• The Mets beat the Angels 4-3 at Angel Stadium on Friday night for just their fourth win in their last 21 games (box)

• RHP Christian Scott showed plenty of upside on the mound, allowing three runs (two earned) on three hits with no walks and a career-high tying eight strikeouts over five innings of work

• RHP Huascar Brazobán, LHP Brooks Raley, RHP Luke Weaver, and RHP Devin Williams combined for four scoreless innings of relief, retiring 12 straight to end the game with six strikeouts

• C Francisco Álvarez had an RBI single and Marcus Semien followed that up with a two-run single to overturn a three-run deficit and make it a tied game in the sixth

• It was SS Ronny Mauricio who emerged as the hero, though, with the infielder hitting the go-ahead home run in the top of the seventh to win the game for the Mets

• LF Juan Soto returned to the outfield and had a solid night, playing a clean game defensively while going 1-for-3 at the plate with a run scored and a walk

• Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns publicly backed manager Carlos Mendoza, insisting that he doesn’t “view this as a manager problem and we don’t intend on making a change” (MLB.com)

Roster Moves 📰

• INF Eric Wagaman optioned to Triple-A following Thursday’s game

• INF Andy Ibáñez (#77) reported to the Major League Team

Injury Updates 🏥

• 1B/DH Jorge Polanco (right wrist contusion) was due to take batting practice and field some groundballs on Friday

• LHP A.J. Minter (left lat surgery) allowed one run on one hit in an otherwise clean inning for Triple-A Syracuse on Friday, and is set to pitch again on Sunday

• LF Juan Soto (forearm soreness), who was back in the outfield on Friday, will not go back-to-back in the field and will play a lot of DH on this road trip as the Mets look to manage his workload after coming off the IL

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

On the latest midweek edition of The Just Mets Podcast, Andrew reacts to the Mets continuing their losing ways as they drop their series to the Nationals and lose for the 17th time in their last 20 games…

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Play of the Game ⭐️

This is an easy one.

After Francisco Alvarez and Marcus Semien both came up with clutch hits to make it a tied game in the sixth inning, the stage was set for one Met to step up and be a hero.

Ronny Mauricio emerged as that guy.

Despite hitting into an inning-ending double play and also flying out earlier in the game, Mauricio stepped to the plate in the seventh and reminded everyone of his upside by launching a solo shot to right center field, snapping a 0-for-12 skid and securing a big win for the Mets.

It was a huge clutch hit from Mauricio, who could be a real impact player if he can put everything together.

Who’s Hot 🥵

• Over his last six games, LF Juan Soto is hitting ..400/.520/.800/.1.320 with two doubles, two homers, five runs scored, three RBIs, and five walks

Who’s Cold 🥶

• Over his last six games, 1B Brett Baty is hitting just .059/.273/.059/.332 with five strikeouts

Down on the Farm 🌾

• OF A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Triple-A): 1-for-1, 2 R, 2 BB, 2 SB

• OF Nick Morabito (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-3, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 2B, 1 SB

• INF Jacob Reimer (No. 5 prospect, Double-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, 1 2B

• RHP Cam Tilly (No. 28 prospect, Single-A): 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 HR

• DH AJ Salgado (Single-A): 3-for-5, 2 R, 3 RBI, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (11-21) at Angels (12-21)

Where: Angel Stadium - Anaheim, CA

Starters: RHP Nolan McLean (1-2, 2.55 ERA) vs. LHP Reid Detmers (1-2, 4.28 ERA)

When: 9:38 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

The Mets got it right by backing Carlos Mendoza in-season ✍️

Well, Friday turned out to be a productive day for the Mets.

This team actually showed some fight and some energy by coming back to beat the Angels. The come-from-behind win was fueled by some clutch hitting and a nails performance from the bullpen.

And Ronny Mauricio emerged as the star of the show with a go-ahead homer to cap off what was an eventful day for the franchise.

It all started when President of Baseball Operations David Stearns came out and made a public statement that manager Carlos Mendoza is going nowhere. At least for the time being.

And, if you ask me, I think it is the right call.

Because, ultimately, I agree with Stearns. This isn’t a manager problem.

Of course, Mendoza does deserve a healthy slice of the blame for what has gone wrong so far this season. He also shouldn’t be let off the hook after overseeing the monumental collapse of 2025.

Furthermore, Mendoza has to be held accountable for some of the questionable lineup and in-game decisions we’ve seen, including pinch-hitting for the red-hot MJ Melendez on Thursday.

It is also on Mendoza if the players are showing up unprepared to play, as was arguably the case last year and as is arguably the case so far this season. While a baseball manager’s role isn’t as clear as it once was, it is ultimately Mendoza’s job to manage the clubhouse and put the players in the best possible position to succeed. It is fair to suggest that he hasn’t always done that.

However, with all of that said, I stand by my school of thought that Mendoza and all of his shortcomings are at the bottom of the list of reasons as to why the Mets have been horrifically bad so far in 2026.

Above Mendoza is the players not executing. Mendoza isn’t at fault for Francisco Alvarez hitting into more double plays this season than he did all of last year.

Mendoza isn’t at fault for Luke Weaver going out and crapping the bed on Thursday and giving up the go-ahead home run.

Mendoza isn’t to blame for the offense ranking as one of the worst in all of baseball, nor is he to blame for players committing mental errors, or for Francisco Lindor, Jorge Polanco, and Luis Robert Jr. all going on the IL.

And Mendoza certainly isn’t responsible for Kodai Senga and David Peterson not being able to pitch.

The players are to blame for not going out there and executing on a consistent enough basis.

And Stearns is the one who deserves the bulk of the blame for this ugly mess given that he’s the one who put this fundamentally flawed roster together.

We don’t need to go into great detail on that considering we’ve covered Stearns’ shortcomings in depth already. It is clear at this point that Stearns is the one who didn’t replace Pete Alonso with an actual first baseman. It is clear that Stearns didn’t do enough to address the starting rotation, which was a huge problem dating back to last year. And it is clear that Stearns built a roster that simply doesn’t fit or work well enough.

This team is like Frankenstein: a horrible mishmash of body parts that just don’t fit well together.

That’s on Stearns, not Mendoza.

And Stearns’ many failures is why I think firing Mendoza now would have been pure folly. After all, if it is the roster that is broken, would a new manager really be able to fix it?

I don’t think so.

Sure, both the Phillies and the Red Sox have enjoyed mini upturns in fortunes after getting rid of Rob Thomson and Alex Cora, respectively. However, let’s see if that lasts. After all, the Phillies are an aging roster while the Red Sox, much like the Mets, have a fatally flawed roster, one so bad that even Cora, widely regarded as one of the best managers in baseball, was powerless to do anything to fix things.

And therein lies the rub.

Firing Mendoza now wouldn’t have changed a single thing. Sure, a new voice may have led to a few wins in a row in the short term but, over the course of the medium term, it wouldn’t have made much difference at all. This roster just isn’t good enough, and I don’t think even peak Earl Weaver or Joe Torre at his prime would be able to make a difference from the dugout.

Instead, I think it was important for the team to publicly back Mendoza to help lift some of the pressure off of him, while also lighting a fire under the players by putting the onus squarely on them.

Because, let’s face it, Stearns isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, either.

Of course, if the losing continues, things may change and Mendoza may end up going this season after all. Even if he survives for now, he’s in the last guaranteed year of his contract and you’d imagine that a return in 2027 would be almost impossible if the Mets do end up missing the playoffs for a second straight year.

But, again, until something is done about this roster and the man tasked with putting the team together, it doesn’t really matter who is in the dugout.

So, for now at least, I think it is the right call to keep Mendoza. This isn’t totally on him by a long stretch.

We’ll see what happens come the offseason, however.

Around the League 🚩

• Rays RHP Ryan Pepiot will undergo hip surgery and will miss the rest of the season (Tampa Bay Times)

• 1B Munetaka Murakami hit his 13th homer of the year to help the White Sox beat the Padres, 8-2

• A’s 1B Nick Kurtz recorded his 20th consecutive game with a walk on Friday, surpassing Ted Williams and tying Barry Bonds for the second-longest streak since walks first started being tracked

• Diamondbacks INF IIdemaro Vargas is now hitting .404 this season, while extending his hitting streak to 24 straight games to start the year

• 3B Kazuma Okamoto hit a pair of home runs to help the Blue Jays beat the Twins, 7-3

• Orioles 1B Pete Alonso homered in his first game back in New York, but DH Ben Rice’s three-run blast lifted the Yankees to a 7-2 win

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• The Mets continue to sink into the abyss with a 5-4 loss to the Nationals to drop the series (box)

• The Mets have dropped 17 of their last 20 games and own the worst record in baseball

• RHP Freddy Peralta, was solid but gave up three unearned runs thanks in part to his own error. His final line was 6.0 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, and 6 K

• The team actually had a lead heading into the eighth, but Luke Weaver gave up a two-run home run that sealed the team’s descent into the Mariana trench

• LF MJ Melendez went 2-for-2 with a home run and three RBIs that tied the game before he was inexplicably pinch hit for in the eighth

• 1B Mark Vientos did manage to put the Mets ahead in the sixth with a double

• The Mets went just 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position on Thursday

Roster Moves 📰

• RHP Carl Edwards Jr. was designated for assignment

• RHP Austin Warren was recalled from Triple-A

• INF Eric Wagaman was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse

• Claimed INF Andy Ibáñez off waivers from the A’s

Injury Updates 🏥

• OF Luis Robert Jr. (lumbar spine disc herniation) was placed on the IL retroactive to April 27

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

On the latest midweek edition of The Just Mets Podcast, Andrew reacts to the Mets continuing their losing ways as they drop their series to the Nationals and lose for the 17th time in their last 20 games…

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Play of the Game 🤬

There was a brief fleeting moment where it seemed the Mets might actually win not only a ballgame but a series. Mark Vientos gave them a lead with an RBI double and all they had to do was hold it. They could not. CJ Abrams hit a two-run shot off Luke Weaver which was the dagger for a team that has no fight once getting down in the late innings.

Who’s Cold 🥶

• SS Ronny Mauricio is hitting just .160/.160/.160 with four hits, two runs, and 10 strikeouts in his last 25 at-bats

• RF Brett Baty was hitless in the finale against Washington and is hitting .217/.308/.391 with one home run and five RBIs over his last seven games

• 2B Marcus Semien is hitting .192/.222/.231 with three runs scored and one RBI over his last seven games

Not clutch 👎🏻

• The Mets are hitting just .227 with runners in scoring position, the fourth-worst mark in baseball. They’re hitting just .150 with two outs and runners in scoring position, the worst mark in baseball.

• The Mets are hitting .250 with the bases loaded this season, the 10th-worst mark in the game, and their 20 runs scored in such situations in the eighth-worst mark in the game

Down on the Farm 🌾

• OF AJ Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, SB

• 1B Christian Arroyo (Triple-A): 3-for-4, R, RBI, K

• C Kevin Parada (Double-A): 3-for-5, R, RBI, K

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (10-21) vs. Angels (12-20)

Where: Angel Stadium -Anaheim, CA

Starters: RHP Christian Scott (0-0, 6.75 ERA) vs. RHP Walbert Urena (0-3, 4.76 ERA)

When: 9:38 PM EDT

Where to Watch: WPIX

April was a cruel month to the Mets - it’s time to turn the page! ✍️

So, that happened.

