The Mets’ bullpen continues to be a weapon early on this season.
With the starting rotation failing to work deep into games they’ve stepped up tremendously -- and that was again the case during Sunday’s series finale with the Blue Jays, in which David Peterson was forced to leave in the top of the fifth.
While there was some concern around the southpaw at the time, manager Carlos Mendoza clarified postgame that there was no physical issue and he was simply dealing with some stomach problems.
But with him sidelined, the bullpen was required to take on another big workload to help secure the series sweep and they did a tremendous job kicked off by Max Kranick, who is quickly developing himself into a long-relief weapon.
The starter turned reliever was tossed into a bases loaded jam for the second time over the first two weeks of the season, and he showed no fear yet again — as he fell behind in the count but got Alejandro Kirk to pop out to end the threat.
After putting together a perfect top of the seventh, the 27-year-old has now retired 21 of the 22 batters he’s faced across seven scoreless innings of work to begin the year.
“Max has come up really big,” Brandon Nimmo said.
“I know he’s had a long road dealing with injuries,” Pete Alonso added. “For him to come back and have the electric stuff that he’s had it’s really awesome and we’re super stoked for him. The way he’s throwing the ball right now is awesome.”
Max Kranick gets the Mets out of a bases loaded jam again! pic.twitter.com/kmCZP4aBW2
— SNY (@SNYtv) April 6, 2025
And it wasn’t just Kranick on Sunday -- as Reed Garrett put together his fourth consecutive scoreless appearance, A.J. Minter had arguably his best outing to this point, and then Edwin Diaz worked around a pair of HBP’s to lock up his second save of the season.
As a group, they combined to allow one hit while striking out five in 4.1 scoreless innings of work.
That continued a terrific weekend on the mound -- as the bullpen allowed just one earned run (Jose Butto on Saturday night) during the three-game sweep of Toronto to help lower their ERA on the year to a league-leading mark of 1.29.
“They’ve been a huge reason behind our success,” Nimmo said. “They have amazing stuff. We have a few different weapons that can matchup well with the other side -- it’s not just one guy, we have different guys in different positions in order to get it to Diaz.
"That's what you want," Minter added. "The hitters are going to go through streaks, they'll come up big and it's just one of those games where you really need the bullpen to step up. That's what really matters and the pitching staff did an amazing job this weekend."
