Aug 25, 2026; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Zac Thornton (49) pitches in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
QUEENS, NY — Navigating through heavy traffic, Zac Thornton keeps on collecting quality outings, and it now has him off to one of the best MLB starts by a Mets pitcher ever.
The 24-year-old rookie southpaw limited the NL-best Milwaukee Brewers to just one run across six innings in the Mets’ 3-2 victory despite allowing seven hits. His knack for working out of jams, which included inning-ending double plays in the second and sixth, helped lower his 2026 season ERA to 2.88.
“That’s a really good lineup,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “They were set up with a bunch of righties to attack him well. He handled it beautifully. You really can’t look for more than six strong innings from him.”
Across his first 10 career big-league starts, Thornton has allowed just 18 earned runs. Only his teammate Nolan McLean (14), Masato Yoshii (15 in 1998), Ed Lynch (16 from 1980-1981), Jim McAndrew (17 in 1968), and Dillon Gee (17 in 2011) have allowed fewer runs in their first 10 career starts as full-time starters for the Mets.
“Every pitch matters,” Thornton said of the biggest lesson he’s learned across these 10 starts. “Last week [Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr.] took me deep on the first pitch of the game, and it’s just like every pitch matters from pitch one to pitch 90.”
Tuesday night’s gritty performance marked his eighth straight start in which he allowed three runs or fewer, owning a 2.42 ERA during that stretch. He allowed a pair of lead-off singles in the third, but wriggled out of it to keep the game scoreless, then finally broke when William Contreras — who led off the fourth with a double — came in to score on Luis Lara’s two-out single.
But he rebounded to retire six of the final eight men he faced, and solo home runs in the fifth and sixth innings by Francisco Lindor and Luis Robert Jr. had him in line for the win.
“You kind of just gotta look at their swings and basically kind of find the holes yourself throughout the game,” Thornton said. “We have plenty of scouting reports, but we’re doing our hardest to miss their barrels… For me, it’s always just doing what I do best, and that’s throwing strikes.”
Austin Warren ultimately blew the save opportunity in the ninth, but not before Lindor’s heroic diving catch with the bases loaded and two outs to preserve a 2-2 scoreline and force extra innings. Brewers third baseman David Hamilton’s throwing error on a Christopher Morel grounder allowed Lindor, the ghost runner, to score the game-winning run in the bottom of the 10th.
Thornton’s emergence as a bona fide frontline starter has been a pleasant surprise for an organization with a ton of work to do this winter, especially in a rotation that has Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, and Sean Manaea projected to be concrete options in 2027. Jonah Tong could be on the cusp of leaping the big leagues full-time next season as he continues to figure things out in Triple-A. Other top prospects Jonathan Santucci and Jack Wenninger are brewing down in Syracuse as well.
“He is who we thought he was,” Green said. “He’s a fearless competitor who doesn’t care who gets into the batter’s box. He might give up a home run on the first pitch of the game, and then the rest of the game he’s going to do what he does. You want guys who are unfazed. You want guys who are unaffected by tough circumstances, and that’s what he’s been. He’s been really, really good.”
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