April certainly was the cruelest month for the 2026 New York Mets. They are 10-20, 7-18 in April, and 11.5 games back in the division. Before the series with Washington, the only silver lining was that they had yet to play any team within the NL East and could potentially make up ground.

Well, now they have, and it did not go well.

They dropped two of three against the Nationals and own the worst record in all of baseball. The offensive numbers are beyond terrible. They are towards the bottom of the league in almost every conceivable offensive category:

• HR- 27th

• Runs- 29th

• RBI- 29th

• Average- 27th

• OBP- 29th

• SLG- 30th

• wOBA- 30th

• wRC+- 30th

• fWAR- 29th

• OPS- 30th

As for the pitching, they are better but still not great and certainly not good enough to mitigate their poor offense:

• ERA- 17th

• Runs- 15th

• Earned runs- 12th

• HR- 22nd

• BB- 15th

• K- 5th

And, those are just the surface numbers. This doesn’t touch on their horrible-ness with runners in scoring position. This doesn’t consider their lackadaisical play, the physical and mental mistakes, and the overall lifelessness and indifference this team appears to show on a day-in, day-out basis.

Yes, they were without Juan Soto for a few weeks. They’re now without Francisco Lindor for an indeterminate amount of time as well. But this roster should be able to out-perform short and even medium-term absences from one star player or another.

I get the feeling that if Lindor were playing, the conversation wouldn’t be much different right now.

There’s plenty of finger-pointing to go around, especially at both Carlos Mendoza and David Stearns, but there is also plenty of fault to go around, such as the roster that Mendoza was forced to deploy on the field, which isn’t his fault.

Perhaps it was a fool’s errand to completely rebuild both a team and a pitching staff in one off-season. The choice to move on from the old guard is not the wrong one per se, but to move on and expect to compete the following year is a lot of turnover in one offseason.

Maybe that is why this team does not look cohesive?

They had only a couple of months to come together as a team, and those months were interrupted by the World Baseball Classic. Maybe this should have been a rebuild year from the beginning, but the expectation was that they would compete this year, which makes this a tougher pill to swallow for the fanbase.

They never replaced Pete Alonso with an actual first baseman. They took Brett Baty, who was finally starting to feel comfortable as an everyday third baseman, and moved him out to play two positions which are completely foreign to him, one of which is first base. They signed Jorge Polanco, an oft-injured career middle infielder to play first base, that which they are clearly not cool with, and he’s hurt anyway and can’t play. They traded essentially a minimal package for Luis Robert Jr., and couldn’t keep him healthy or productive. And, for some reason, they thought Mark Vientos would figure this out, and of course, he hasn’t.

Among other failed experiments.

Maybe this is why great players in free agency get long-term contracts? Good idea or not for a team, that’s the reality.

Mendoza’s job has not been easy with a new coaching staff, but it’s not as if they were successful all-around last season either with the old coaches. Sure, their base running was better under the now-departed Antoan Richardson, but nothing else was generally well-coached under the 2025 Mets, either. Mendoza is not a great in-game manager, and it is his job to make sure this team is ready to play, so the sloppy play on the field does fall on his shoulders to an extent.

There is enough talent on this team where they should not be this bad, so they shoulder the bulk of the blame. These are highly-paid professional athletes with track records, and I sincerely doubt they’ve been babied through their careers with managers and coaches to be this successful. They need to perform, they need to be a lot better, and ultimately, they’ll be held accountable with their next contracts, during a roster crunch, or a combination of the two.

April is blessedly over, and they can turn a new page with the turning of the calendar, and while it might already be too late for this team to get back on track, they have a chance to turn the page, get their season back on the rails, and look forward to the next five or so months on the baseball calendar.

Around the League 🚩

• The Phillies walked off the Giants in both games of a doubleheader

• Both C Adley Rutschman and 2B Jeremiah Jackson hit a grand slam in the Orioles 10-3 win over the Astros

• Astros LF Yordan Álvarez hit his twelfth home run of the year which ties him for the major league lead

• The Reds placed LHP Brandon Williamson on the IL with shoulder fatigue (ESPN)

• Brewers RHP Brandon Woodruff is undergoing further testing to see what caused his velocity dip in his last start (ESPN)

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• The Mets returned to losing ways after being blown out 14-2 by the Nationals at Citi Field on Wednesday night (box)

• The Mets have now lost 16 of their last 19 games and stand alone as the worst team in baseball with a 10-20 record

• LHP David Peterson, back in the rotation, was a disaster on the mound, allowing seven earned runs on five hits with three walks and five strikeouts over just 3.2 innings

• LHP Sean Manaea wasn’t much better out of the bullpen, giving up six earned runs on seven hits, with five of those hits going for extra-bases. He also surrendered a grand slam

• RHP Carl Edwards Jr. somewhat stopped the bleeding, allowing just one run on three hits and one walk while striking out six

• DH Juan Soto was the only positive for the Mets, going 3-for-5 with a double, a home run, a run scored, and a RBI

• LF MJ Melendez provided the Mets’ only other run of the game with an RBI single, while also drawing a walk

• C Francisco Alvarez finished 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, while also hitting into his sixth double play of the season

• The Mets finished 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, leaving nine runners stranded on base

• OF Tommy Pham cleared waivers and, rather than accept an outright assignment to Triple-A, elected free agency (MLB.com)

Rumor Mill 💬

• Per Jon Heyman, the Mets are looking into the possibility of acquiring a big bat via trade (Bleacher Report)

Injury Updates 🏥

• RHP Kodai Senga (lumbar spine inflammation) revealed that he was dealing with the injury and discomfort as far back as spring training, before eventually coming forward to trainers after it became too difficult to manage and play through

• OF Luis Robert Jr. (lower back tightness) didn’t improve after treatment so will now undergo an MRI. A stint on the IL remains a possibility

• LHP A.J. Minter (left lat surgery) felt good after throwing a bullpen session at Citi Field on Tuesday, and is set to make another rehab appearance for Triple-A Syracuse on Friday

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

BONUS EPISODE! Join Rich and special guest James Schiano of the Mets’d Up podcast as they commiserate about this team’s race to rock bottom.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Play of the Game 🤬

While the offense was quiet, pitching ultimately doomed the Mets on Wednesday night.

After David Peterson imploded on the mound, Sean Manaea was called from the bullpen to try and stop the bleeding and settle things down.

Instead, Manaea only added to the bloodbath.

The lefty also didn’t have it from the jump, giving up a soul-crushing, back-breaking grand slam to Brady House to break the game wide open.

It was still only the fourth inning, but due to two horror shows on the mound, the game was effectively over at that point for the Mets.

Who’s Cold 🥶

• C Francisco Alvarez is now hitting just .100/.095/.100/.195 with eight strikeouts over his last six games

• LHP David Peterson now owns an ugly 10.80 ERA in the opening frame through five starts in 2026

• Over his last three outings, LHP Sean Manaea has given up a total of 13 earned runs

Down on the Farm 🌾

• DH Jacob Reimer (No. 5 prospect, Double-A): 2-for-4, 1 R, 1 2B

• SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 2-for-4, 1 R, 1 2B

• LF JT Benson (Single-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 3 RBI, 1 HR

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU (GM 1 | GM 2) | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG (GM 1 | GM 2) | Triple-A SYR (PPD)

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (10-20) vs. Nationals (14-17)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (1-3, 3.90 ERA) vs. RHP Miles Mikolas (0-3, 8.49 ERA)

When: 1:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

The Mets quickly reminded us again just how bad they are ✍️

Well, we are back to our regular scheduled programming.

Just one night after the Mets provided some hope of getting the train back on the tracks with a big win over Washington, that same team quickly reminded us all of who they really are.

And that’s just an awful, awful, awful baseball team.

If you were tricked into believing in this team on Tuesday, then shame on you. And I mean that with all due respect.

Because, at this point, this team doesn’t deserve our belief or our benefit of the doubt. They’ve provided tantalizing flashes of hope and promise before, only to crash and burn in an ugly and messy car wreck shortly after.

At the end of the day, the Mets are telling us exactly who they are, and it is about time we start believing them.

April be dammed.

You are what your record says you are, and the Mets are officially the worst team in baseball with an ungodly 10-20 record.

Man, that just stinks.

We can call the likes of the Rockies and the Nationals lowly all we want, but, at the end of the day, the Mets now belong in that same category of bad baseball teams.

I’m sorry, but they just do.

This team is going nowhere, and I think all we’ve got to look forward to is the odd win and the odd false sense of hope all sandwiched in between bad, unwatchable baseball.

Maybe, just maybe, this team can string more than one or two wins together and give us a .500 team to watch during the summer.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

It is a testament to all the suffering Mets fans have had to endure that, at this point, we would be happy to watch just mediocre baseball and root for a team looking to reside in averageville.

I mean, it has got to be better than what we are watching right now.

The scary thing is I’m not sure how realistic all that is because I’m not sure the organization knows how to get out of this mess.

We’ve heard Carlos Mendoza and the players say some variation of “we have to be better” almost every single day since the second half of last year. And, yet, the results haven’t gotten better.

In fact, they’ve only gotten worse.

At some point, actions have to be louder than words. You can preach about wanting to be better all you want, but it means nothing if you don’t actually go out there and improve.

Are these players even capable of doing that though?

Because, from what I’ve seen, this current group seems incapable of learning from their mistakes, adjusting on the fly, adapting when things get tough, and, ultimately, not responding to adversity.

That failure to execute and inability to get better is on the players. And the fact that Mendoza has called out his players without a response is probably also a damming indictment that his voice is starting to wear thin amidst all the losing.

Of course, while Mendoza will probably still end up being the first guy to fall on his sword, David Stearns still arguably deserves the bulk of the blame for building what is just a fatally flawed roster.

And his half-assed approach to building the rotation in the offseason came back to bite him yet again on Wednesday. Stearns, as did everyone else, knew that there were issues with Kodai Senga and David Peterson. He knew Sean Manaea’s velocity was down throughout spring training. And, yet, he just stood pat.

The end result?

Senga is on the IL again after proving that he’s probably not a very good starter. And Peterson and Manaea combined to allow 13 of the 14 runs the Mets allowed on Wednesday night.

Furthermore, through 30 games, Mets pitchers only have five wins. Those belong to Freddy Peralta, Nolan McLean, and Clay Holmes, who has three of the five. Sadly, you can’t pitch any of those three every day, which means that the Mets are probably doomed at least a few times a week thanks to bad pitching.

And, even when a starter does deliver a gem, that doesn’t even guarantee a win thanks to the laughably bad offense Stearns is responsible for putting together. The lineup managed just two runs on Wednesday, even with Juan Soto doing Juan Soto-type things. And that just goes to further prove that Soto alone won’t be able to save this team, and it is foolish to think otherwise.

Ultimately, I think we’re starting to come to the damming realization that the Mets are the hapless blind squirrel. Sure, they may run into a nut here and there, but over the long run, they will go hungry and be left to starve thanks to their own sheer incompetence.

