What's making Frankie Montas successful lately?
The Mets won their last series before the break, and with Frankie Montas blooming and reinforcements on the way, the Mets can go into the second half with their heads high.
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What’s up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets secured another series win in a gritty 3-1 victory over Kansas City on Saturday (box)
RHP Frankie Montas had his best start of the season, allowing just one run on four hits across five innings while striking out five Royals
Juan Soto smashed his 23rd homer of the season, a two-run shot in the fourth inning
Jeff McNeil came up clutch late, driving in the third Mets run of the day in the top of the ninth
Francisco Lindor stole the 200th base of his career
Reed Garrett and Chris Devenski contributed back-to-back shutout innings again
Edwin Díaz picked up his 19th save of the season with a lockdown six-out performance
Injury Updates 🏥
RHP Dedniel Núñez will undergo Tommy John surgery and is out for the rest of the year
Stat of the Day 📊
Juan Soto’s 23rd first-half homer ties his previous career-high, which he set last season while he was with the Yankees
Play of the Game 🌟
Don’t run on the Mets…and if you do, do not overslide.
The Mets won another challenge yesterday, this time in potentially game-saving fashion.
Clinging to a one-run lead with one out in the bottom of the eighth and the speedy Bobby Witt Jr. on first, Mets C Luis Torrens was on high alert.
Díaz delivered a perfect pitchout fastball to Torrens, who himself threw a strike to Francisco Lindor that Witt barely beat. However, Witt overslid the bag, Lindor’s glove firmly planted on his backside all the way through.
After Witt was initially called safe, Mets skipper Carlos Mendoza chose to challenge his second call in as many days. Upon review, it was determined that Witt failed to maintain body contact with the bag throughout his slide while Lindor had possession of the ball, and thus, much like the day before, the call was overturned.
Witt was out, and the Mets were suddenly facing a far more ideal ‘two-outs, none on’ situation than the ‘one-out, runner in scoring’ scenario they were literally centimeters from.
Díaz would go on to finish yet another scoreless inning.
Who’s Hot? 🥵
Edwin Díaz has not allowed an earned run since June 2nd and has allowed just two earned runs over his last 30 appearances
Over his last 40 games, Juan Soto is hitting .326/.468/.696 with five doubles, 15 home runs and 31 RBI with 44 hits, 35 walks, and 36 runs scored
Down on the Farm 🌾
C Francisco Álvarez (Triple-A): 2-for-4, 2 HR, 1 BB, 2 R, 5 RBI
RF Drew Gilbert (No. 9 Prospect, Triple-A): 3-for-5, 1 HR, 3 RBI
SS Pablo Reyes (Triple-A): 4-for-5, 1 2B, 1 BB, 2 R
CF Jett Williams (No.1 Prospect, Double-A): 3-for-5, 1 2B
RHP Noah Hall (High-A): 7.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K
C Daiverson Gutierrez (No. 19 Prospect, Single-A): 2-for-3, 2 BB, 1 RBI
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG |Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓️
Match-up: Mets (55-41) at Royals (46-50)
Where: Kauffman Stadium - Kansas City, MO
Starters: RHP Clay Holmes (8-4, 3.29 ERA) vs. LHP Noah Cameron (3-4, 2.56 ERA)
When: 2:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: WPIX
Frankie Montas keeps looking better & better… ✍️
With the All-Star break mere days away, the Mets entered Saturday’s matchup looking to handle their business and seal a series win.
It wouldn’t come easily, but said business would indeed be handled.
Frankie Montas took the ball in his fourth (and best) start since making his return from the lat strain he suffered in spring training. Though his Mets tenure hasn’t gotten off to an ideal start, each of Montas’s starts has been better than the one before, culminating in the performance he put together this weekend.
In his second win of the season, Montas’s stuff looked the sharpest it’s been so far. He was effectively locating his fastball, which comfortably sat around 95-96 mph all afternoon, and his slider/splitter combination was especially deadly. After surrendering a game-opening double down the third base line to Royals DH Jonathan India, Montas retired the next 10 Royals he faced.
Through the first three innings, Kansas City’s pitching had kept the Mets’ bats in check. Openers Angel Zerpa and Jonathan Bowlan combined to set down the first eight straight Mets batters before Torrens finally broke the silence with a two-out double in the third. Unfortunately, a strikeout from LF Brandon Nimmo arrested any potential momentum before it could get going.
Luckily, they’d get it back almost immediately.
Following a three-up, three-down third from Montas, Lindor came to the plate to kick off the top of the fourth. He singled, then promptly stole second — his 200th career stolen base, taken without a throw.
Then, Soto — still not an All-Star at game time — hit his 23rd home run of the season, a towering 435-foot monster of a mash that left his bat at nearly 107 mph to put the Mets ahead 2-0.
