Laura Albanese: Mets' Jonah Tong continues to adapt despite facing uphill climb
Mets pitcher Jonah Tong delivers in the first inning during a baseball game against the Nationals on Sept. 26, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Getty Images/Mitchell Layton
WASHINGTON — Mets manager Andy Green hasn’t been shy about issuing challenges to his young players. He did it to Christian Scott and Carson Benge and Zac Thornton this season, all in ways tailored to their particular brands of competitiveness.
Ahead of Jonah Tong’s last start on Saturday, he issued what may have been his most pointed public challenge yet, and possibly his riskiest.
“What does an organization desperately need to win a World Series?” Green asked before the Mets' 7-1 win over the Nationals at Nationals Park. “You need guys who are [No.] six and seven starters who start the year in Triple-A and who can come up and dominate. You don't win a World Series with only five starters…In that case, [Tong’s] desires don't perfectly align with what our desires would be because he wants to be [in the majors]. His job is to make it so freaking obvious to us that he deserves to be here. We can't make those types of decisions when he competes in spring training.”
Green heavily enunciated the “t” in can’t, meaning there’s every likelihood Tong doesn’t make the Opening Day roster, even with a relatively strong spring training. The die isn't completely cast, of course, but the message was clear: Tong doesn’t control his immediate fate but he has every tool to take hold of his ultimate destiny.
“Long term, huge believer in Jonah,” Green continued. “The context doesn't always align for the player and what they want at that given point in time. But he's going to be huge for us going forward.”
This is a gut punch and a gift, all in one. A test, too. There are (at the very least) five months until spring training, and Tong has already been told he might not make the roster. He’s also been told the Mets believe he’s part of the future. The test is what he does with the information.
There are a few other things you should know about this, and a few reasons why this might be exactly the right tactic to take.
1. Tong was excellent Saturday, allowing one run and three hits with one walk and nine strikeouts over five innings, generating 19 whiffs along the way. Coming off a miserable first few months in Triple-A, something clicked in mid-July. Between seven minor-league starts and four major-league starts since, he’s pitched to a 2.77 ERA over the last two-plus months.
2. He’s also been exposed. He was freshly 22 when he was fast-tracked to the majors in 2025 – a desperate bid to save the Mets’ sinking season. There were flashes of brilliance, but he also experienced the type of failure that not only singes, but scars. His eyes would sometimes water as he addressed the cameras last year, looking every bit like the too-young rookie who thought he let his team down as opposed to it being the other way around.
Those feelings are hard to erase, even for the hardiest of us. Then the Mets revamped his arsenal to make him a more complete pitcher, and the growing pains continued into 2026. There were also sometimes concerns about whether he had the fortitude to bounce back – the ability to say, ‘I don’t know what will happen, but I’m confident in my ability to figure it out.’
So, Tong, unsure of what would happen, worked on learning to trust he could figure it out.
“Jonah has done a tremendous amount of work on the mental side of the game, latching onto things that get him in a good, positive mindset when he steps on the mound,” Green said. “I think he’s held onto those things really well, even through the last outing, which I thought [was a challenge]…For him, the opportunity to compete at this level is paramount and he’s growing.”
On its face, this latest challenge could feel demoralizing: ‘Hey, you’re not on the depth chart, kid’ isn’t exactly the speech any minor leaguer dreams about. But peel back the layers and it’s another stage in development.
Tong knows the rush that comes with making the major-league roster. He also knows what it feels like to get shelled and wonder if you belong there. This latest blueprint is trying to ensure that when he gets here for good, he knows he’s earned it. It’s the path to resilience, allowing room for the inevitable misstep and the eventual bounce back.
“What’s the saying, ‘Life’s full of lemons?' ” said Tong. “It’s something like that. I think it’s just one of those things that you’ve got to go through it…You can wake up on the other side and say, ‘I’m OK. I’m still here.’ And [then] you can take that into life, because there are going to be good moments. There are going to be bad moments. And just being able to know that you’ll be alright in the end of it is something special.”
Life's full of lemons. He's learning how to make lemon sorbet.
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.