Just getting to .500 seems a fantasy a million miles away for these Mets.

Around the League 🚩

• The Red Sox placed LHP Garrett Crochet on the 15-Day IL with left shoulder inflammation (MLB.com)

• 1B Matt Olson hit a walk-off, two-run homer to help the Braves beat the Tigers, 4-3

• OF Lawrence Butler crushed a three-run home run as the A’s beat the Royals, 5-2

• Diamondbacks INF IIdemaro Vargas has now hit in 22 straight games to start the season after going 2-for-5 in a 6-2 win over the Brewers

• OF Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a two-run blast, his second homer in as many games, as the Cubs beat the Padres, 5-4

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• The Mets blanked the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night, 8-0 (box)

• RHP Clay Holmes set the tone early, throwing six scoreless frames with six strikeouts against just three hits and one walk

• 3B Bo Bichette got the Mets’ scoring started early with a homer on the first pitch he saw from beleaguered Nats starter Zack Littell; Bichette added another RBI in the fourth

• The Mets broke the game open with a seven-run fourth inning on a rally started by 2B Marcus Semien

• CF/LF Carson Benge continued his recent resurgence with a two-hit, two-RBI night

• DH Juan Soto hit a two-run homer to tack on to the scoring deluge

• RHP Tobias Myers and RHP Craig Kimbrel combined for five strikeouts and a walk over three scoreless innings to finish the game

Roster Moves 📰

• RHP Kodai Senga placed on the IL, lumbar spine inflammation

• RHP Christian Scott was recalled from Triple-A

• RHP Joey Gerber was sent to Triple-A for a rehab assignment

Injury Updates 🏥

• RHP Kodai Senga (lumbar spine inflammation) received an epidural and will not throw for 7-10 days before reassessment

• CF Luis Robert Jr. (lower back tightness) is listed as day-to-day

• LF Juan Soto (right forearm tightness) is receiving treatment after an MRI revealed no structural damage; he is cleared to swing and will continue to DH

• 1B/DH Jorge Polanco (left Achilles bursitis/right wrist contusion) is “running at about 80%” per Carlos Mendoza; there is still no timeline on his return to play

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

BONUS EPISODE! Join Rich and special guest James Schiano of the Mets’d Up podcast as they commiserate about this team’s race to rock bottom.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Play of the Game 🌟

After Bo Bichette’s first-pitch homer in the first inning, the Mets recorded eight consecutive outs. It looked like fans were in for another night of minimal scoring. And as Marcus Semien strode to the plate with the bases loaded and one out, it still felt that way.

Then, this happened.

Staring down a 1-2 count, Semien slapped a splitter from Littell straight at Nats third baseman Jorbit Vivas’s glove — but then Jorbit Vivas turned into Jorbit Buckner. Vivas misplayed the ball on the hop, letting it slip under his glove and slide into left field. Two runs scored, with five more to follow in the inning off the bats of Benge, Bichette, and Soto.

Who’s Hot 🥵

• Carson Benge is hitting .368/.368/.579 with a double, a homer, four runs scored, three RBI, and a stolen base over his last seven games

• Bo Bichette is hitting .308/.345/.500 with two doubles, a homer, five runs scored, five RBI, a stolen base, and two walks against four strikeouts in his last seven games

• Juan Soto is hitting .300/.407/.460 with 15 hits, two homers, four runs scored, seven RBI, and nine walks against eight strikeouts in his first 50 ABs of the season

Down on the Farm 🌾

• CF A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Triple-A): 3-for-4, 2B, 3B, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB

• 1B Ryan Clifford (No. 4 prospect, Triple-A): 1-for-5, HR, R, 2 RBI, K

• RF Cristian Pache (Triple-A): 3-for-4, HR, 3 R, RBI

• 3B Christian Arroyo (Triple-A): 2-for-4, HR, R, 3 RBI, K

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU (OFF) | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (10-19) vs. Nationals (13-17)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: LHP David Peterson (0-3, 5.06 ERA) vs. RHP Cade Cavalli (0-1, 4.01 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

For one night anyway, the Mets were flawless ✍️

Now that is how you start a series.

The badly bleeding Mets took a step towards recovery on Tuesday night. Another shutdown start from Clay Holmes was supported by an eruption of runs from an offense that has seemed utterly unable to uncork its seismic potential.

And it’s because the Mets addressed some issues.

When asked by team reporter Chelsea Janes pregame if any specifics had been addressed to help turn the offense around, Carlos Mendoza said he’s emphasized getting back to basics and prioritizing the things that got these guys into the big leagues — like hitting fastballs.

This season, the Mets have fared horribly against heaters. Just last week, Buster Olney pointed out that the Mets ranked 30th in MLB in OPS against four-seamers, two-seamers, and cutters (.640) and in run value on pitches thrown at or above 97 mph (-6). While I couldn’t find the updated numbers in the wake of the Rockies sweep, I can’t imagine they got any better.

Yesterday, the Mets flipped that script on its head, registering five hits on fastballs against a single whiff and a called strike three. All five batted balls were hard-hit, and two of them left the yard off the bats of Bichette and Soto.

If this team is going to thrive in any way this season, it will be because they’ve remastered the basics.

On offense, yesterday’s game was all about getting back to what works:

• Not Chasing: Entering the evening, the Mets were chasing roughly 30% of the pitches they were swinging at. That’s not the league’s worst rate, but it’s certainly not optimal for a hopeful turnaround. Last night, chase swings only accounted for 15.8% of the Mets’ team swing profile.

• Staying Patient: In a nightly effort to battle their way back on the scoreboard, the Mets have been seeing increasingly fewer pitches, averaging less than four pitches per plate appearance. That’s resulted in a minuscule 7.8% walk rate, 27th in MLB. Last night, the Mets walked five times (13.8% of plate appearances) and struck out three times (8.3%), a much better recipe for success.

• Swinging Smarter: For all this season’s early lack of offense, it sure isn’t for lack of swinging. Mets hitters entered Tuesday with a collective 49% swing rate, an approach that clearly hasn’t been working too well. Last night, they swung at just 42% of pitches seen, even more choosy than the most selective team in MLB (Yankees, 42.8%). The result: a puny 7.6% whiff rate, 10 hard hit balls, and eight runs on six hits.

• Keeping the Ball Up: Throughout this endless month of August, the Mets have generated a 44.3% ground ball rate, ninth-highest in baseball. That’s been accompanied by very underwhelming line drive and fly ball data, despite the Mets making hard contact at a solid clip. Last night, the Mets put less than 30% of batted balls on the ground, with 52% being hit into the air. A steady trend away from hard-hit grounders should naturally result in more run production over time; they just need to actually sustain that trend.

All pretty fundamental stuff, sure — but batter’s box basics have eluded Mets hitters for weeks. If a meeting was held recently that suddenly has these players’ heads collectively recentered at the dish, awesome. Whatever it takes to get these guys to commit to something that works, do it.

The Mets’ pitching was just as good as their hitting yesterday, led by the Alabama Slammer himself, Clay Holmes.

Holmes has been on an absolute tear to start his 2026 campaign, and the Mets should be thanking whatever lucky stars they have that he’s on this team. Through his first six starts, Holmes has a 1.75 ERA with a 0.97 WHIP. In 36 innings, he’s held hitters to a .186 batting average. All of those numbers are career bests.

And yet, as dialed in as he’s looked all season, Holmes turned in arguably his best performance of the season on Tuesday night:

Holmes attacked the zone with his entire repertoire, finishing his night with a 68% strike rate over 94 pitches. Save for two wayward cutters, he threw all of his shapes for strikes regularly, with his sinker, sweeper, and curveball each eliciting a 70% rate. Just about everything was working the way he wanted, and he was able to get strikeouts both in and out of the zone with equal frequency as a result.

None of this excellence should really surprise anyone. After a debut starting campaign in which he led the team in starts and wins, Holmes flashed glimpses of his revamped arsenal and the enhanced command of his pitch set during the WBC. In his single appearance, Holmes’s stuff absolutely dominated the Brits, yielding a 44% whiff rate that led to six strikeouts over three scoreless frames. He was similarly efficient in the Grapefruit League, pitching to a 2.84 ERA in his 12.2 innings, with 13 strikeouts against just three walks. Starter Clay Holmes has fully arrived, and he’s doing everything he can to make sure that’s clear.

If his season continues on its present trajectory, Holmes is pacing towards what should be a far-and-away career-best year. For it to be happening in just his second full season as a starter, at 33 years old, in the midst of an all-time awful stretch of losing? Well, that’s Mets baseball.

Now, as sweet as this victory tastes, it’s still but a drop in a desperately empty bucket.

The Mets played a functionally flawless game last night…that does not mean it’s the new standard. One offensive outburst does not a winning streak make, as this team has demonstrated that time and time (and time) again. There’s a lot of work left to do, and a lot of trust to be earned back, if they can do it at all. The plate discipline needs to be there in crunch time, not just with a comfortable lead; well-struck batted balls need to be hit in the air and on a line more consistently over the next 133 games.

However, at least they reminded us — and the rest of the league, and themselves — that they’re capable of doing this at all, let alone while not at full strength.

Yesterday was a good win and a necessary step in the right direction. But it was one step on a very long road, and they cannot stop now.

Around the League 🚩

• After their own 9-19 start to the season, the Phillies fired manager Rob Thomson; Don Mattingly was tapped to take over in the interim - The Phillies won their first game under Mattingly, shutting out the Giants 7-0

• Alex Cora was offered the Phillies job, but turned it down to spend time with his family (MLB.com)

• Shohei Ohtani struck out nine Marlins over six innings but took the loss behind no run support; he gave up two runs (one earned), raising his season ERA to 0.60

• Yankees phenom Cam Schlittler racked up eight strikeouts over six shutout innings as the Yankees bested Jacob deGrom and the Rangers 3-2 in Arlington

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Happy Tuesday, Mets fans – the latest bonus episode of The Just Mets Podcast has dropped!

This week, Rich MacLeod is joined by James Schiano – co-host of the Mets’d Up Podcast – to vent about the club’s unfathomably bad start, dissect one of the worst Mets offenses ever, and figure out who’s the most to blame for this mess.

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a five-star rating & review ⭐️

Check out our Patreon if you’re interested in checking out exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season!

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• The Mets were mercifully off on Monday and will begin a three game series with the Nationals tonight at Citi Field

• The Mets are promoting their number three ranked prospect, IF/OF A.J. Ewing, to Triple-A Syracuse (SNY)

Roster Moves 📰

• Claimed veteran infielder Eric Wagaman off waivers from the Twins and optioned him to Triple-A Syracuse

Injury Updates 🏥

• INF Jorge Polanco (wrist, achilles soreness) has resumed baseball activities but there’s still no timetable for his return

• LHP AJ Minter (recovery from 2025 lat surgery) remains on-track for a return in the second week of May

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

In the latest edition of the Just Mets Podcast, Rich and Andrew discussed who they think could be the next manager of the Mets if they fire Carlos Mendoza, roster moves they can make to shake things up, and more after being swept by Colorado this weekend.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

All Mets minor league affiliates were off on Monday.

