Curry’s seven-inning start fuels Syracuse Mets comeback over Norfolk

Xzavion Curry did the heavy lifting before Syracuse ever flipped the score. His seven innings gave the Mets their longest start by a pitcher this season and kept a shaky night from turning into a bullpen scramble, which mattered because Syracuse still had enough time to grind its way back and beat Norfolk 6-3 at NBT Bank Stadium.

Norfolk grabbed the first punch in the top of the first when Heston Kjerstad doubled with two outs and Christian Encarnacion-Strand followed with a two-run homer to left. Syracuse answered in the third, when Cristian Pache singled, moved up on a groundout and Nick Morabito lined an RBI single to right to cut the deficit to 2-1. That was the kind of early damage control a long outing from Curry can buy: the Mets never let the game drift out of reach.

The real turn came in the eighth, when Syracuse erased a 3-1 deficit with a four-run rally. Jackson Cluff delivered the tying double, and Morabito later stole home on a throwing error as the inning spiraled away from Norfolk. By the time the dust settled, the Mets had taken full control and finished off the comeback against a Tides club that entered the night at 26-44.

The win moved Syracuse back to 35-35 and kept its first-half push alive in the International League. It also fit the pattern the Mets needed after a rain-shortened loss to Buffalo two days earlier: stay close, keep the game in reach and let one big inning decide it late. Curry’s line explains why that formula worked. He was 2-0 with a 4.54 ERA in 41.2 innings across eight appearances and starts in 2026, and the seven-inning effort was exactly the kind of starter length that changes a Triple-A game by protecting the bullpen and giving the offense a runway.

For Curry, the outing also added another marker to a career that began when Cleveland took him in the seventh round of the 2019 draft out of Georgia Tech. He reached the majors on Aug. 15, 2022, and on this night he looked like a pitcher who knew how to keep a lineup from breaking the game open. Syracuse did the rest in one ruthless eighth inning.