After rocky start, Devin Williams settling in for Mets 

Bright spots are few and far between for the Mets these days, but Devin Williams is one of them.

Williams carries a stretch of six consecutive scoreless outings into Tuesday's series opener against the Tigers. He's notched three saves in that span, striking out eight of the 17 batters he's faced while allowing just one baserunner.

What's most impressive is that Williams has turned the corner following a rough patch. The right-hander was scored upon in four straight outings in mid-April during a stretch that overlapped with New York's 12-game skid. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns even answered questions about Williams's grip on the closer's role. That's not exactly what you want after handing out a three-year, $51 million contract in the offseason.

Things have since changed. On April 23, first-year Mets pitching coach Justin Willard told the New York Post that Williams was "working on some minor tweaks." Evidently, they have paid off.

There's also something else happening here. For that, we turn to the underlying metrics -- which told a better story of Williams's up-and-down 2025 season and, once again, paint a better picture of his first 15 appearances in Queens.

Look at how similar the Statcast percentiles are for Williams in 2025 and 2026:

The Mets didn't sign Williams because of the 4.79 ERA he posted in 2025. As we broke down repeatedly over the offseason, Williams made for a bit of a flashpoint in how front offices evaluate players in today's game.

Last year, Williams had a 1.70 gap between his ERA (4.79) and expected ERA (3.09). All other major ERA estimator tools told a similar story: Williams pitched better than the back of his baseball card indicated.

This season, the gap between Williams’ 5.68 ERA and 3.07 expected ERA is once again massive. Only 16 qualified pitchers have a larger gap than Williams and his 2.61. He's pitching better of late, yes, but he's also pitching better than what his line says in general.

The 3.07 xERA he has so far in 2026 essentially aligns with the 3.02 xERA he posted last season. A number of other metrics are in line with his numbers in the Bronx, too.

• 2025: 34.7% K-rate / 9.7% walk rate / 25.1% K-BB rate
• 2026: 36.2% K-rate / 10.3% walk rate / 25.9% K-BB rate

And it also goes the other way: Williams allowed harder contact last season than he did throughout his tenure in Milwaukee. That's been the case so far this year.

• 2025: 9.3% barrel rate / 35.7% hard-hit rate
• 2026: 9.7% barrel rate / 35.5% hard-hit rate

Williams is currently running a .467 BABIP that is sixth highest among 390 pitchers to pitch at least 10 innings. That points to some bad luck that will eventually even out. So while the opposition is hitting .294 and slugging .412 against Williams, the expected BA against him is .211 and the expected SLG is .326. Those numbers are based off the quantity and quality of contact that Williams allows, along with the strikeouts he generates.

There’s also been a bit of scrutiny on Williams’ changeup -- the airbender, a signature pitch that he made famous -- because it’s not moving quite the same way that it has in the past. The airbender is unique because of its rare combination of horizontal break and vertical movement, but it’s dropping more than five inches less than it did last season. Pitching models like Stuff+ grade the new shape poorly. Since it's such a fixture in Williams's two-pitch arsenal, Stearns addressed the airbender at a press conference on April 24.

“I think his changeup hasn’t been exactly where he wants it yet,” Stearns said. “Probably hasn’t been the level of consistency that he’s used to. He’s gone through stretches like that previously in his career and I’m pretty confident he’ll get it back.”

The results say that he has. Williams has induced 20 swings against his changeup in his last six appearances. Twelve of those have been whiffs.

In fact, some of the concerns that arose with the airbender that arose in the Bronx have gone away. The velocity on his changeup is up to 84.8 mph, similar to what it was in Milwaukee (although that could be part of the reason why it's not dropping as much). What’s most important here is also what hitters are telling Williams about the pitch. The best outcome is a swing and miss, and he’s getting plenty of that: The whiff rate on the airbender is up from 37.3% a year ago to 43.5% this season.

Whatever the adjustments were, they seem to be working. Williams has settled into a rhythm at the backend of the Mets bullpen, even if the surface-level numbers still lag behind.