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (9-19) vs. Nationals (13-16)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Clay Holmes (2-2, 2.10 ERA) vs. RHP Zack Littell (0-3, 7.56 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

The Mets problems are way bigger than just the losses ✍️

The Mets are in full-on crisis right now. To say the 2026 season has been a catastrophic failure and embarrassment to date is the understatement of the century.

They are bad, boring, and don’t have anything worth looking forward to on any given night—save for a Nolan McLean start every five days.

This team is uninspiring, underwhelming, and doesn’t seem to care.

In a season in which David Stearns made an obscene amount of changes—that he insisted would make the Mets better (LOL)—this has been an absolute worst-case scenario development.

Look, if we put this season’s expectations to the side for a second, we can dive into the heart of this problem.

The Mets are bad, so what? They’ve been bad before and they’ll be bad again.

But in the most recent times they’ve been bad, there has always been a glimmer of hope dangling as the light at the end of the tunnel.

The post-NL pennant-winning early 2000s Mets were awful. The Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar experiment was a joke, and things were bleak. But bubbling to the surface of the team’s minor league system were Jose Reyes, David Wright, and to a lesser extent, even Aaron Heilman. Heralded homegrown top prospects who fans were eager to see. And once they reached the Show, things turned around in a hurry.

Fast forward a few years to the early part of the Terry Collins era. Those Mets teams were awful. But let’s think back to our attitudes at the time. We weren’t hopeless, we were optimistic. Why? We knew about the homegrown pitching that was coming.

We knew about Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Rafael Montero, Steven Matz, and Noah Syndergaard. And you know what? That team was back in the World Series in 2015.

The vibe around this latest Mets mediocre club is noticeably different and for good reason.

The Mets had a beloved homegrown core in Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Jeff McNeil—the latter of whom Mets fans had started to take for granted at the end. That trio cared, produced, and took this team to the postseason twice in a three-year period. Yes, last year sucked, and yes, this team should have been in the playoffs for the third time in four years. But missing the dance by a single game had a lot more to do with the club’s ineptitude on the mound for the better part of four months than it did with the offensive core.

Stearns talked a lot about run prevention, poor defense, and there was even noise he had to stave off about a bad clubhouse. But in the end, none of the guys he jettisoned or let walk - except for Edwin Díaz - threw a single pitch for the Mets in 2025.

Sure, that group of Mets struggled at times, but you never had to question if they were in it with you, and they were certainly better than whatever this is Stearns as assembled for 2026. You never had to question if they’d ultimately be able to pull themselves out of it, because we’d seen it before.

Changes were needed to improve the club, but with the benefit of what we know now, Stearns’ decision-making looks even more horrific.

The only move he made all winter that doesn’t look bad right now is the trade that brought Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers from Milwaukee. And you know what? If Peralta leaves as a free agent in a few months, that deal could turn sour real quick too.

Trading Nimmo for Marcus Semien was an unmitigated disaster from the start. Semien is completely washed, and Nimmo is a good, borderline great player, whose number 9 should’ve been in the rafters one day. If defense up the middle was the deciding factor, the team could just as easily kept Nimmo in left field, and not traded Luisangel Acuña to the White Sox, and instead let him play second base in Queens.

Had that happened, we wouldn’t have Luis Robert, and Carson Benge would more than likely be playing center field right now instead of left. I think we’d all sign up for those redos.

Then there’s first base, which is the most laughable of all.

Alonso was not retained because of defense or run prevention or his age or whatever nonsense you want to buy. But after all the talk of him being a defensive liability, we now get to watch Brett Baty and Mark Vientos struggle at a position that isn’t their natural spot. Speaking of players playing out of position, the infielder they signed to play first base after not hardly playing there ever before—Jorge Polanco—started there just once and is now on the injured list. Outfielder Jared Young has started there as well. If only there had been a better option available during the winter.

And look - I am not saying the Mets should’ve signed Alonso to a five-year deal. But it just goes to show exactly what they thought of him when they didn’t even consider replacing him with an actual first baseman, instead insisting a combined group of players with limited to no experience at the position would be better than he was.

But back to the present.

This was always going to be a make-or-break transition year for Stearns and company. In the past, when the team struggled or was mired in a losing streak, there were the earlier-mentioned cornerstone players that had equity with the fans, the fans were invested in watching, and eventually, things almost always righted themselves.

Right now, what do the Mets have going for them to keep fans that aren’t diabolical masochists like us engaged? What is the younger generation of Mets fans, still reeling from losing their favorite players, supposed to hold onto?

It’s not even May, and they’ve become unwatchable.

The disappointment is going to show itself in ticket sales, tv ratings, merchandise sales, and everything else.

Steve Cohen did so much and worked so hard to turn this franchise around and make it a respected destination yet again. David Stearns managed to undo all of that in just a few weeks.

Around the League 🚩

• Former Mets righty Max Scherzer went on the IL with forearm tendinitis (USA Today)

• The Cardinals scored four 9th inning runs to stun the Pirates by the score of 4-2

• Ranger Suárez struck out 10 across eight scoreless frames to help Boston beat Toronto 5-0

• Jonathan Aranda hit his 7th home run in the Rays 3-2 win in Cleveland

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• The Mets were swept in their doubleheader by the Rockies on Sunday, losing game 1 3-1 (box) and getting shutout 3-0 in game 2 (box)

• RHP Nolan McLean started for the Mets in Game 1 and was solid over five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) with two walks and seven strikeouts, but he took his second loss of the season despite owning a 2.55 ERA

• RHP Kodai Senga started for the Mets in game 2 and was unable to pitch himself out of the third inning while allowing three runs and three walks

• The Mets bullpen did put forth a strong effort in the doubleheader, allowing just one run over 10.1 IP in the two games

• The offense went a combined 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position in the doubleheader, and they notched just two extra-base hits among the ten total hits they had in the two games

• The club scored four runs in their three-game series against the Rockies, and have scored 38 runs in their last 16 games - they were swept by Colorado for the first time since 2018

• Following Sunday’s sweep, the Mets have now scored 92 runs this season – the least among any team in all of baseball this season

• The Mets are now 9-19 which is tied with the 1983, 1962, and 1964 Mets for the second-worst start in franchise history — only the 1981 Mets who started 8-20 had a worse start

• New York and OF Austin Slater are in agreement on a new contract (Athletic)

Roster Moves 📰

• OF Tommy Pham designated for assignment

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

In the latest edition of the Just Mets Podcast, Rich and Andrew discussed who they think could be the next manager of the Mets if they fire Carlos Mendoza, roster moves they can make to shake things up, and more after being swept by Colorado this weekend.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Jonah Tong (no. 2 prospect, AAA): 4.2 IP, 3 ER, 5 H, 3 BB, 6 K

• LHP Jonathan Santucci (no. 9 prospect, AA): 5.1 IP, 4 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 8 K

• INF AJ Ewing (no. 3 prospect, AA): 2-for-5, 3 R

• SS Mitch Voit (no. 7 prospect, High-A): 2-for-6, HR, 2 RBI, 2 R

• OF Randy Guzmán (Low-A): 3-for-4, 2 2B, HR, 2 RBI, 3 R

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK G1 G2 | Double-A BNG G1 G2 | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

The Mets are off on Monday. They open a three-game series against the Nationals on Tuesday night at Citi Field.

This is a meritocracy, not a popularity contest ✍️

Where do I begin now?

Let’s start with this: The Mets have scored two runs or fewer in 14 of their first 27 games. And on Sunday, the Mets scored one run in their doubleheader against the Rockies.

This wasn’t tough luck. This wasn’t the Mets hitting the ball hard all over the park and it just finding gloves. This was a doubleheader full of nothing but empty at-bats end-to-end, poor pitch selection, poor approaches, poor ABS challenges, poor swings on hittable strikes, too many takes on hittable strikes, and a general lifelessness from one inning after the next.

That is pretty representative of these 2026 New York Mets, who were a no-show against the Rockies this weekend, and pretty much all year.

That’s not an exaggeration, there’s no hyperbole in that statement, and that is not a sensationalized take on the first month of this season for the Mets. They are inexplicably 9-19 on the year, it’s not even consistently warm out yet and this team is already 10.5 games out of first place.

After writing that last sentence, I literally had a blank stare out the window and said to myself, “how can that be right?”

Well, it is, and I just double, triple and quadruple checked it.

I actually don’t think we are at the line of demarcation for the Mets. I feel like we are way past that point. This isn’t a situation where we are going to wait for Memorial Day to learn the identity of this Mets team, and where this team is headed into the summer.

That identity has been determined, and in between the doubleheader, when Carlos Mendoza generally questioned the Mets effort in their game 1 loss to Colorado, that identity was solidified.

The Mets just aren’t a bad team. They might not just be a really bad team.

This is a team that simply has no pulse, no energy, and no path forward.

This is a team that cannot change, cannot adjust, cannot adapt.

This is a team that doesn’t even show a willingness to change, adjust, or adapt. They just do the same thing, day after day, take the same kind of at-bats day after day, come up empty day after day, and lose day after day.

But, it is time for change. Big change. Drastic change. Right here, right now. Even if the moves they have to make are unpopular, controversial, or even regrettable.

That the Mets had no response to Mendoza essentially calling his entire team out about their effort in game 1 is as telling as it is concerning. At least the Mets had the bases loaded twice in the first game - it seemed like the Mets couldn’t even get anyone on base in game 2.

On top of that, the Mets spent their ABS challenges while trailing 3-0 by the sixth inning in game 2, the last of which was inexplicably spent by Juan Soto on a first pitch strike which he wasn’t even close to right on. That’s part of their poor approach and part of where their head space is at this point.

Now, whether the Mets had that challenge in the bank or not at the end of the game might not have made a difference. It probably wouldn’t have. But, it’s more about what Soto’s move to use that challenge says and means about the state of the Mets, which is a condition littered with lapses and indifferent play on both sides of the ball.

So, what now?

I have no idea, to be honest.

I’ve seen a lot of bad teams. I recall speaking to a Yankee fan earlier this week saying I’ve seen worse. I remember 1992, 1993, 1994. Those were the worst seasons I have experienced with this franchise, and that includes the unbearable 2002, 2003, 2004 seasons, the pain and suffering from 2007-2009, the bland rebuild teams from 2011-2013, and the stink bombs from 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2023.

I think most people who have followed or written about this team who are my age or similar would agree with that.

But I am now starting to feel like this could be worse than all of that. Certainly, this start being in line with the 1962 Mets hardens that perception for me.

And, it’s never, ever, ever good for any team in Major League Baseball to be mentioned alongside the 1962 Mets, especially a modern Mets team which has among the highest payrolls in professional sports.

Anyway, back to what the Mets might be able to do to shake things up.

They started by designating the hitless Tommy Pham for assignment, and replacing him with Austin Slater on the roster. That’s a peripheral-for-peripheral roster move in the end - Slater was designated by the Marlins earlier this week. But the Mets are at least trying to address an offensive deficiency against left-handed pitching by adding Slater. So, I get that one.

