamisski fans on consecutive pitches.
Over their last 10 games, the Pirates have hit .284/.349/.419 and their ..768 OPS has been the Sixth (6th) best in MLB.
Rich – When using such small sample sizes, it’s important to look beyond the numbers.
Over the last 10 games the Pirates have played:
3 games vs LAA, the 6th-worst pitching in MLB
3 games vs Cle, the 16th-worst pitching in MLB
4 games vs Wash, the 4th-worst pitching in MLB
The opponents matter.
Skenes has a 2.00 FIP. Nobody on the planet is a “much better” pitcher than Skenes right now.
Ok, Bob Nutting.
How about Yamamoto’s ERA, strikeouts, earned runs, hits allowed, H/9, K/9, batters hit by pitch, and win-loss record compared to Skenes “right now”?
Skenes is the one pitcher I would pay to watch pitch.
Rich – The Pirates OAA is actually better than the Dodgers, how about that! Pirates are 10th in MLB, the Dodgers are 19th.
Liberatore has a better FIP than Skenes, does that mean he’s better than Skenes?
BTW – Yama’s FIP is 2.02, so what’s your point?
You’re not wrong
It will be 1968 all over again, with a 1-0, Gibson-Perry final score!
Lord – I remember that game, I crapped my pants watching it live ….. although I think I did that every day as a toddler back then.
Maybe 1963, Warren Spahn v Juan Marichel. Giants win in the sixteenth 1-0. Spahn 201 pitches, Marichel 227. And they batted.
Anyone else ever noticed that Chandler Bing had a Blue Jays hat on his desk?
Stein – Yes, his real life Mom is not only Canadian but was the press secretary for Pierre Trudeau … and Matthew had dual citizenship.
Cole Ragans’ 35.9% K-rate and 2.36 SIERA are carving up the AL.
The Mets won’t keep this up, clearly. They’re not a .720 team. No team is, and the Mets have had the benefit of, if not a weak schedule, a soft one,.
Darned if I know, though, what’s going to happen in the next 25 games.
The projections just before Opening Day from any number of credible outlets with solid track records almost universally had the Mets finishing the year with a win total in the high 80s, roughly 60-70% to make the postseason, but with just a 5-6% chance to win the World Series thanks to their usually not winning the East and having to take four consecutive series in consequence, typically against better teams.
Weirdly, though, there’s room for improvement. The Mets had a respectable shot at having eight of their nine starters with OPS+’s of 100 and higher, with as many as five players projecting to 120 or more, which would make them one of the game’s top offenses. Instead the team’s OPS+ is an ordinary 102.
The pitching has been otherworldly (in spite of the need to move Diaz out of the closer role), where the biggest difference from 2024 is HR suppression, much of which is luck, from 1.0 per 9 in 2024 to 0.4 per 9 in ’25. That’s 15-16 HR fewer in just the 233 innings pitched through the games of April 24, 2025, which translates into around 25 fewer runs scored over the 25 games played to date.
But that’s if those HR turn into caught fly balls instead of, say, doubles in a corner, triples into the gap, or singles on clean ricochets off the fence. Figure instead of 25 fewer runs it’s more like 18 fewer due to good luck (no team gives up anywhere near an average of 0.4 HR per 9), which turns the Mets pythagorean record from 17 and 8 to something like 14 and 11.
Soto’s slump looks a lot like his weak 2022 and 2023 seasons, and it’s clear he benefited a great deal from hitting in front of Judge in ’24, but he’s going to hit better, as should Vientos and Taylor. Nimmo I’m much less sure of. His funk goes back to around the ASB in 2024 and he’d only be the thousandth outfielder in MLB history who at age 32, his legs and feet going, crashed and burned for good.
As for McNeil and Alvarez, their returns may not amount to all that much. Alvy replaces Senger and especially if McNeil is competent in CF he’ll probably bump Azocar back to the minors and take PA from Baty at 2B, but neither is more than a fairly minor addition given their performances in ’24, adding a win each over the rest of the year.
Six tough series over the next month, with only three series against sub-500 teams. It’ll be… interesting.
They are fine. Making the postseason is all they really need. Last year they overachieved, so final outcomes should stabilize a bit this October. They do need another top arm in the rotation if they want to be taken seriously though.
Then don’t take them seriously. It only shows how much a fool anyone that doesn’t is.
I still don’t consider any Japanese or Korean league imports to be rookies in a comparable way to American/Canadian rookies. That they’re eligible for Rookie of the Year is a joke.
How about rookies from Cuba or the Dominican Republic?
“Meanwhile” has to start the sentence, not come in the middle between commas.