Soto’s homer was all the Mets would need ‘til the ninth thanks to a combination of stellar pitching and rock-solid defense.
Upon surrendering two straight doubles and his first run of the day, Montas turned the ball over to bullpen stalwart Reed Garrett. After a four-run blowup appearance on July 2nd, Garrett has bounced back beautifully with four scoreless outings, which he continued on Saturday by stranding the potential tying run at third and getting the ball to Chris Devenski for the seventh.
It was in the later innings that the Mets’ defenders would start putting on a show. After coming into the game as a defensive replacement for 3B Mark Vientos (shifting Brett Baty from second to third base), PH/2B Luisangel Acuñacame up with a pair of heads-up plays to end the seventh and strand yet another Royals runner at third. In the bottom of the ninth, CF Tyrone Taylor made another Gold Glove caliber catch, flying across the most cavernous outfield in MLB to snare a fly ball in the right-field gap off the bat of Royals 3B Maikel Garcia, preventing at least a double and helping maintain the two-run lead.
“It was a great team win,” Mendoza said after the game. “But the defense won us that game right there.”
Mendy was also full of praise for Montas after his performance.
“From the very first inning, you saw how the ball was coming out,” Mendoza said. “I thought he had everything working.”
Though he didn’t make it through the sixth inning, Montas shined on Saturday, holding the Royals to just one run on four hits while striking out five across five innings of work. He also didn’t allow a walk for a second straight start, a sign of the steady improvement he mentioned he strives for in his post-game comments.
“I’m trying to be a little better each start,” said Montas. “I’ve been working pretty hard on controlling my pitches, and I feel like the past two outings I’ve been able to do that.”
Despite the limited sample size, it seems noteworthy to me that Montas’s slider usage has already ticked back up considerably compared to last season. Earlier in his career, Montas used his slider as often as 25% of the time; last season, though, he deployed it just 165 times, a meager 6% usage rate. Through these first four starts in 2025, it’s his second-most-used pitch (18.5%), much closer to his career average. And looking at the numbers, it seems he’s using it a bit differently than he used to.
Throughout his career, including last season, Montas has turned to his slider as a putaway pitch around 17.5% of the time. Earlier in his career, that number was closer to 25%-30% and beyond; even last year, it was his putaway pitch in 21% of his Ks. However, through his first four starts of 2025, he’s yet to generate a single strikeout with the slider, despite its increased usage. Instead, it looks like he’s turning to it more as a setup pitch.
Looking at each pitch’s usage rate in his repertoire, it seems to me that Montas is trying to more closely pair his slider with his even more dangerous splitter, which has been utterly dominant in these initial starts: the batters who’ve faced it are managing a .100 BA, a .200 SLG, and a .177 wOBA.
The reason these two pitches work so well together in particular is a combination of shape and sequencing. Thrown at almost the same average velocity and from a very similar, if not identical, attack angle, these two pitches look nearly the same out of Montas’s hand…until they break in completely different directions at the last second. By tunneling these two pitches, Montas looks to be trying to elicit a swing-path/timing disruption by relying on movement variation alone to confuse hitters. Whereas a traditional fastball-slider attack combination uses variations in both speed and movement to throw a hitter off their rhythm, tunneling two breaking pitches with opposite shapes throws a fun new wrinkle into the mix for hitters to try and solve: should I be sitting offspeed, and if so, which one?
That strategy appears to be working: 41% of hitters are whiffing on his splitter in 2025.
Yes, it’s early, and yes, the sample sizes are small, but all signs point to Montas trending in the right direction. He’s getting hitters to chase at a nearly 33% clip, and they’re whiffing on just under 28% of pitches they swing at: both marks are on the higher end of his career numbers, his chase rate being the third-best he’s ever had.
With Montas seemingly on the verge of fully tapping back into his powers, the long-awaited arm of LHP Sean Manaea racing back to the rotation, and a playoff run set squarely in the team’s sights, the timing for a renaissance couldn’t be more poetic.
Let’s hope it bears fruit.
Around the League 🚩
Tigers LHP Tarik Skubal (10-3, 2.23 ERA) and Pirates RHP Paul Skenes (4-8, 2.01 ERA) were officially announced as the 2025 All-Star Game starters
Yankees RF Aaron Judge became the fastest player in MLB history to hit 350 career home runs, needing just 1,088 games to accomplish the feat
Twins CF Byron Buxton hit for the cycle, the first of his career
Dodgers DH/SP Shohei Ohtani allowed just one hit and struck out four over three scoreless innings in a 2-1 win on Saturday, snapping LA’s seven-game skid
Great analysis on Montas. He is indeed tunneling the slider and splitter. As long as he controls them and spots his fastball, he has every chance of being really effective.
Been a long time since they won a game scoring only 3 runs. A great win.