Get to know R.J. Gordon, an unheralded Mets pitching project trying to reverse year of regression

For a personification of the triumph that was the 2025 season in the Mets’ system — ESPN ranked the club’s farm the No. 1 in baseball last August — and a personification of the “regression” through much of this season that Steve Cohen has alluded to, consider R.J. Gordon.

A 13th-round pick in 2024, the 6-foot starting pitcher outperformed any expectations apart from his own in his first pro season in 2025, when he climbed to Double-A Binghamton and finished the year with a 3.36 ERA and 147 strikeouts in 128 ⅔ innings.

And then he suffered a lat strain early this year, didn’t return to Binghamton until May and had a cumulative 7.96 ERA over his first 15 games into mid-July.

“I think this stuff is needed,” the right-hander said last week during what he hoped would be the tail end of his first rough patch as a professional and as a face of 2026 disappointment began to become a face of 2026 resilience.