Tong Shines, Rojas Homers as Syracuse Opens 2026 with 3-1 Win

Jonah Tong, the 22-year-old right-hander who won MiLB Pitching Prospect of the Year in 2025, opened Syracuse's 2026 Triple-A season with four scoreless innings at Polar Park on Friday, setting the tone for a 3-1 win over the Worcester Red Sox.

The command was the story. Tong threw 42 of 73 pitches for strikes, allowed just one hit, walked two, and punched out four in a start that looked less like a season-opener and more like a continuation of his 2025 form. In a low-scoring duel where Worcester managed only a single run all night, that kind of efficiency gave Syracuse's offense just enough room to operate.

José Rojas made sure of it. His home run accounted for two of Syracuse's three runs and provided the margin that held up through nine innings. Nick Morabito contributed a two-hit performance and drove in the third run, while Ronny Mauricio kept Worcester's defense off-balance with a stolen base and crossed the plate himself. Syracuse didn't need a big inning; they needed three runs and a shutdown arm at the top, and they got both.

The bullpen closed it cleanly. Anderson Severino followed Tong with two scoreless innings, and Joe Jacques locked down the final frame. The pen yielded nothing, preserving what Tong had built and leaving Worcester with no path back into the game after managing just one run against the starter.

For the Mets' development pipeline, Tong's outing was the most meaningful data point of the night. The 42-of-73 strike efficiency isn't just a tidy box-score number; it signals the kind of repeatable delivery and zone control that separates prospects who have arrived at Triple-A from those who are ready to graduate beyond it. He attacked the zone without giving hitters anything to damage, limiting Worcester to one hit across four innings in what amounted to a controlled exercise in pitchability over pure stuff.

The real question Tong's 2026 will answer isn't whether he belongs at Triple-A; Friday settled that quickly. It's how long New York can keep him in Syracuse before the big-league rotation forces the conversation. A next-step outing looks like five or six innings at this efficiency level with a deeper pitch count against a lineup that's had a full look at him. If Tong strings together several starts at the clip he showed at Polar Park, he won't be waiting long for a call from Queens. Syracuse moves to 1-0 and heads home for its home opener with its most intriguing arm already delivering on the promise of last year's prospect hardware.