The next move to me probably should be with Kodai Senga, who is just not a Major League pitcher right now and is providing no value to the Mets at this point, and hasn’t for almost a year now. Yes, the Mets would be on the hook with Senga for this year and next, but he isn’t pitchable anymore and these outings which put the Mets behind by multiple runs early aren’t going to get the offense going.

The Mets also have to make a decision on both Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, because they’re both generally lost at the plate, to the point Baty was so clueless on Sunday that he was called out on strikes three times in game 1. Yes, he had been better lately, but it was a short burst of success that has been sandwiched by way too many non-competitive at-bats. It’s as simple as that.

The same can be said for Vientos who, to be fair, has been pretty good at first base defensively in a small sample, but his bat looks a whole lot like it did in 2025 which was not playable - he was only in the majors after May or June because he is out of options.

Now, some people might still be on the Baty train, and some people might still believe Vientos’ power is locked in there somewhere, but in the end, they are not productive at this level right now, and the Mets are either last or in the bottom third of every major offensive category in the majors, so again, the Mets have to change, have to adapt, and have to take some risks in an effort to make this team competitive.

Again, they’re 9-19, just got swept by a team that lost 119 games last year, and look worse in most every aspect of the game against every team they play.

This is a meritocracy, not a popularity contest, and not a situation to keep guys around because they’re nice guys and they work hard.

I am not saying there are competent replacements for either of these guys, or even Senga for that matter. Or, even if Steve Cohen decides to fire Carlos Mendoza, which seems to be the popular pivot for this front office under the current circumstances.

Let’s just say the Mets do fire Mendoza (it’s very possible, even if he doesn’t deserve that). Do we really think Carlos Beltrán or whoever they choose to replace Mendoza would matter? Replacing managers, coaches, holding team meetings, going in front of the mic to try and light fires under teams doesn’t work the way the public thinks it does. These are highly paid, routine-based professional athletes who work hard at their craft even if the results aren’t showing it.

(and if you’re Alex Cora, why wouldn’t you wait for a market for your services to develop in November, rather than take the helm of a team that’s considerably worse than the one you were fired from?)

Hard work and effort are almost never the core of the problem. It’s easy for people on the outside to believe that when things like this occur, but I can assure you that is not the case.

You can easily and fairly argue they’re not preparing properly, whether it’s physically, mentally, from an information intake perspective, or a combination of all of that. You can also easily and fairly argue this is a synergy problem with the roster. This is a roster that clearly lacks the elements it takes to be competitive with respect to the rest of the league they’re in. This is a roster full of short-sightedness, a lot of IFs and hopes that simply aren’t working out to this point, and that’s not an indictment on a manager that inherited the decisions of his boss and his boss’s boss.

Then again, how stubborn is this front office right now? Are they going to stick with this because they still firmly believe this will eventually even itself out?

As I always say, you’re as smart as the record says you are. And right now, well, you know.

Around the League 🚩

• The Braves moved to 20-9 with their 6-2 win over the Phillies, who are now 9-19 on the year - Chris Sale fired six shutout innings to earn his fifth win of the season

• Yandy Díaz homered as the upstart Rays defeated the Twins 4-2 in St. Petersburg

• The Cubs dropped their series against the Dodgers, losing 6-0 on Sunday as they were unable to solve Justin Wrobleski who gave LA six shutout innings

• Aaron Judge hit his tenth home run of the season, but the Yankees lost to the Astros 7-4 in Houston
  

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• The Mets and Rockies were rained out yesterday; they play a straight doubleheader today starting at 1:40 PM

Roster Moves 📰

• RHP Austin Warren will serve as the 27th man on the Mets’ roster today

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

In the latest free preview of the Patreon pod, Rich answers some burning questions from our lovely Just Mets readers.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

• CF Nick Morabito (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A): 1-for-3, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 CS

• SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 1 BB

• C Chase Meggers (Single-A): 2-for-3, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 K, 1 CS

• CF Simon Juan (Single-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 1 2B, 2 RBI, 1 K

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK (PPD) | Double-A BNG (PPD) | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Games 🗓

Match-up: Mets (9-17) vs. Rockies (11-16)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Game 1 Starters: RHP Nolan McLean (1-1, 2.67 ERA) vs. LHP Jose Quintana (0-2, 6.23 ERA)

When: 1:05 PM EDT

Game 2 Starters: RHP Kodai Senga (0-3, 8.83 ERA) vs. TBD

When: TBD

Where to Watch: SNY

This Mets offense has been atrocious, but there still may be some positive signs ✍️

Save for a few high-scoring performances and occasional big-inning outbursts, this Mets offense has been nothing short of a disaster.

One month into the season, the Mets are averaging just 3.5 runs per game, second-worst in MLB. Hitting merely .230 as a unit, they own the league’s lowest wOBA (.278), and its third-lowest wRC+, a measly 82 — it’s been a horrendous display.

That wRC+ figure is the one I want to fixate on today. For the uninitiated, wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus) is widely considered a, if not the, modern statistical standard for assessing a player or team’s actual offensive contribution. While the wOBA (Weighted On Base Average) formula does an excellent job of attributing accurate run-scoring value to on-base events, it doesn’t consider league and park factors; wRC+ takes care of that.

You can get a full breakdown on wRC+ and how it’s calculated from MLB or Fangraphs, but for our purposes, wRC+ is basically ‘wOBA + park and league adjustments.’ Where wOBA is scaled to on-base percentage (OBP), wRC+ is closer to OPS+, where 100 is average. An 82 wRC+ means the Mets are creating runs 18% less effectively than the average MLB squad — sounds about right. Since the start of the losing streak on April 8th, the Mets have scored just 38 runs, the fewest in the league over that span by a margin of 11.

In addition to neatly summarizing offensive performance, wRC+ can also be a fairly reliable predictor of postseason success. Out of the last ten World Series winners, eight of them finished the regular season among the top five in wRC+; five of them finished among the top two. The average wRC+ of these teams sits around 112, so it’s safe to say the Mets have their work cut out for them if they actually want to compete for the crown.

Let’s explore why there’s been so much suckage in Queens lately:

1. They aren’t getting on base enough. The Mets currently maintain a .292 OBP, the second-worst mark in baseball. They’re seeing 3.9 pitches per plate appearance, a league-average rate, but they’re walking just 7.7% of the time. Paired with a bottom-10 strikeout rate and bottom-10 team average, that signals a lot of less-than-stellar contact across the board.

2. The balls being put in play aren’t particularly competitive. Mets hitters are mustering just a .278 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), 21st in the league. Though they’re posting the league’s fifth-highest hard contact rate, their 44.3% ground ball rate (GB%) is the league’s tenth-highest mark. Their average group launch angle of 11 degrees isn’t helping them clear the wall (or even reach it) either. Mets hitters are also producing an average exit velocity of 89 mph — a litany of medium-power liners hit relatively low to the ground isn’t a feasible run-scoring recipe, especially with so much ground ball production.

3. They aren’t hitting for any power. Isolated Power (ISO) measures a hitter’s raw power output by focusing solely on their extra-base production. A league-average ISO usually sits around .140-.150; the Mets have a collective ISO of .114, third-worst in the majors. While a dip in thump was anticipated this season with the departure of Pete Alonso (and, to an extent, Brandon Nimmo), such severe simultaneous underperformance from nearly all of the Mets’ veteran contributors has made run scoring that much more difficult.

So, how do the Mets effectively treat this offensive anemia?

First and foremost, something needs to be done about the hitting program; if the Red Sox can fire their hitting coach and hitting strategy director in April, the Mets can certainly overhaul some strategy, if not something more drastic. Perhaps Jeff Albert’s hitting program that worked so well for the farm system last year isn’t translating to the big leagues, or maybe there’s a disconnect between program architect Albert and supposed implementer Troy Snitker.

Expected batting average (xBA) says the Mets should be hitting .246 as a group, which would be sixth-best in baseball, right between the Blue Jays and the Athletics. Two primary contributors to a significant discrepancy between actual and expected average are a high strikeout rate and weak contact — though the Mets aren’t particularly strikeout-prone, they put a ton of balls on the ground at manageable exit velocities. That’s not a talent issue; that’s a hitting philosophy issue.

The obvious improvements the Mets need to make right now lie in their plate discipline. They simply aren’t walking enough — generating free passes at a less than 10% clip isn’t going to cut it, especially with such a low team-wide BABIP. Similarly, they need to make smarter swing decisions. Mets hitters are swinging at just under half of the pitches they see (49.2%, third-highest in MLB), but they’re making contact at a 77% clip (13th); worse still, they’re chasing nearly 35% of the pitches they’re swinging at. Though they’re making contact with the pitches they’re chasing at a decent rate, the quality of that contact isn’t very consistent, so there are a lot of wasted swings throughout the lineup.

Now, all the above said, it’s also important to give credit where it’s due.

Despite the team playing atrociously over the last couple of weeks, some players have shown some much-appreciated signs of life recently in the batter’s box:

• Brett Baty: After a horrific start to the season, Baty’s lumber may have finally risen from its slumber. Over the last week, Baty’s slashing .429/.529/.714 with a double, a homer, five RBI, and three walks against two strikeouts. He’s been hammering baseballs recently, with a 60% hard-hit rate in his last six games. He’s also cut his chase rate way down; hopefully that’s indicative of a budding trend.

• Marcus Semien: Though still not a significant power threat, Semien has been putting more oomph behind the ball in his last 20+ plate appearances. He’s also pulling the ball in the air more frequently in recent action; if he translates some of that power increase into a more XBH-friendly profile, Semien’s second Mets homer could come any day now.

• Juan Soto: Soto’s return should do quite a bit to help boost some team on-base numbers, but once his bat warms back up, he should also inject some much-needed power into a lineup that’s craving pop right now. And even if he walks a ridiculous amount out of the gate, more baserunners mean more scoring opportunities. Production is production.

• Bo Bichette: Bichette’s glove has looked solid at third base, and his bat is finally starting to catch up. Hitting .280 in his last 25 at-bats, Bichette’s underlying data has looked equally as encouraging as his surface-level results. His .333 BABIP is excellent, and he’s got an 89% zone-contact rate over the past week, so he’s clearly seeing the ball well right now. Perhaps some sustained time in the leadoff spot is exactly what he needs to keep this hot streak going.

Whatever the root cause, this team’s hitting issues clearly run deeper than a handful of slow starts or injuries. Something about how these hitters approach their at-bats needs to change before they make their already bad situation even worse. Losing Francisco Lindor is going to hurt enough; that sting will be vastly worse if the remaining bats do nothing to soothe it. And with no Jorge Polanco or Jared Young to call upon, there’s bound to be some additional weight sitting on the shoulders of the Mets’ current batch of homegrown darlings to take the reins and produce.

Despite dropping Friday’s opener to the Rockies, the Mets are still in position to win the series and finish this homestand on a strong note against the Nats before getting back on the road. A majority of their games will be played away from Citi Field next month, so they’d be smart to capitalize on home-field advantage while they have it.

