Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #38 : Jenrry Mejía: The Mets’ First “Three Strikes and You’re Out” Story

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where we dust off the bubble-gum cards and game-used jerseys of the guys who made you squint and go, “Wait… didn’t he play for us?”

Last week, we looked at Roberto Petagine, the Norfolk masher who owned Triple-A pitching like it was slow-pitch softball, only to spend most of his prime starring everywhere but Queens.

This week, we fast-forward to the Citi Field years and revisit a different kind of “what if?” , a pitcher who had electric stuff, a contagious smile, and a future so bright the Mets practically handed him the ninth inning before he was old enough to rent a car.

His name? Jenrry Mejía.

Born in Santo Domingo, Mejía signed with the Mets as a 17-year-old in 2007. At first, he was a skinny kid throwing in the mid-80s, but as he grew, so did his fastball. By the time he reached the higher minors, he was pumping mid-90s heaters with a cutter Mariano Rivera himself tipped his cap to.

By 2010, the Mets couldn’t resist. At just 20 years old, Mejía cracked the Opening Day roster. It made him the youngest Met to debut on Opening Day since Dwight Gooden in 1984. The problem? Nobody quite knew what to do with him. Starter? Reliever? Closer? Long man? Setup guy? He was used in all of the above, and predictably, it stunted his development.

By 2014, Mejía actually broke camp as the fifth starter, beating out Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Lannan for the job. His first outing looked like the start of something big: on April 4 at Citi Field, he struck out eight Reds over six innings, allowing just one run and four hits (with five walks, because hey, it was Jenrry Mejía).

But the shine wore off quickly. After struggling through seven starts, the Mets moved him to the bullpen on May 12. That decision didn’t just change Mejía’s career it changed franchise history. The open rotation spot went to a lanky right-hander named Jacob deGrom, called up from the minors in mid-May. The rest, as they say, is history.

From there, Mejía took to relief work with energy and swagger, eventually landing in the closer’s role. For a while, it looked like the prophecy might be fulfilled.

That year, Mejía saved 28 games, celebrated every strikeout with an exuberant little hop-and-fist-pump that drove opponents crazy, and briefly gave the Mets bullpen a personality. For a team still two years away from its pennant-winning core, Mejía felt like a bright spot, a homegrown arm who could grow with the franchise.

Then came 2015 the year the Mets themselves would finally arrive as contenders. Mejía should have been in the middle of it. Instead, he became the first player in MLB history to be suspended three separate times for performance-enhancing drugs. His absence created a vacuum at the back end of the bullpen, and Jeurys Familia stepped in first as setup man, then as closer. Familia not only held the job, he flourished: tying Armando Benítez’s club record with 43 saves, slamming the door on the Dodgers and Cubs in October, and even striking out Dexter Fowler to send the Mets to the World Series. In a cruel twist, Mejía’s downfall had indirectly paved the way forJacob deGrom as well as Jeurys Familia’s rise as one of the most dominant closers in franchise history.

It was a stunning fall from grace. One year he was striking guys out in the ninth at Citi Field, the next he was the cautionary tale MLB trotted out at every seminar on banned substances.

In 2018, after appeals and petitions, MLB reinstated Mejía — but the magic was gone. He never threw another pitch for the Mets or in the Major Leagues, instead bouncing around the minors and winter leagues before brief appearances with the Red Sox organization and independent teams.

For Mets fans, Mejía is remembered less for what he did and more for what he might have been. He had the raw talent — the fastball, the cutter, the energy. But he also had the injuries, the suspensions, and the lack of a steady development plan.

In the end, Jenrry Mejía became one of the strangest footnotes in Mets history: the “closer of the future” who, through injuries and suspensions, wound up closing the book on his own career. He spent parts of six seasons in Queens (2010–2015), flashing a mid-90s fastball with a Mariano Rivera–approved cutter that made hitters buckle when it was on. His signature year came in 2014, when he racked up 28 saves and struck out 98 batters in 93 innings, punctuating strikeouts with a little celebratory hop that Mets fans loved and opponents loathed. But his legacy is less about the moments of promise and more about the infamy — becoming baseball’s first-ever “three strikes and you’re out” PED case.