Let’s call it the first big intradivision showdown of 2025: The Philadelphia Phillies at the New York Mets for three games beginning Monday. The Mets are off to a hot start thanks to Pete Alonso and a surprisingly dominant pitching staff that leads the majors in ERA. They hold a two-game lead over the Phillies, who have been powered by the familiar 1-2 punch of Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber and a new starter in Jesus Luzardo who so far looks like one of the best acquisitions of the offseason.
While winning the National League East isn’t necessarily a must to reach the postseason, the early depth in the NL West, with four potential playoff teams, does suggest the possibility that only one East team might make the playoffs — which makes these head-to-head matchups even more important.
Let’s examine some of the early storylines for the Mets and Phillies and how those might decide the NL East — and, no, we don’t want to ignore the Atlanta Braves, who are off to a horrendous start but are still capable of turning this into a three-team race over the course of the next five months.
What to watch for Phillies and Mets
Is this a new and improved Alonso?
After a less-than-adventurous free agency, in which he seemed to draw little interest from other teams, Alonso eventually returned to the Mets on a two-year, $54 million deal with a player opt-out after 2025 — betting that he can put together a better season than he did in 2024, when he had the lowest OPS and the lowest full-season home run total of his six-year career.
That’s so far been the case. He has been the most locked-in Mets hitter in the early going, slashing .346/.453/.718 with six home runs and 24 RBIs — trailing only Aaron Judge in OPS among all hitters. The big key here is clear: Alonso has cut his strikeout rate from 24.7% in 2024 to 12.6% so far in 2025. Though that seems unsustainable for a hitter with a career rate above 22%, this is exactly what Ronald Acuna Jr. did during his MVP season of 2023, when he cut his rate from 23.6% to 11.4% and hit .337.
With some of the new Statcast measurements, we can also see that Alonso is standing a little closer to the plate (he was 29.6 inches off the plate two years ago, 28.4 last year and 27.7 so far this year) and he has narrowed the distance between his feet (33.9 inches last year, 31.5 inches this year). Are those the reasons for his better contact rate? He has never had a month in his career in which he had more walks than strikeouts, but that has been the case so far. This is a player who struck out 74 times the final two months of 2024, so he went into the season looking to make some adjustments. Maybe he has.
Will Juan Soto turn things around?
Soto is off to a slow start, hitting .256/.385/.436 with more double plays hit into (five) than home runs (three). Though he’s drawing his usual high rate of walks, he’s just not doing a lot of damage as he has been hitting too many balls on the ground. He’ll be fine in the long run — but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll hit 41 home runs again as he did with the New York Yankees last season. Soto has never been a high launch angle hitter but did get the ball more in the air in 2024, producing a 44.7% groundball rate, about five percentage points below his career average. He has a 56.9% groundball rate so far, which ranks in the 10 highest rates among qualified hitters. Not a big concern after 22 games, but something to watch.
Are Philly’s Luzardo and Cristopher Sanchez the real deal?
Why not? Luzardo, acquired from the Marlins, is 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 30⅓ innings. He has shown bouts of dominance like this before: see his 18 starts in 2022 and the final three months of 2023. He dealt with injuries last season, but he’s healthy now and averaging 96 mph with his four-seamer. He also has unveiled a new sweeper that is generating a huge 44% whiff rate. That gives him a fourth pitch to go with his fastball, slider and changeup and could take his game to a new level.
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Sanchez was an All-Star last season, but after arriving in spring training with even more velocity he was a popular pick for an even bigger breakout — and we’ve seen that so far, as his strikeout rate has climbed from 20.3% to 30.7%. In his previous start, he struck out a career-high 12 against the San Francisco Giants — with 11 of those K’s coming on his changeup. Overall, he induced 22 swing-and-misses on the changeup, the most single-game whiffs on a changeup in the pitch-tracking era.
Put it this way: Luzardo and Sanchez rank 2-3 among left-handed starters in average fastball velocity. Oh, and the Phillies still have Zack Wheeler, who has a case as the best pitcher in baseball.
Is the Mets’ rotation really this good?
Well, no. It has been crazy good so far, but the Mets have faced a pretty soft slate of opponents: six games against the Miami Marlins, three in cold Minnesota and three against a Houston Astros team that hasn’t hit much. The bright spot is that New York has done this without Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas. The idea to move Clay Holmes to a starter role has worked out so far as he has a 3.16 ERA. Kodai Senga is currently on a streak of 18⅔ scoreless innings. Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning, who might not have otherwise been in the rotation, have pitched well. David Stearns, president of baseball operations, was always a magician at building more rotation depth than it appeared when he ran the Milwaukee Brewers, and it seems as if he has done the same thing again as the Mets rotation boasts a 2.42 ERA (helping them to a major league-best 2.35 staff ERA).
The Mets know Soto, Alonso and Francisco Lindor will put runs on the scoreboard. The Phillies know they’ll get offense from Harper, Schwarber and Trea Turner. Maybe the key hitter for both teams will be their respective third basemen, both of whom were expected to hit in the middle of the order but are off to slow starts. New York’s Vientos is hitting .167 and began the season without a home run in the first 17 games before finally homering twice in this past weekend’s four-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Philadelphia’s Bohm is hitting .193 without a home run and only one walk.
