ANAHEIM -- When the Mets traded for Freddy Peralta in January, Peralta was billed, for obvious reasons, as the Mets’ new ace -- “one of the top starters in baseball,” as president of baseball operations David Stearns put it at the time. Even then, the Mets harbored optimism that rookie Nolan McLean could supplant Peralta atop their rotation sooner rather than later, or that perhaps Kodai Senga could re-establish himself as a frontline starter.
Far less mentioned was Clay Holmes as the possible ace of this staff. It’s not that the Mets disliked Holmes. It’s simply that his 2025 performance suggested he was more of a mid-rotation starter than an ace.
Not anymore. Through seven starts, Holmes has been, to borrow his boss’s phrase, “one of the top starters in baseball.” Delivering 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball in a 5-1 win over the Angels on Sunday, Holmes lowered his ERA to 1.69, which ranks second in the National League behind only Justin Wrobleski of the Dodgers (1.25).
In several respects, Holmes is old-school. Relying largely on the sinker that once made him a standout closer for the Yankees, Holmes features the third-best ground-ball rate in the Majors (and one of the highest in Mets history for a qualified pitcher) at 58.1 percent. He doesn’t strike out many batters, ranking in the bottom quartile of the league in that category. But pitching to contact allows him to go deep into games. Only three times this season has a Mets starter completed seven innings. Two of those outings belong to Holmes.
He would have made it a third on Sunday if not for Bo Bichette’s throwing error that allowed Oswaldo Peraza to reach base with two outs in the seventh. As it was, Luke Weaver struck out the next batter to preserve a one-run lead, which Mark Vientos had given the Mets with a two-run homer in the fourth. Vientos later added a second home run in the eighth to pad New York’s lead.
All told, Holmes allowed four hits and one run over 6 2/3 innings, with six strikeouts and three walks. The victory was his fourth, which is four times as many as any other Mets starter.