Holmes Settles Into First 2026 Start
The New York Mets continued their solid start to the 2026 season, traveling to St. Louis to take the first game 4-2 against the Cardinals. It was a group effort offensively, with eight of the nine starters collecting at least a hit.
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Rookie Carson Benge had the first multi-hit game of his young career while looking comfortable in his first start in center field. Bo Bichette, fresh off holding himself accountable after a tough first series as a Met, drove in two of the Mets’ four runs. He almost added a couple of more in the sixth, hitting a bases-loaded liner at 99.1 mph right at Cardinals right fielder, Jordan Walker.
Even though the offense sprayed liners all night, it was Clay Holmes’ first start of the year that was the biggest moment for the Mets. The righty came up just an out short of giving New York its first quality start of the year, though he reached 90 pitches, a high for a Mets starter this early. (His WBC prep plays to his advantage here.)
Holmes labored the most in the first and third inning, throwing more than half of his total pitches (47) in just the two innings. In the first, he struggled to locate his sinker, throwing only 6 of 14 offerings for strikes. But he adjusted and ended the frame with two punchouts, leaning on his offspeed pitches for six of his final eight pitches. In the third, he had the opposite issue where he struggled to locate his offspeed pitches, missing the zone on half of them.
While he allowed seven total baserunners, his performance was more impressive than the traffic on the basepaths would suggest. Holmes struck out five Cardinals and really settled in after the third inning. After giving a free pass to begin the fourth, he retired the next seven batters before giving up a solo shot to Nolan Gorman, who ended up being his final batter. He found his pitch mix and attacked the zone, needing only 29 pitches (20 for strikes) to get through the remaining 2 and ⅔ innings. Holmes induced thirteen swings and misses, the most coming off his changeup (six), and of the 15 balls the Cardinals put into play, nine were soft contact.
After the game, Holmes said, “I think it was just a little bit of excitement early on. Stuff was good. I was just a little too on the edges with some stuff.” He continued, “I was just able to settle in. Start throwing some offspeed pitches for strikes. … I feel like I had done a pretty good job of getting ahead overall.”
Something to watch will be whether Holmes can continue to get first pitch strikes and limit the free passes (he walked three). The pitching staff will only get deeper if they’re able to get length and quality starts from the back end of the rotation. That’s where the team struggled in the second half of 2025. Tonight was a good step in the right direction.
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