30 for 30 - The 2025 Mets Set a Record
The 2025 Mets pitching staff sets a mind-boggling National League record
Last night, my friend Glenn alerted me to a record that New York Mets’ pitchers achieved that blew my mind.
Long time readers of The Sports Time Traveler know that I grew up as a die hard New York Mets fan.
I wrote the book on the 1973 Mets, “The 1973 Mets - You’ve Got to Believe.”
The identity of the Miracle Mets teams from 1973, and the more famous 1969 World Series championship team, was their vaunted pitching staff led by Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver and legendary reliever Tug McGraw, who spawned the iconic phrase, “Ya gotta believe!”
Meet the Mets 2025 Pitching Staff
But that Mets pitching staff, in the late 1960s / early 1970s, is being outdone, as I write, by the Mets pitchers in 2025. There is no shame in that, because every pitching staff in National League history is being outdone by the 2025 Mets.
It is shocking, however. The Mets staff coming into this season was suspect. It’s impossible to find a pundit who thought the Mets had a solid corps of pitchers. They were thought to be a staff that didn’t have the stuff.
All the experts were wrong.
Through the first 30 games of the the 2025 season, the Mets have a team ERA of 2.60, best in baseball by a large margin. That presently ranks as the best Mets team ERA in the history of the franchise. And the best in all of MLB since 1972.
But it gets even better.
Prior to the Mets one major lapse this year, the inexplicable collapse in the District of Columbia last Sunday, the game in which the Mets led 7 - 1 in the 7th and LOST 8 - 7, the Mets pitching staff, through 27 games, had an ERA of just 2.36. And that was tracking to be the best team ERA in the live ball era since 1920.
But it gets even better.
30 for 30
Last night, Mets starters extended their streak in which they gave up 4 or fewer runs in every single start of the season to 30 games.
They’re literally 30 for 30. 30 starts and 30 times the starters let up 4 runs or less.
And that is something that has never been done in the National League going back to 1901 according to a post last night on X from OptaSTATS.
This morning, I went back even further in time. I did a quick analysis of National League pitching going all the way back to the beginning, in 1876, and I can not find evidence of a team ever giving up 4 or fewer runs in the first 30 games of a season.
It’s not often you get to witness history like this. And it’s even rarer when it’s “your team” that does it. And it’s even more special when it was wholly unexpected. Of course there are still 132 games to play. But as a fan of a franchise that has not won it all in 39 years, I’ve learned you have to celebrate these little successes when they happen.
And now here’s something more in the spirit of The Sports Time Traveler.
One More Bit of History
The loss last Sunday in which the Mets blew that 7 - 1 lead immediately conjured up images of a Mets’ comeback I’m familiar with from 52 years ago. The memory of this one took a bit of the sting off of that one that got away in D.C this past weekend. It’s kind of like time travel karma coming full circle.
ATLANTA STADIUM - JULY 17, 1973
The last place Mets (yes, they spent nearly the entire summer in last that year before winning the NL East), went into the 9th inning in Atlanta down 7 - 1. They rallied all the way back to 7 - 6.
Then with men on 1st and 3rd and 2 outs, manager Yogi Berra sent Willie Mays to the plate to pinch hit for Wayne Garrett. Down to their last strike, Mays drilled a ball into deep right field for a hit. Slow-footed Jim Beauchamp, the Mets’ runner on 1st, represented the go ahead run.
Mays did something that demonstrated why he was one of the smartest players of all-time. He purposely ran wide around 1st base to draw the attention of the fielders away from Beauchamp. The ploy worked, and Beauchamp huffed it all the way home. The Mets won the game 8 - 7. And in a year in which the NL East crown came down to the final day of the season, Mays game winner on July 17th proved to be far more important than it ever seemed at the time.
You can read the full story of that July 17, 1973 game, and the other, arguably greater heroics of Willie Mays during that two-game mid-summer series in Atlanta in my book.
The book is available on Amazon at this link: