NEW YORK (AP) — Jonah Tong will return to the big leagues on Monday and the New York Mets intend to keep the right-hander in their rotation for the final weeks of the season.
Tong will start in Miami against the Marlins, and the 23-year-old could be in line to pitch in next weekend’s Subway Series at Yankee Stadium as part of a young rotation that includes Nolan McLean, Christian Scott and Zac Thornton.
“I just can’t wait for that,” Tong said Sunday before the Mets concluded a three-game series with the San Francisco Giants.
Tong is rejoining the Mets as the club's No. 5 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, after going 5-6 with a 4.54 ERA in 23 starts for Triple-A Syracuse and allowing two runs in his past 21 1/3 innings. He was 4-1 with a 3.00 ERA in his last 10 starts, combined on a no-hitter on July 30 and came within one out of finishing a seven-inning no-hitter on Aug. 29.
“He’s had a good run here recently and we want to see him build on it,” interim manager Andy Green said. “So I think we’re excited to see it, and I think we’ll continue to hand him the ball throughout the rest of this year. We’re not going to make a secret of that.”
Tong had a 3.60 ERA in three relief appearances for the Mets between May 22-June 2, when he issued seven walks in 10 innings. He allowed an earned run in five innings during his big league debut on Aug. 29, 2025, against the Marlins but was 2-3 with a 7.71 ERA in five starts as the Mets missed the playoffs by one game after being 19 games over .500 in mid-June.
“Failure’s inevitable,” Tong said about last season. “Everybody that’s in different points in their careers, I wouldn’t even call it that (failure). There’s so many things that we have control over in our career and sometimes there’s just lessons to be learned, and I’m just really excited to see the person to come out of it.”
Reliever Jefry Yan, whose emphatic strikeout celebrations went viral, was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse by the Mets on Sunday.
Yan is 1-1 with a 5.68 ERA in 13 appearances for the Mets, who recalled him after a busy trade deadline saw relievers Brooks Raley and Luke Weaver get traded to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, respectively.
Yan allowed a two-run homer to Osleivis Basabe in the eighth inning of Saturday’s 9-5 loss.
He fanned 17 in 12 2/3 innings and made his big league debut following seven seasons in the minors and two in Japan. Yan often celebrated strikeouts by jumping high in the air with his feet spread apart, landing on the front of the mound and slapping the grass with his left hand.
“I think he took out (of playing in the big leagues) knowing he can get big league hitters out, knowing he can punch big league hitters out and knowing that the power of his opportunity in the future comes from his ability to fill up the strike zone,” Green said.
The Mets replaced Yan on their roster with Tobias Myers. Acquired in January from Milwaukee along with Freddy Peralta, Myers is 0-2 with a 6.26 ERA in 26 appearances and last appeared for the Mets on July 11 against Boston.
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New York Mets pitcher Jefry Yan leaps after getting hit with an RBI single by Tampa Bay Rays' Ryan Vilade during the eighth inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
FILE - New York Mets relief pitcher Jonah Tong (21) throws during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, May 22, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany was projected to win a strong victory in a regional election Sunday, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether it would be able to fulfill its ambition of forming the country’s first far-right state government since World War II.
The party's 35-year-old charismatic candidate for governor of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt hailed what he called a historic showing and said that Germany's unpopular leader, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, had helped his campaign.
Ulrich Siegmund told ARD public broadcaster that “we have written history.” Voters, he said, had sent a signal that “things cannot carry on like this.”
It was “also a signal toward Berlin,” Siegmund said. Of Germany’s leader, he added: “A very good campaigner for us in this election campaign was Friedrich Merz. Every day this man is in the chancellery is one too many.”
Alternative for Germany, or AfD, went into the vote seeking an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern on its own. That would overcome the so-called firewall of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with AfD, but it was unclear after polls closed whether it would happen.
A first state government would be the biggest prize in the anti-migration party’s 13-year history, at a time of widespread discontent with an unpopular national government that has yet to persuade voters that it can get the country’s sluggish economy moving.
Whether or not AfD can form a government, the projected result is a blow to Merz, whose center-right party has led Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years. Unlike other countries in Europe, modern Germany hasn't yet had a far-right or right-wing populist party leading a national, state or major-city government.
AfD’s regional branch in Saxony-Anhalt is one of several classified by the domestic intelligence agency as a proven right-wing extremist group. AfD vehemently rejects accusations of extremism.
Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and early counting, put AfD at around 44% of the vote, more than double its showing five years ago in the region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin.
That was far ahead of the Christian Democratic Union, the center-right party of Merz that has led the state for 24 years, which was seen polling 18.5% and losing about half its support. The Left Party and the center-left Social Democrats and Greens were seen taking around 9% each.
It was unclear whether the BSW party would get the 5% of the vote needed to win seats. The projections put AfD at least marginally short of an absolute majority, though that could change.
AfD's national co-leader, Alice Weidel, described the projected result as “sensational” and said that “we have received a very clear mandate to govern here.” The party's “hand is outstretched to all who want to make Saxony-Anhalt better and move Germany forward,” she said.
A visibly disappointed incumbent governor, Sven Schulze, congratulated AfD on becoming the state's strongest political force and said that “we as the CDU will also have to deal with this result,” without specifying how.
Franziska Hoppermann, the national general secretary of Merz's party, said that it was “a very difficult result for us.” She and others rejected the idea of backing off their refusal to deal with AfD.
Germany’s 16 states have extensive powers, for example in overseeing security matters and running the education system.
Siegmund has listed among his top priorities “the deportation of people who are illegal, a deportation offensive and above all dropping the incentives for why people come here and exploit our social system.” He wants to initiate a long process to withdraw Saxony-Anhalt from the regional public broadcaster, citing concerns about “disinformation.”
AfD in Saxony-Anhalt wants to allow home schooling, which so far isn’t permitted in Germany. It pledges to ban schools from officially raising the rainbow flag and ensure they fly the national flag. It opposes taxpayers’ money being “given away” to Ukraine and says it would push to lift sanctions against Russia, but that isn’t a matter state governments can decide.
Geir Moulson reported from Berlin.
German Chancellor and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party leader Friedrich Merz, left, and Saxony-Anhalt State Governor and top candidate Sven Schulze give a press statement after visiting UPM Biochemicals in Leuna, Germany, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Ulrich Siegmund, top candidate for the "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) party and his wife Julia leaving a polling station on a small Schwalbe motorcycle after voting during the Saxony-Anhalt state elections in Tangermuende, eastern Germany, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Ulrich Siegmund, top candidate for the "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) party votes at a polling station during the Saxony-Anhalt state elections in Tangermuende, eastern Germany, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Sven Schulze, Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt and state chairman of the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt, drops his ballot into the ballot box during the Saxony-Anhalt state election, in Magdeburg, Germany, Sunday Sept. 6, 2026. At left is his wife Kati Schulze. (Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa via AP)
Ulrich Siegmund, top candidate for the "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) party how's his motorcycle keys in party coolers after voting at a polling station during the Saxony-Anhalt state elections in Tangermuende, eastern Germany, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
