{"id":106380,"date":"2025-08-27T01:05:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=106380"},"modified":"2025-08-27T01:05:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:05:59","slug":"mets-prospect-jonah-tong-mlb-debut-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/08\/27\/mets-prospect-jonah-tong-mlb-debut-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 4 Mets Prospect to Make MLB Debut Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets are making a bold move to boost their pitching staff. After reports emerged that they would call up their No. 4 prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=tong--000jon&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonah Tong<\/a>, manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=mendoca01,mendoca99,mendoz005car&amp;search=Carlos+Mendoza&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Mendoza<\/a> announced the 22-year-old right-hander would start Friday&#8217;s game against the Miami Marlins for his MLB debut.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_105732\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105732\" style=\"width: 429px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-105732\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"429\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26810761_168400885_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-105732\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aug 8, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; New York Mets manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=mendoca01,mendoca99,mendoz005car&amp;search=Carlos+Mendoza&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Mendoza<\/a> takes the ball from starting pitcher Kodai Senga (34) during a pitching change in the fifth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Mets to Call Up Prospect Jonah Tong for Planned Friday Debut<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Friday night&#8217;s starter: <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tong_jonah?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@tong_jonah<\/a> ? <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5SjT28AkUd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/5SjT28AkUd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 New York Mets (@Mets) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mets\/status\/1960433549971984818?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A native of Canada, Tong ranks as the No. 4 Mets prospect per <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/milb\/prospects\/2025\/mets\/jonah-tong-804636\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MLB Pipeline<\/a>, and 44th overall in MLB. He was a seventh-round draft pick in 2022 out of Bill Crothers Secondary School in Markham, Ontario. Since then, he has worked his way up the Mets system in an impressive way, pitching to a 2.54 ERA across three seasons at all levels from Rookie ball to Triple-A. He has split time this season between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Syracuse. In 22 combined starts (20 at Double-A), Tong has a 10-5 record with a 1.43 ERA, 0.924 WHIP, and 179 strikeouts to only 47 walks in 113 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n<p>The Mets need all the pitching help they can get as September nears, and with Tong&#8217;s outstanding performance in the minors, they felt it was time to give him a shot in the big leagues. Also, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/montafr02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frankie Montas<\/a> out for the season due to a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/08\/23\/frankie-montas-miss-remainder-2025-ucl-injury\/\" target=\"_self\">UCL injury<\/a>, a rotation spot is now open for New York. This was just the latest in a spate of injuries to the Mets staff. In addition to Montas, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cannigr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Griffin Canning<\/a> is out for the season, and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sengako01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kodai Senga<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/manaese01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sean Manaea<\/a> have missed time. With those two, it can be <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/08\/03\/breaking-down-kodai-senga-struggling-post-injury\/\" target=\"_self\">touch-and-go<\/a> even when they&#8217;re on the active roster.<\/p>\n<p>It is unknown how long a leash Tong will get to start his big league career. However, if he comes close to the dominance he is enjoying in the minor leagues, he may go deep into the game both on Friday and in subsequent starts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets are making a bold move to boost their pitching staff. After reports emerged that they would call up their No. 4 prospect Jonah Tong, manager Carlos Mendoza announced the 22-year-old right-hander would start Friday&#8217;s game against the Miami Marlins for his MLB debut. Mets to Call Up Prospect Jonah Tong for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3931,"featured_media":106383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,926,1071,35],"tags":[4494,1303,29121,6456,3075],"class_list":["post-106380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mets","category-milb","category-mlb","category-news","tag-frankie-montas","tag-griffin-canning","tag-jonah-tong","tag-kodai-senga","tag-sean-manaea"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106380"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106384,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106380\/revisions\/106384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}