For Bohm, it’s the opposite of how he started last season, when he hit .366 and drove in 30 runs in April. Manager Rob Thomson keeps saying Bohm is fine, and maybe he’s right. Other than the low walk rate — never a strength for Bohm anyway — his batted-ball metrics aren’t really much different than last year. With an expected average of .253, he has hit into some bad luck. Still, his struggles are worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses, though his lack of extra-base power goes back to the second half of 2024. If he’s a singles hitter who isn’t drawing any walks, he’s not helping the offense.
Vientos was a surprise last season, starting 2024 in the minors after struggling with the Mets in 2023, but then breaking out and hitting .266/.322/.516 with 27 home runs in 111 games after being called up. Despite his slow start, there are some positives: namely, a much-improved plate discipline and contact rates. Is he a 30-homer guy? Maybe not, but if the plate discipline holds, he should produce better numbers than Bohm — and maybe that one- or two-game difference that could decide a division race.
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The Mets began the season with Jose Siri in center field. He hit .050 and then broke his leg. Backup Tyrone Taylor is hitting .192. Overall, Mets center fielders are hitting .171/.232/.250 — the third-lowest OPS in the majors. They’re desperate enough that Jeff McNeil, in Triple-A on a rehab assignment, has been getting time in center field even though he has played only 16 innings there in his seven-year major league career.
For the Phillies, Brandon Marsh was hitting .095 when he landed on the injured list Sunday because of a hamstring strain. Backup Johan Rojas has strictly been a platoon player in his career and would be exposed against right-handers with regular duty. The Phillies could go with Max Kepler in center and Schwarber and Nick Castellanos in the corners, but that would be the worst defensive outfield in the majors and probably not an alignment the Phillies want to run out on a regular basis.
In terms of offense, as bad as Marsh was before the injury, he has been an above-average hitter for the Phillies since they acquired him from the Los Angeles Angels in 2022. He and Rojas still project as a decent enough platoon. Siri was never going to give the Mets much offense other than an occasional home run, and Taylor is a similar low-OBP player with a plus glove. Whether the Mets will eventually look to upgrade or try McNeil out there will depend largely on whether they’re getting enough offense from the rest of the lineup.
Back of the bullpen issues
The Phillies lost key reliever Jeff Hoffman in free agency but still have a big three of Jose Alvarado, Matt Strahm and Orion Kerkering. They signed former Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano, coming off an injury-plagued season, to replace Hoffman, but he has been a disaster so far, including a six-run, two-homer outing Saturday. He’ll have to earn his way back into high-leverage situations. That leaves the Phillies a little thin in right-handed relief, with players such as Joe Ross and Jose Ruiz hardly trustworthy options. They’ll probably get more innings from their starters than any other team, but Thomson will not want to overuse his top three relievers. It’s definitely a situation worth monitoring — president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski might want to start shopping around now for bullpen help.
The Mets’ bullpen has been outstanding with a 2.00 ERA that ranks third in the majors — that would be a big upgrade from 2024, when they ranked 17th in the majors in bullpen ERA. Rookie Max Kranick, who had a few innings with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2021-22, has impressed so far, and free agent A.J. Minter has given them a veteran lefty for high-leverage moments. But closer Edwin Diaz might be the key guy to watch. Though he’s 5-for-5 in save opportunities, his control has been iffy and his velocity is down 3 mph from his 2022 peak season. Remember, he walked a tightrope every outing last postseason. The Mets won’t be looking for a replacement or anything, but this isn’t 2022 Diaz anymore.
OK, now what about the Braves?
The Braves are 8-13 after a much-needed weekend sweep of the Minnesota Twins thanks to the offense finally waking up a little bit. But could there be a little turmoil happening? After Jarred Kelenic failed to run out a fly ball he thought was a home run Saturday and got thrown out trying to stretch it into a double, Acuna posted on social media (though deleted it an hour later) saying, “If it were me, they would take me out of the game.” Manager Brian Snitker noticeably didn’t bench Kelenic. Of course, winning solves everything. The Braves have ace Spencer Strider back from injury and need to get Chris Sale on track, but the questions mostly surround the offense. It was spectacular in 2023 but mediocre in 2024. What will happen in 2025?
We looked at the top 25 offenses since 2000 in terms of wRC+ (skipping any teams from 2020 and 2024) and the 2023 Braves came out at No. 1, no surprise considering they became the first team to slug over .500 that year. As you would expect, almost all of those teams scored fewer runs the following season; only three scored more the following season. But the Braves declined by 243 runs from 2023 to 2024 — the second-largest drop, behind only the 2023 Tampa Bay Rays (who declined by 256 runs from 2022).
How do teams perform two seasons removed from that initial season? While a couple of them did score more runs, they were, on average, 62 runs worse. The Braves would take that, since it would still mean 181 runs more than they scored last season. But is even that figure a realistic goal? Unlikely. That 2023 team just had too many career years, especially from Acuna and Matt Olson.
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Looking at this year’s club, Austin Riley is hitting for power but has 31 strikeouts and only three walks. Michael Harris II hasn’t improved his chase rate and has a .227 OBP. With Jurickson Profar suspended, left field is a problem. Their shortstops have two RBIs.
By no means should you write off the Braves. With Strider, Sale and Spencer Schwellenbach, the Braves have a trio of starters that could match the Phillies. They’ll get Acuna back. Olson will start hitting some home runs. According to FanGraphs, their playoffs odds are still a strong 65% (ranking better than all NL West teams except the Los Angeles Dodgers). But that’s down nearly 30 percentage points from the start of the season, when FanGraphs viewed the Braves as a near-lock. Last year, the Braves and Mets won wild-card spots with 89 wins. It might take 90 to make it this year.
