How the Mets became the best in baseball at limiting extra-base hits

New York Times

28-05-2025

NEW YORK — The ball was headed down the right-field line when Juan Soto scooted over, reached down just in time to cut it off, and after a brief stumble fired a throw to second — all swiftly enough to persuade Chase Meidroth to stay at first base for a single.
It was a small play, a way to save 90 feet in the third inning of a game against a last-place team. But it helped in a tight 6-4 victory over the White Sox on Tuesday night, and it reiterated something the Mets do better than any team in baseball.
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It's not that long ago that 'You don't get beat by solo home runs' was prevailing wisdom for a starting pitcher. The way baseball has evolved over the last decade or so, though, the ultimate battle is now between hitters looking for extra-base power — damage or slug, depending on who you ask — and pitchers hell-bent on preventing exactly that.
And through two months of the 2025 season, New York's pitching staff is the best in the majors at preventing extra-base hits.
'That's kind of where hitting has gone. They're hunting out areas where they can do damage and get their best swings off. It's just really to combat that,' Mets starter Clay Holmes said. 'If you have the pitches to be in zone with and limit slug, that's ultimately where you want to be as a pitcher.'
To understand this, let's use the stat 'isolated power,' or 'ISO,' which is just slugging percentage minus batting average. The league-average ISO is .150.
An even 140 pitchers entered Tuesday having thrown at least 35 innings this season. Here's where New York's starters rank in that list in ISO — all well ahead of the league average.
(Megill's ISO increased to .093 after Tuesday's start. That would rank 12th.)
How have the Mets done this so comprehensively?
'If it was a thing you could just do, everyone would be doing it,' Griffin Canning said.
But the Mets are doing it, and with enough consistency across their entire staff to encourage closer examination. How do the Mets prevent extra-base hits? They point to their personnel, game planning, team defense and home ballpark.
'Obviously, personnel and stuff is one,' said Holmes.
What Holmes means isn't just that the Mets have good pitchers who throw good pitches; it's the type of pitches they throw — specifically, ones designed to protect against extra-base power.
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The Mets throw more sinkers and fewer four-seam fastballs than the average team; sinkers are harder to hit for extra bases than four-seamers. The Mets throw more offspeed pitches — changeups and Kodai Senga's forkball — than the average team; those are also pitches rarely hit for extra bases. All those pitches work best low in the zone, and the Mets are consequently second in baseball in ground-ball rate entering Tuesday, one-tenth of a percent behind the San Francisco Giants.
Second, Mets pitchers consistently pointed to their game-planning process.
'A lot of it goes into homework,' David Peterson said.
Homework here is knowing both yourself and your strengths as a pitcher, and knowing where the hitter's weaknesses reside. Holmes called it your 'zones for favorable contact.'
Take Aaron Judge, for example. While Judge can mash just about any pitch, he isn't as proficient at slugging up and away in the strike zone. If you want to limit his damage in the zone, that's where you have to work.
Source: Baseball Savant
Here's how the Mets worked him during their three-game series against the Yankees earlier this month. Doing their best to stay up and away, they held Judge to three hits in 12 at-bats with one double.
'It's part of our advance process and how we think about attacking hitters — what pitches they don't hit for extra bases and what our pitchers tend to not give up, and trying to marry those two together,' pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said. 'That's purposeful.'
'You always want to err on the side of trusting your best pitches,' said Holmes, 'but there are times when you can go to your second or third pitch in those areas. Just not staying one-dimensional.'
Third, there's the Mets' team defense, especially in the outfield. Great catches in the outfield obviously stymie extra-base hits, but don't overlook how New York's outfielders cut off balls in the gap or down the line to hold runners to singles, as Soto did Tuesday night. (One batter later, Meidroth was thrown out attempting to steal.)
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'There's a sense of urgency out there when the ball comes to them,' Peterson said. 'Getting it in quick and being in the right spot shuts some guys down when they get to first.'
Finally, there's the ballpark. Playing their home games at Citi Field undoubtedly helps. The ballpark is a difficult one to hit in, especially in the early months of the season.
And yes, the Mets' league-leading ISO is driven by their performance in Queens. Entering Tuesday, opponents have hit just 14 homers at Citi Field in nearly 1,000 plate appearances — about the same rate that Mookie Wilson homered as a Met. New York's pitchers have held those hitters to an ISO of .086, or closing in on half the league average.
At the same time, the Mets' ISO on the road is .118 — still better than the overall number for any other team.
Holmes chuckled at pitching to the park's specific challenges.
'If you go up there trying to give up fly balls to the warning track, I don't know that that works,' he said. 'It's more so that you might get away with a mistake every now and then and it stays in the park.'
Hefner pointed out that the Mets' expected numbers aren't that different from their actual ones, suggesting that even though regression is likely as the weather warms, New York should still be positioned well.
'We're limiting hard contact,' he said, 'which is a good thing.'
(Top photo of Tylor Megill: Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)