Around the League 🚩

• The Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora and five other key members of their coaching staff after a 10-17 start to the season (MLB.com)

• Mason Miller extended his scoreless innings streak to 34.2, setting the Padres franchise record

• The Dodgers scored 12 runs to snap the Cubs’ 10-game winning streak

• Zack Wheeler struck out six Braves and allowed two runs on five hits over five innings in his season debut as the Phillies snapped their losing streak, beating Atlanta in extras

• Rookie sensation Sal Stewart continued his torrid start to the season with a five RBI performance as the Reds beat the Tigers to claim the NL Central lead

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• The Mets dropped the series opener to the Rockies, losing 4-3 at Citi Field on Friday night (box)

• RHP Freddy Peralta allowed two earned runs on seven hits and three walks with eight strikeouts over 5.1 innings, while once again struggling to go deep into the game after unravelling in the sixth

• LHP Sean Manaea entered in relief and gave the Mets 3.1 innings, allowing two earned runs on three hits and one walk while striking out seven

• The offense returned to type by hitting into four double plays and going 3-for-8 with RISP, leaving five runners stranded on base

• RF Brett Baty was involved in all three of the runs the Mets did score, finishing 2-for-4 with a run scored, a two-run single, and a double

• Both 1B Mark Vientos and SS Ronny Mauricio also finished with two hits, with Mauricio scoring a run

• Carlos Mendoza said that LHP David Peterson will likely return to the starting rotation (SNY)

Roster Moves 📰

• RHP Christian Scott optioned to Triple-A

• RHP Carl Edwards Jr. selected to the Major League roster

Injury Updates 🩺

• SS Francisco Lindor (left calf strain) will wear a walking boot for the next week, and will be reevaluated in three weeks

• 1B/DH Jorge Polanco (right wrist contusion) is progressing and is playing catch and hitting from the right side. He is considered week-to-week

• LHP A.J. Minter (left lat strain) is on track to return in early May. Minter also tossed a perfect inning for Triple-A Syracuse in his latest rehab assignment on Friday

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Play of the Game 🤬

After exploding for 10 runs and showing signs of life on Thursday, the offense reverted back to type on Friday night.

The lineup couldn’t get anything going against Michael Lorenzen and the Rockies. Then, with Lorenzen out of the game, Brett Baty hit a two-run single in the bottom of the eighth to make it a one-run ball game.

However, with two runners on and just one out, Mark Vientos couldn’t take advantage and drive in more runs to change the entire complexion of the game. Instead, he hit into an inning-ending double play to kill the rally and effectively seal the win for Colorado.

Now, while there was an element of bad luck considering that the ball left Vientos’ bat at 107.7 mph, it was straight at the second baseman and it was the Mets’ fourth double play of the game. You just aren’t going to win games that way, no matter the opponent.

David Stearns Speaks 🗣️

Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns met with the media prior to Friday’s game against the Rockies. Here’s a selection of highlights from what Stearns had to say:

• Stearns opened up his availability talking about the bullpen, admitting that it has been inconsistent and noting that a couple of guys aren’t throwing to the back of their baseball cards.

• On the subject of the bullpen, Stearns dismissed any notion that Devin Williams could be moved out of the closer role, instead expressing confidence that the veteran will turn it around.

• Stearns expanded on Francisco Lindor’s potential timeline for a return, adding that there could be “relatively quick progression” if all goes well over the next three weeks before the shortstop is evaluated again.

• Stearns again expressed his belief in this team, stating that he knows they will show they are a good team.

• Kodai Senga has shown the good and the bad so far this year, and Stearns admitted that while there have been flashes, the team needs more consistency from Senga.

• Stearns provided further updates on the injury front, revealing that Jorge Polanco is week-to-week, while A.J. Minter is on target to return within the first 10 days of May.

• Finally, Stearns stressed that while it may not be every day, Ronny Mauricio will get every opportunity to impress and play shortstop in Lindor’s absence.

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

On the latest midweek edition of the Just Mets Podcast, Rich MacLeod reacts to the Mets winning their series against the Twins and ending their miserable 12-game losing streak this week.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

• OF Nick Morabito (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-3, 1 R, 2 BB, 1 2B

• LF Ji Hwan Bae (Triple-A): 3-for-4, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 SB

• 2B A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Double-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 3 RBI, 1 BB, 1 HR

• RHP Brendan Girton (No. 29 prospect, Double-A): 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K

• 3B Nick Lorusso (Double-A): 3-for-4, 3 R, 1 RBI, 1 2B, 1 HR

• 2B Kevin Villavicencio (High-A): 2-for-3, 2 R, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 1 HR, 1 SB

• SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 1-for-3, 1 H, 2 BB, 1 2B, 2 SB

• OF Randy Guzman (No. 24 prospect, Single-A): 2-for-4, 2 RBI, 1 2B

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (9-17) vs. Rockies (11-16)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Kodai Senga (0-3, 8.83 ERA) vs. LHP Jose Quintana (0-2, 6.23 ERA)

When: 4:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

The Mets can’t afford to be losing games against the Rockies ✍️

Well, talk about an unwanted trip back to reality.

After winning two straight, the Mets returned to losing ways on Friday after dropping the opening game of the series to the Rockies.

And it was a clunker.

If a two-game winning streak was enough to make you forget everything that came before, well, Friday would have reminded you in a hurry about all the questions hovering over this team.

Freddy Peralta started off well before falling apart. He has only pitched a full six innings once for the Mets, and has hardly looked like an ace. It goes without saying that if the Mets hope to accomplish anything this year, then Peralta really needs to start going deeper into games. And fast.

There were yet more routine mistakes, including Marcus Semien, who is meant to be a defensive savant, failing to make a play in the seventh that led to the Rockies scoring a run. And, in a one-run game, that inability to come through proved costly.

And the offense, after tricking us into believing on Thursday, turned back into a pumpkin by managing just three runs while hitting into FOUR double plays. Yes, you read that correctly.

Granted, there was some bad luck involved in some of those plays, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact that this lineup could only manage three runs against a Rockies team that will probably finish the season as one of the worst teams in baseball. And you can’t keep on hitting into double plays and expect to win games. Again, and I mean no disrespect to the Rockies, but it shouldn’t be that hard to string together rallies against teams like Colorado.

And therein lies the rub.

The Mets are now at a point where they can’t really afford to be unlucky. They can’t afford to be dropping games to teams like the Rockies, especially in the manner they did on Friday.

Thanks to the 12-game losing streak, the margin for error for this team is now razor-thin.

If the Mets want to salvage this season and accomplish anything of note, fattening up against teams like the Rockies, especially at home, should be the bare minimum.

Of course, there is still a chance to win this series, but Friday night’s loss did provide an unwelcome reminder of why this team lost 12 consecutive games in the first place.

The starting pitching, outside of Nolan McLean, has yet to deliver. And who knows what version of Kodai Senga we will get later today?

We’re approaching May, and yet players are still failing to execute basic plays. At some point, the early season excuse is going to become invalid, and we’re going to have to start to really question the front office’s run prevention strategy.

And there is enough of a sample size now to be really concerned about the offense, especially with Francisco Lindor out for potentially a substantial amount of time. And, as we predicted, even the return of Juan Soto won’t be enough to fix and save what is clearly a flawed lineup.

Of course, thanks to the extra Wild Card, there is still plenty of time for this team to prove us all wrong and turn things around.

But, with that said, there is only so much time, and there are a boatload of questions that need answering before we start to buy into this team’s potential. The front office, coaching staff, and players can go on about how good they know they are as much as they want. At some point, we actually need to see it.

Because, I’m sorry, but it is already getting late early.

And that’s why this team just cannot afford to be dropping sloppy games to the Rockies, even in April. Because it is nights like Friday that could really come back to haunt the Mets come the end of the season.

I’m not going to overreact to one loss, but when added to the losing streak, I can’t help but still be concerned about the bigger picture with the 2026 Mets.

Around the League 🚩

• INF Dansby Swanson’s go-ahead, two-run homer helped the Cubs to overturn a four-run deficit late to beat the Dodgers, 6-4, and win their 10th consecutive game

• Pirates INF Konnor Griffin celebrated his 20th birthday in style by hitting his first career MLB home run in a 6-0 win over the Brewers

• White Sox 1B Munetaka Murakami homered again, his 11th of the year, in a 5-4 win over the Nationals

• C Adley Rutschman hit a pair of homers as part of a six-home run night for the Orioles, who beat the Red Sox, 10-3

• The Yankees blasted four home runs in a 12-4 dismantling of the Astros, led by 2B Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s four RBIs

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Happy Friday, Mets fans – the latest Patreon exclusive episode of The Just Mets Podcast has dropped!

This week, Rich MacLeod responds to YOUR comments/questions surrounding the Mets covering the losing streak, controversial offseason moves not paying off, and an overall boring brand of baseball with a lack of fan favorite players on the roster.

Enjoy a free preview of this week’s episode on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

For access to full bonus episodes, become a paid subscriber here on Substack or over on Patreon.

If you’re already a paid subscriber to Just Mets, here’s how you can watch/listen to this week’s exclusive full episode below…

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• The Mets defeated the Twins 10-8 to win their second game in a row and to take their first series since April 3-5 against the Giants (box)

• RHP Christian Scott got his first start since 2024 and was not good. He pitched only 1.1 innings but limited the damage to one run while walking five and striking out one

• LHP David Peterson pitched 3.1 innings in relief and gave up one run. He walked one and struck out two

• RHP Devin Williams was shaky after some confusion about who would pitch the ninth. He got the win but gave up one run and three hits in two-thirds of an inning

• RF Brett Baty went 2-for-4 with two runs, three RBIs, and massive three-run home run in the first to put the Mets on the board

• LF Carson Benge had another good day at the plate going 2-for-3 with a home run, two runs scored, and a RBI

• 3B Bo Bichette got the big hit late with a bases-loaded double to help the Mets retake the lead. Overall, he went 3-for-5 with two runs and three RBIs out of the leadoff spot

Roster Moves 📰

• SS Francisco Lindor was placed on the IL was a left calf strain

• INF Ronny Mauricio was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse

• RHP Christian Scott was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse

• RHP Austin Warren was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse

Injury Updates 🩺

• SS Francisco Lindor is expected to miss significant time with his calf strain but no timetable for his return was given

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Play of the Game ⭐️

What should have been an easy victory quickly turned on its head when the combination of Craig Kimbrel and Huascar Brazobán turned a 7-3 lead into a 7-7 tie ballgame in the eighth inning. Things could have spiraled from there given the way this season has been going so far, but Bo Bichette came through in the bottom of the inning.

Brett Baty got things started with a hit to lead off the eighth. A Marcus Semien single and a walk by Tommy Pham set up bases loaded with two outs for Bichette, who drove a ball to the left field wall. That cleared the bases to give the Mets a three-run lead heading into the ninth inning. The ninth was an adventure between Brazobán heading back to the mound the same time Devin Williams was called upon, and then Williams allowing the tying runs to get into scoring position, but the team walked away with a 10-8 victory thanks to Bichette’s big hit.

