Mets prospect Jonah Tong gave up a pair of early runs, but settled in for a fine outing, striking out seven batters over five innings for Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday afternoon.

Tong's third outing with Syracuse went much better than his last one, as he allowed two runs on just one hit and two walks while getting 15 outs on 83 pitches (53 strikes) in what would be a 4-3 defeat to Buffalo in a seven-inning affair to close a doubleheader.

The runs came early, and then zeros followed for the Mets' No. 4 prospect in Joe DeMayo's most recent rankings.

After hitting the first batter he faced when a 1-2 breaking pitch lost its way, Tong left a 2-1 changeup right over the plate to Rafael Lantigua, and he hammered it 100.7 mph off the bat for a 382-foot home run to left.

After a one-out walk was erased with a caught stealing, the righty issued a second walk, both on 3-2 counts, and it was an early mound visit from pitching coach A.J. Sager. A called strike three on a 96 mph fastball got him out of the inning, but not after throwing 30 pitches (16 strikes).

And that was it as Tong rebounded for a 12-pitch second, adding a strikeout thanks to a generous call on the outside corner for the first out. And after a lengthy spell on the bench as Syracuse scored three in the top half of the third, the righty got a shutdown inning, including getting Lantigua looking at a slider that just caught the corner.

Tong would close his afternoon by making it 13 straight batters retired with a two-strikeout fourth and a two-strikeout fifth.

On the afternoon, he was fastball-heavy, throwing the heater 59 percent of the time, and with some good effect, with a 33 percent called strike plus whiff rate. Emblematic of the 22-year-old settling in, his average fastball velocity ticked up to 96.2 for the fifth inning, after hanging at 94.8 mph in the first and second.

His cutter, a new pitch for him, was his second most used offering, 13 of 83, and almost exclusively to right-handers, and got five called strikes and whiffs.

Tong's ERA now stands at 5.06 through his first 10.2 innings to go along with 13 strikeouts, seven walks, and a hit batter.

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