For the first seven weeks of this trying 2026 season, Clay Holmes was the least dramatic thing about the New York Mets.
He pitched like the ace they needed as the aces they planned for, Freddy Peralta and Nolan McLean, worked through minor inconsistency. He pitched into the sixth inning in seven of his first eight starts, never taxing a bullpen often needed to carry a heavier load as Kodai Senga and David Peterson took their turns.
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But Friday night, he succumbed to whatever relentless force keeps pulling Mets onto the injured list whenever this team threatens to start getting in rhythm. The broken fibula he suffered on Spencer Jones’ comebacker will keep him out for “a long time,” according to Carlos Mendoza, though the Mets had no timetable immediately after the game. He had no spin about how the Mets proceed now, either.
“It’s a huge blow,” Mendoza said. “He’s been one of the most consistent guys that we had in that rotation. Yeah. It’s a big blow.”
Logistically, the loss of their steadiest starter in a season that has already required them to tap into minor league depth makes the Mets’ potential climb back to contention even more complicated. They began the year with promising starting pitching depth. By late May 15, they were running out.
Senga is on the injured list. Sean Manaea is pitching out of the bullpen, scraping for innings where he can find them and hoping he pitches well enough to prove he deserves more. His bullpen colleague Tobias Myers is a former starter, but he has pitched so well that he has been promoted from mop-up duties early to keep-it-close duties recently. His first 10 outings were multiple innings. His last four — all of his work in May — have been one inning or fewer.
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“At the moment, I’m [not stretched out to where I could start]. Maybe 35, 40 pitches,” said Myers, noting that no one had approached him about how the Holmes news might affect him yet.
Of course, they hadn’t. The news was so jarring that when someone asked Mendoza whether Triple-A righty Jonah Tong might be an option, the normally patient manager interrupted.
“We don’t know,” he said. “We don’t know. It’s too early.”
Tong, who was called up last year but has spent the beginning of this season trying to expand and hone his arsenal in Triple-A, is part of the pitching depth that reassured the Mets about their chances prior to this season. But Tong has been inconsistent, and at times wholly ineffective: He allowed six earned runs on five hits and three walks while recording just five outs Thursday.
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His Syracuse Mets teammate Jack Wenniger, on the other hand, has a 1.08 ERA and more strikeouts than innings pitched in seven starts. The 24-year-old last pitched May 12.
Wenniger, a sixth-round pick, has never carried the same expectations as Tong. And despite his sparkling headline numbers, he is walking nearly five batters per nine innings while benefiting from an anomalously low .237 batting average on balls in play. Still, results as good as his do not happen fully accidentally.
Perhaps by Saturday, the Mets will probably have a better idea of their short-term plans. They will not, however, have many more long-term answers. Because as they sit eight games under .500, just 44 games into the season, chaos remains the only constant.