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

On the latest midweek edition of the Just Mets Podcast, Rich MacLeod reacts to the Mets winning their series against the Twins and ending their miserable 12-game losing streak this week.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

• 1B Ryan Clifford (No. 4 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-4, R, 3 RBI, HR, 2 K

• OF A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Double-A): 2-for-3, R, RBI, HR, BB, K

• SS Vidal Bruján (Triple-A): 2-for-4, R, SB

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (9-16) vs. Rockies (10-16)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (1-2, 4.05 ERA) vs. RHP Michael Lorenzen (1-2, 7.48 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: WPIX

The best trade piece of the year (so far) for the Mets has been… ✍️

When David Stearns swung his big trade in January with the Brewers, it was the acquisition of Freddy Peralta that got all of the headlines, but now with almost a month into the season, the other part of that trade is the one making just as big of a difference for the Mets pitching staff, so far anyway.

Yeah, Tobias Myers has been just as important for the Mets.

Now, to be fair, Stearns seemed almost equally as excited to acquire Myers from the Brewers as he was Peralta earlier this year. He obviously knows both from his time in Milwaukee, and he felt like he was getting a talented and versatile arm in Myers as part of the expensive package he had to give up to make this trade happen.

Myers this season is 0-1 with a 2.50 ERA and has been a godsend in the bullpen. After Christian Scott faltered early on Thursday due to wildness, Myers entered and settled things down for the club and reset the tone for Carlos Mendoza and the rest of the club. Yes, the move required Mendoza to tax the bullpen on Thursday, but who could blame Mendoza for the move? The Mets are already desperate for wins, they couldn’t afford to lose another series and Scott just didn’t have it out there.

So, in came Myers and he was great once again. He allowed one run, which was unearned, in 2.1 innings of work, and he struck out three. On a day where the team unexpectedly had to go to the bullpen early, he ate up important innings, along with David Peterson who was equally as effective for the Mets out of the bullpen.

And so far, he has done a lot of the things the Mets need to improve their pitching staff over last season’s general debacle. He throws strikes, doesn’t walk a lot of batters, can give the Mets three effective outs or nine, and has effective command of four pitches which might eventually earn him a spot in the Mets rotation if he can be stretched out enough over time.

Even with the Mets blowing their 7-3 lead late on Thursday, the Mets probably don’t have a shot at winning on Thursday without Myers’ steady presence early in this game. He isn’t going to grab the big headline over Bo Bichette’s game-winning double, but as has been the case several times already, Myers restored order to the chaos set by the pitchers in front of him on Thursday night.

Being an innings eater is important, and something the team had been lacking in previous seasons, but Myers’ versatility has also given Carlos Mendoza flexibility in how he deploys both his relievers and his starters. With Peterson struggling in the rotation early on and the team in the middle of a brutal losing streak, Mendoza switched things up and had Myers serve as an opener for Peterson against the Cubs last weekend in Chicago. The team ultimately lost the game, but Myers was really effective ahead of Peterson in that game over his two innings of work.

In his other appearances, he has mostly entered in the middle innings of the game, but he has also pitched the final innings against the Cardinals and Giants. St. Louis was an unfortunate tough-luck loss when the ghost runner scored against him in the eleventh inning, but he has been solid no matter how he has been used this season. His worst appearance came against the Athletics when he gave up three runs in three innings pitched.

Right now, the biggest issue with the 28-year-old is whether the Mets are making the most out of his talent. Kodai Senga and Peterson are struggling in the rotation, and Peralta has not looked like the ace he was with the Brewers just yet. But interestingly enough, Peterson has been very effective in relief over the last week, and he has proven he can be a multi-inning reliever at times during his career as well. With the rotation struggling outside of Clay Holmes and Nolan McLean, should the team put Myers in the rotation? He has started in the past, so he is capable of doing it even if they need a couple of weeks to stretch him out, yet he has been so valuable in the bullpen. Would they end up hurting themselves more by taking him out of the bullpen? There is no easy answer right now about how best to maximize Myers’s skillset, but so far, he has been a great pickup no matter how he has been used.

Around the League 🚩

• The Phillies lost to the Cubs 8-7 to bring their losing streak up to nine straight

• Philadelphia released RHP Taijuan Walker after another rough outing (MLB.com)

• Yankees RHP Gerrit Cole made his second rehab start and pitched over four innings against the Brooklyn Cyclones (ESPN)

• The Tigers walked-off the Brewers with a Spencer Torkelson home run in the ninth
  

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• The Mets snapped their 12-game losing streak after beating the Twins 3-2 at Citi Field on Wednesday night - their first win since April 7 (box)

• RHP Clay Holmes gave the Mets seven very strong innings, giving up just two earned runs on five hits and one walk while striking out three

• RHP Luke Weaver got out of a bases-loaded situation in the eighth and then stayed in for the ninth, striking out OF Byron Buxton to secure the win

• SS Francisco Lindor put the Mets on the board with an RBI single in the first, before C Francisco Alvarez restored the lead with a RBI double in the fourth

• 1B Mark Vientos, who committed an absolute clunker on the basepaths earlier in the game, provided the game-winning run in the eighth inning with a bloop single

• LF Juan Soto looked sharp in his return to action, making hard contact while going 1-for-3 with a walk

• Despite winning, the Mets still didn’t look great offensively, finishing 2-for-8 with RISP and leaving seven runners stranded on base

Roster Moves 📰

• OF Juan Soto reinstated from the 10-Day IL

• C Hayden Senger optioned to Triple-A Syracuse

Injury Updates 🩺

• SS Francisco Lindor left Wednesday’s game with left calf tightness and will now undergo an MRI today to determine the extent of the damage

• LHP A.J. Minter (left lat injury) allowed one earned run on three hits with no walks and no strikeouts across one inning of work for Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday night

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Play of the Game ⭐️

Luke Weaver arguably deserves this honor after striking out Byron Buxton to secure the win and put all Mets fans out of their misery by ending the losing streak.

However, Weaver wouldn’t have been able to do what he did in the ninth were it not for Mark Vientos doing what this offense has so often struggled to do this year: come up with the big hit.

In the bottom of the eighth with two outs, Vientos blooped a single to right field to score Brett Baty and give the Mets a lead with some clutch hitting.

Not only did it prove to be the winning run, but Vientos also redeemed himself after running through a stop sign and getting thrown out at the plate in the sixth inning.

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• DH Ji Hwan Bae (Triple-A): 2-for-5, 3 RBI, 1 2B

• 2B Jackson Cluff (Triple-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, 3 RBI, 1 BB, 1 HR, 1 SB

• 3B Jacob Reimer (No. 5 prospect, Double-A): 4-for-4, 1 R, 1 2B

• SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 2 BB

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (8-16) vs. Twins (12-12)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Christian Scott (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. RHP Joe Ryan (2-2, 3.29 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

Rejoice! The Mets actually won! (But not without a cost) ✍️

Can you believe it?

The Mets actually came out on the winning side on Wednesday night.

It had been so long that I actually forgot what winning felt like. Not seeing your team win in over two weeks will do that to you.

It also felt good to see Juan Soto back out on the field after missing three weeks because of injury. More importantly, the superstar hitter didn’t look rusty, instead hitting a couple of hard balls and reaching base twice.

Soto just being back in the lineup no doubt gave everyone associated with the team a huge mental lift. He will be key to any kind of turnaround in Queens.

Of course, with this being the Mets, snapping the losing streak didn’t exactly come easy.

The offense largely struggled against what is a rebuilding Twins team, and they should be thanking their lucky stars that three runs were enough on this night. Even so, scoring just three runs and going 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position should hardly be seen as something to celebrate.

There was also another comical blunder with Mark Vientos running right through the stop sign and getting thrown out at the plate in the sixth inning. Granted, Vientos did atone for that mistake by providing the winning run late in the game, but even so, the kind of cheap, ugly mental errors that have plagued the Mets so far this season are still showing up even on the rare occasion when they actually do win.

More importantly, however, the win could come at a huge cost with Francisco Lindor being forced to leave the game with left calf tightness. He will undergo an MRI later today, and the organization will be crossing its fingers that it is nothing serious. Even so, Soto dodged a bullet but still ended up missing three weeks, and look at how that impacted the Mets. Not exactly setting the world alight in the first place, the wheels completely fell off once Soto went on the IL. Any kind of absence for Lindor could and probably will set a team back that is desperately trying to build some momentum after finally snapping the losing streak last night.

And therein lies the rub.

Even when things go right for the 2026 Mets, something still goes wrong. It is worth noting that Lindor was starting to get on a roll. He was involved in both of the first two runs the Mets scored last night, while he recorded four RBIs in the first two games against Minnesota combined. For as bad as he’s been to start the season, Lindor does always turn it around, and his potential absence could be another hammer blow.

Because, while we should be happy after last night’s win, it hardly cures all that is wrong with this franchise. As already mentioned, the offense still struggled against what is hardly an elite Twins team. Players are still making routine errors on a regular basis. And while Soto is back, he can’t be expected to carry this team on his back alone. If that’s the plan, then the Mets really are screwed. After all, he’s only going to get a maximum of five at-bats every game, and he’s hardly a game-changer out in the field.

It will be on others to start playing at a high level too, but I’m still not convinced how good this team is, especially if Lindor is now out for any kind of stretch.

Don’t get me wrong, snapping the losing streak was important in order to stop the black cloud hovering over Citi Field from getting any larger. It was important to put a temporary halt to all the toxicity, but one win doesn’t wash away all the negative feelings about this team, nor does it inspire much confidence that a turnaround is on the horizon.

There is an awful amount of work for this team to do just to both get back to .500, and to also build back up goodwill with the fanbase. That has to happen first before we start talking about anything else.

Again, nothing I saw on Wednesday convinced me that this is an elite team on the cusp of putting it all together and going on a run. And, if the news back on Lindor is indeed bad, then that once again changes the calculus.

However, with all of that said, it is important to celebrate the small wins, and breaking the shackles of the losing streak was crucial. Wins are wins, and we all deserve to bask in the glow of last night after enduring so much suffering the last few weeks.

Let’s just hope last night’s win proves to be the first positive step forward, and not a brief mirage in an oasis of misery and bad baseball.

Around the League 🚩

• The Padres signed veteran RHP Lucas Giolito to a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2027 (MLB.com)

• Orioles 2B Jackson Holliday is undergoing another MRI for continued hand discomfort (Baltimore Banner)

• White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami tied a franchise record after homering in a fifth straight game

• The Cubs have now won eight straight after beating the Phillies, 7-2, the team’s longest win streak in April since 1970

• LHP Max Fried tossed eight scoreless innings with nine strikeouts as the Yankees beat the Red Sox, 4-1

• The Braves have the best record in baseball after beating Washington, 8-6, with OF Michael Harris III hitting a pair of homers

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Hey there, Mets fans!

For the next Patreon edition of The Just Mets Podcast, Rich MacLeod will be answering all of your Mets mailbag questions (or give you some TV recommendations if you need a break from baseball).

Submit your questions in the comments section below for your chance to be featured.

Episode will be available exclusively for paid subscribers on Substack/Patreon this Friday.

