NY Mets pay tribute to Jacob deGrom before he returns to Citi Field mound
As Jacob deGrom made his first start back at Citi Field since leaving the Mets, the club played a video tribute on Sept. 12, 2025.
NEW YORK — It was an uncomfortable feeling that every pitcher has to go through, but for Jonah Tong it was painfully new.
In his third start of his major league career, the 22-year-old was pulled off the mound by Carlos Mendoza before finishing an inning.
The young right-hander did not hear boos from an astonished home crowd. They paid him that quiet respect in his fledgling career, but Tong had to contend with his own emotions.
He ventured to the far end of the dugout, took a seat near the camera well and shook free of his hat. Within seconds, he was back on his feet, sauntering back to the other side of the dugout and plopping onto the bench behind the team’s coaching staff.
Tong suffered through his worst start of the 2025 season at any level, allowing six earned runs on four hits and three walks while recording only two outs. The rookie’s rough outing served as the foundation of another disjointed Mets loss, as they dropped their seventh straight game, 8-3, in front of 41,040 fans on Friday night at Citi Field.
It was a massive cushion to give two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom, who entered his first start against his former team sporting a 2.78 ERA, and one that the Mets could not overcome as their advantage in the NL Wild Card was trimmed to one game.
After the game, Tong was emotional as he discussed the outing.
“It’s just life, so I mean, take it one step at a time,” Tong said. “I mean, I’m always grateful for opportunities.”
Jonah Tong’s harsh lesson in loss
Fair or otherwise, the Mets are counting on their trio of rookie right-handers to come through in their quest to hold on to their playoff spot in the National League.
But in a veteran-led clubhouse, the Mets players also understand the early hurdles that Tong is dealing with are part of the learning process. Those lessons just happen to be coming under the brightest lights in the most important part of the season.
“For me, there’s going to be times like this,” Brandon Nimmo said. “I would just go there and console him and just say, ‘Listen, it’s not going to be the last time this happens to you. It’s not fun to go through, but this is not going to define him or his career.’ It’s going to happen, so just pick yourself up, learn from it and move on.”
Added Carlos Mendoza: “Keep going. There’s no way around it. Just flush that one out and keep moving forward. You continue to learn, but you can’t put your head down or anything like that her, and he will. He’s a competitor. Obviously he cares a lot, but he’s very mature for his age too.”
There will be two more chances this series for the Mets’ young guard to come through. Nolan McLean, who has been the team’s wunderkind at 4-1 with a 1.42 ERA in five starts, goes on Saturday before Brandon Sproat makes his second career start on Sunday.
“We said that we were going to get creative and get through the off days, we just got done with that one and we’ll see.”
What went wrong for Jonah Tong
Tong walked two of the first three batters he faced but froze Wyatt Langford on a changeup for a called strike three. He picked up the second out on a fly ball to center field.
But the trouble was finding a strikeout or a glove for the final out of the frame. Josh Jung opened the scoring with a bloop RBI single into right field and Tong’s night ended after back-to-back weakly hit two-run hits by Cody Freeman and Michael Helman with runners in motion to make it 6-0.
Tong struggled with the command of his fastball and was tasked with working through three-ball counts against five of the first seven Rangers hitters.
“He had a hard time feeding the strike zone with all of his pitches, whether it was the fastball; he threw some changeups but that kind of got away from him too,” Mendoza said. “Even when he was kind of battling through that first inning, he had a chance there first and third, two outs, gets an 0-2 count and leaves the fastball there and they got him.”
The Rangers would tack on two more runs off Gregory Soto in the seventh inning on a pinch-hit, two-run home run from Dylan Moore that gave them some separation.
Mets offense goes cold against deGrom
After the Mets went down quickly on 15 pitches with one hit in the opening two innings against deGrom, they were able to make inroads in the third inning.
Francisco Alvarez tagged an opposite-field solo home run to right field followed by back-to-back hits by Cedric Mullins and Francisco Lindor. The Mets cut their deficit in half with two straight sacrifice flies by Juan Soto and Pete Alonso.
But as has been too often the case for the Mets in this recent rut, one surge from the offense did not equate to a tidal wave of production.
“Jake’s got great stuff. We know that. We’ve had firsthand experience with him,” Nimmo said. “He has plus stuff and he locates well. I feel like the offense, we did a good job of battling back, even putting three runs up against him is good, so tried to take advantage of his mistakes, but he is very good at putting the ball where he wants and when he does that, his stuff really plays.”
One night after they pushed across four runs in the opening inning before recording 25 straight outs, deGrom picked up 15 straight outs between the third and seventh innings against the Mets.
The Mets lone hit after the third inning was a single from Alvarez off Rangers reliever Robert Garcia.