Jefry Yan finally got his shot, and it took him a decade to get there. The 29-year-old lefty made his MLB debut for the Mets against Cleveland, and immediately started doing the thing he's apparently been doing his whole career: erupting after every strikeout like he just won a title.
His path here is the wild part. Yan was originally signed by the Angels but walked away from pro baseball entirely in 2016, spending 5 years working as a roofer before he ever threw another competitive pitch. He resurfaced with the Marlins, pitched in Japan, and landed with the Rockies before the Mets grabbed him off waivers-level obscurity, which means he'd already lived an entire career's worth of story before he ever got the call.
Yan takes the mound at Progressive Field with the Mets up 4-3 in the top of the 6th, facing Cleveland's Martinez.
In 35 appearances this year split between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Syracuse, Yan posted a 3.24 ERA with 77 strikeouts in just 41 2/3 innings, a rate that lines up with the mid-to-upper-90s heat he was flashing in his debut. That kind of swing-and-miss stuff from a lefty who spent half a decade nailing down roofs isn't something you see every day.
And then there's the celebration. Every time Yan gets a punchout, he's fist-pumping and roaring off the mound like it's Game 7, which is exactly what showed up on the broadcast against the Guardians.
Yan reacts to a strikeout with a fist-clench and roar as he walks off the mound, scoreboard reading Mets 4, Cleveland 3 in the 6th.
The Mets are in the middle of a lost season and just gutted the roster at the trade deadline, so there isn't much reason to tune in most nights. But a 29-year-old rookie who quit the sport to fix roofs and came back throwing 100 with a celebration to match is exactly the kind of chaos a bad team needs. Fans on the timeline picked up on it immediately, with one calling Yan a top-3 reason to watch the Mets the rest of the way.
Yan is a top 3 reason to watch the Mets the rest of the season. Maybe number 1
Whether Yan sticks in the bullpen long-term is a different question, but for a fan base staring down a summer with nothing on the line, a reliever who treats every strikeout like a walk-off is exactly the kind of distraction worth sticking around for.