Mets rookie Jonah Tong's moxie is over the top, just like his delivery
‘’With Jonah specifically, there’s a willingness to experiment, ‘’ Mets pitching coach Justin Willard said. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Jonah Tong went 1-for-2 against Juan Soto on Thursday.
First, there was the strikeout: He got Soto out on a check swing off a changeup, which he celebrated with a fist pump.
And later on, there was the whiff: With umpires on hand to test-drive the automated ball-strike system, Tong threw a live batting practice pitch to the Human Strike Zone himself. Soto didn’t bite, the umpire called it a ball, and Tong, who got both of his challenges correct in the minors last year, tapped on his hat.
“As soon as I did it, I’m like, ‘OK, I’m never doing this again,’ ” the rookie said, laughing. “It was pretty much an inch off.”
But failure sometimes can be about perspective, and Tong, who will turn 23 in June, is as good an example of that as any. Force-fed into the majors last year because of a slew of pitching injuries, he had to grow up fast, and the results, while promising, weren’t always pretty. But Tong’s goofball affability sometimes can obfuscate the undeniable: He’s got a grit to him that allows him to bounce back from adversity, and he doesn’t play scared.
It takes moxie, after all, to challenge a player known for having one of the best eyes in baseball. And it takes skill to strike that player out.
“I think it was the second [actually third] outing where he didn’t make it out of the first inning, and [I was impressed by] his ability to bounce back,” manager Carlos Mendoza said in his news conference with reporters Thursday. “He had a pretty good view of what it takes to be in a pennant race — the meaning of every pitch, every outing, and your routine in between outings, how guys will adjust to him . . . There was a lot to learn. We see it as a positive.”
Tong also is set to become more dangerous, because he is adding a cutter.
With his Tim Lincecum-esque over-the-top delivery, Tong essentially was a two-pitch pitcher in 2025. Granted, those two pitches were excellent — a fastball with elite induced vertical break, leading to the illusion of a “rise,” and a “Vulcan grip” changeup with a ton of movement. He threw those pitches nearly 85% of the time last year, along with 46 curveballs and 10 sliders.
The cutter adds a different element, one he’s been working on for a few years (he said the pitch shape vacillated between slider and cutter, which is thrown for less break and more velocity).
“It provides more diversity to his arsenal,” pitching coach Justin Willard told Newsday. “It’s a little harder for hitters to game-plan for him, so I think it’s a huge addition . . . With Jonah specifically, there’s a willingness to experiment, the willingness to throw it as hard as he can and figure out what adjustments we need and go from there.”
It’s just the continuation of the evolution that has skyrocketed Tong through the ranks. He played Low-A ball with Port St. Lucie in 2024, started with Double-A Binghamton in 2025 and wound up in the middle of a thwarted playoff run with the Mets despite not even being on the spring training roster months before that.
“A lot of the conversation with Jonah [when it comes to taking the next step] is just go get strike one,” Willard said. “And then, really, he can play the north-south game” because of his high arm slot.
“All of his pitches are going to move, right,” Willard said. “But if we’re getting the changeup kind of down and it moves to the arm side, that’s a really good pitch. If we get the fastball up and it moves a little bit to the glove side, that’s still a really, really good pitch. It’s really about trying to get strike one and then dominate the north-south plane.”
And now there’s the new offering.
“I’m encouraged by the cutter,” Mendoza said. “We all know that as a starter in this league, when you’re facing big-league hitters, not only one time but a second time, a third time, you’re going to need more than at least three quality pitches. He’s getting there. We all know the fastball, the changeup, the cutter and now the breaking ball — it just adds another weapon.”
Tong, who’s ahead of anyone’s schedule, said the cutter “has taken a long time” to come together.
“It was always just bouncing between a few different shapes over the past couple of years,” he said. “And then last week, I was like, ‘Cutter? Slider? OK, cutter. Just call it a cutter.’
“ . . . It’s given me a new challenge.”
And if there’s one thing Tong has proved in his short time with the Mets, it’s that good or bad, he’s up for a challenge.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