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• The Mets lost their 12th straight game, a heartbreaker to the Twins, 5-3 (box)

• RHP Nolan McLean delivered five perfect innings for the second time this year, but gave all three runs back in the sixth and seventh innings

• SS Francisco Lindor delivered the Mets’ only runs of the game with a three-run homer in the third

• With the game tied 3-3 in the ninth inning, RHP Devin Williams imploded in his third straight appearance, surrendering two runs on three walks and a single

• RHP Austin Warren came in and collected three strikeouts with the bases loaded to keep the game within striking distance

• After successfully attacking Twins starter Simeon Woods Richardson, the Mets’ offense went ice cold against Minnesota’s bullpen, tallying 14 consecutive outs over the final few frames

• The Mets will recall RHP Christian Scott from Triple-A Syracuse ahead of Thursday’s game - LHP David Peterson will remain in the bullpen and not return to the starting rotation right now

Injury Updates 🩺

• LF Juan Soto (right calf strain) has been through his full rehab progression and will be activated on Wednesday, but the team will take extra precautions upon his return to play

• LHP AJ Minter (recovery from lat surgery) is on target for a May 9 return

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Play of the Game 🥲

After Mets closer Devin Williams loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning, Luke Keaschall dribbled an RBI single past both Bo Bichette and Francisco Lindor to give the Twins the lead, which put the nail in the coffin for the Mets for the 12th straight game.

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Jonah Tong (No. 2 prospect, Triple-A): 5.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 9 K

• SS Ronny Mauricio (Triple-A): 3-for-4, 3 R, 5 RBI, 3 HR, 1 BB, 1 K

• 1B Ryan Clifford (No. 4 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-5, 2 R, 4 RBI, 1 HR, 2 K, 1 SB

• CF Nick Morabito (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A): 1-for-5, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 HR, 1 BB, 2 K

• SS Marco Vargas (No. 20 prospect, Double-A): 2-for-3, 2 BB, 1 K, 2 SB

• RHP Channing Austin (High-A): 5.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (7-15) vs Twins (11-11)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Clay Holmes (2-2, 1.96 ERA) vs. TBD

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

Oh, the mEtS! ✍️

What’s even left to say?

The Mets have lost 12 consecutive games. Twelve. A dozen. In a row.

In a game that they managed to take emphatic control of early on, the Mets’ offense once again put up a measly scoring effort behind another strong start from Nolan McLean. Even I, the resident toxic optimist, am having trouble finding any remaining straws of hope to grasp at.

Spring training results don’t matter, eh? The same issues that presented themselves in Grapefruit League games have been present throughout the regular season so far. On March 15th, the Mets’ offense ranked among the league’s bottom-25 units in most key offensive categories with two weeks remaining in camp. As of April 22nd, that remains the same: there has been almost zero power or run production from this lineup, no matter who slots in or what order they hit in. They’re getting on base less than any other team in the league, their .624 team OPS is worst in baseball, and they’ve scored fewer runs than any other unit in the league. No hyperbole necessary, this is literally as bad as it gets.

Beyond the team’s offense ranking as poorly as it has for as long as it has, there aren’t many signs of imminent improvement on the horizon. Mark Vientos forgot how to hit again; despite some surprisingly decent defense, Bo Bichette’s bat has been awful (despite leading the team in RBI), and Brett Baty has been bad on both sides of the ball. Even where there are some glimmers of progress in recent games — Marcus Semien was hitting .318 with a .375 OBP over the seven games preceding yesterday’s contest, hence the shot at leadoff duties — there still remains to be seen any shred of fight when it matters most. When faced with a tie game or losing situation in the closing innings, this team’s early-season MO has been to simply lie down and die by way of completely uncompetitive at-bats.

The big blast from Francisco Lindor in the third inning was a rare show of power from a lineup that’s seemed to be allergic to hitting for pop (team .111 ISO, worst in baseball), which made it the perfect opportunity to take the game by the reins and run away with it, especially with three perfect innings from Nolan McLean already in the books. Instead, the offense responded with a single from Carson Benge and two walks scattered across the next few frames before the Twins bullpen retired the final 14 Mets hitters to come to the plate.

Putrid doesn’t suffice.

As far as McLean, he was excellent, as he has been for virtually the entirety of his young career. The budding ace was perfect through five innings for the second time this season, which makes him the first pitcher since at least 1961 to have multiple perfect 5+ inning bids through their first 13 starts. Last night’s start also inked his name into a particularly specific corner of the Mets’ history books:

McLean’s stuff was dominant yet again, yielding a 30% whiff rate and 26% chase rate over the course of the evening. Though his stuff started getting batted around more as the night went on (resulting in three earned runs and a tied ballgame upon his departure), he was locating effectively throughout, getting outs on pitches in the zone and generating strikeouts outside while issuing zero walks. Like his last start, it was a display of how effective he can be when everything’s working the way he wants. His changeup was working especially well, eliciting a 44% whiff rate, but McLean looked generally in control of his pitch mix throughout the night, even as the batted balls started to pile up.

Some concerns remain about McLean’s sequencing habits as he gets later into games (which he himself alluded to in his postgame comments)… but that’s hardly the biggest problem facing this team right now. He’ll figure that out — he’s not even 14 starts into his big league career. My far greater pitching concern lies in the arm of Devin Williams.

Even after his early struggles in the Bronx, Williams settled down in the back half of the 2025 season, and all of the nerd data suggested his hiccups were momentary. Instead, a clear mental block has been revealed, one that throws yet another wrench into an ever-evolving bullpen picture. Williams may totally be experiencing his own ‘2019 Edwin Díaz’ moment; the raw stuff is certainly still there for him to be effective at the back of this bullpen, as it was on display mere weeks ago. But struggling so profoundly in the spotlight in the midst of an all-time bad stretch of baseball is surely doing nothing for his own confidence, and somehow even less for the confidence of the fanbase.

What specifically comes next remains to be seen, but the entire world knows the only fix at this point is to win. We can debate all the call-up decisions and lineup arrangements and bench/bullpen moves that have been made over this atrocious span of baseball, but at the end of the day, runs just need to be scored and games just need to be won.

Call me crazy, but I remain unconvinced that firing Carlos Mendoza this early is the right move. I’m having a hard time squaring the logic that getting rid of a manager who everyone on the team vocally supports is going to yield immediate positive results, even in the face of a historic losing streak. Sure, the stench of the Great Collapse of 2025 still hangs heavy in the air…but there’s also an entirely new coaching staff in place, half the roster are still relative strangers, and multiple key bats are on the shelf (yes, Jared Young was a key bat when he went down), with a significant portion of the healthy roster significantly underperforming to a degree no one anticipated. The need for change is clear and understandable, but given the way the offseason went, introducing even more personnel disruption to a clubhouse that’s already been so shaken up doesn’t seem like the most functional way to cultivate the stability that literally everybody is so desperate for.

My guess is that if a firing does happen, it’ll be at the end of the season, unless this slide persists considerably into May; if things get bad enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to see both Mendoza and David Stearns depart this winter. No matter what happens, the players on the field need to play better baseball; it’s really not any more complicated than that, and they’ve said as much themselves. The only fix is to win.

At least Juan Soto’s back in the lineup beginning tonight, albeit in a slightly limited capacity. Before getting sidelined, Soto was one of the team’s steadiest hitters, posting a .355 average and a .928 OPS in his first 31 ABs of the season. Perhaps his injury helped him avoid the skunky stink that’s swallowed up this roster. Hopefully, he proves to be a breath of untainted air that steadily refreshes the energy of this group, but it’s going to take more than just him to correct course.

I suppose if I had to identify any discernible silver lining, it would be that we’re still in April. Undoubtedly, things are bleaker than they’ve been in a very long time — you’ve likely already been reminded several times over that no team to lose 12 games in a row has ever gone on to make the playoffs that year. Heard loud and clear; the fact remains that there are 139 games left to play, and this is a team still not yet at full strength. The 2024 team was 22-33 before their season turned around; that was on May 29th. Despite what baseball history says, there still exists a window for this team, however thinly it may be cracked.

Obviously, this group is not 2024’s; it’s possible we’re just dealing with a bad team that isn’t going to gel. I don’t believe it’s that simple, but it’s absolutely possible.

At this point, there’s only one certainty, and it’s already been made plain: they have to win.

Around the League 🚩

• Munetaka Murakami homered again, marking four straight games with a home run; his nine homers are the most by any Japanese player through their first 23 games (MLB.com)

• Shohei Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 53 games, tying the Dodger record set by Shawn Green 26 years ago (MLB.com)

• Cubs lefty Shota Imanaga held the Phillies to one run over seven three-hit innings while tossing a single strikeout

• Giancarlo Stanton led the Yankees with a homer, a double, and three RBI as shutout the Red Sox at Fenway, 4-0

• Elly De La Cruz hit two homers and drove in five runs as the Reds toppled the Rays, 12-6

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• Losers of 11 straight, the Mets limp back home to open a nine game homestand against the Twins tonight

• Mets beat writer for the Athletic Tim Britton joined Foul Territory’s daily podcast to talk about what has gone wrong for the Mets over the last two weeks (Foul Territory)

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

After the Mets latest deflating loss on Sunday, Andrew and Rich commiserated about the miserable week for the club as they went winless on their road trip, and discussed the safety of the manager.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

All Mets minor league affiliates were off on Monday

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (7-15) vs Twins (11-11)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Nolan McLean (1-1, 2.28 ERA) vs. RHP Simeon Woods Richardson (0-3, 6.10 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

The time is right now for the stars to step up for the Mets ✍️

The Mets are an absolute mess. But you didn’t need to hear that from me to know that was the case.

This has been the most disappointing and embarrassing stretch I can remember for this organization since August of 2002. They are the worst team in the National League and second worst baseball as play begins today.

They can’t hit, they look entirely lifeless, and every day seems to bring another hard-to-imagine feat of misery.

The other day, Andrew perfectly illustrated how this debacle falls squarely at the feet of David Stearns, the former prized executive who alienated scores of this fanbase with his questionable at best decision-making this winter. The fact that nearly every move he made has spectacularly blown up in his face is clearly the biggest reason for the Mets’ hardships.

Manager Carlos Mendoza has also found himself in the crosshairs of questions about his job security, and yes, his in-game maneuvering has certainly left room for second-guessing.

But you know what? At a certain point, the players have to show us that they care as much as the fans do.

The guys that Stearns exiled, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Jeff McNeil, were passionate Mets who bled orange and blue. When they succeeded, we celebrated together. When they failed, you never had to question their passion and desire to fix it.

These new Mets don’t have that equity.

Marcus Semien doesn’t appear to have a pulse half the time. Jorge Polanco has (literally) been a no-show for most of the first month and is currently on the IL.

Luis Robert has had moments but has also been inconsistent.

Then there’s Bo Bichette, who I’ll use as the segue into the main point of today’s editorial.

There’s nothing Stearns, Mendoza, or anyone else can do to pull the club out of this disaster. There comes a point where the team’s players—especially its best players—simply have to play better.

Bichette was brought here to replace Alonso as the team’s most important right-handed bat. To say he’s struggled in his adjustment to both third base and New York in general is an understatement.

Bichette is currently slashing a paltry .217/.255/.283 through 22 games. For reference, that’s nearly .100 points lower than his batting average last season, over .100 points lower on base percentage, and his slugging percentage is down exactly .200 points.

In layman’s terms, this dramatic of a regression is simply hard to do.

Then there’s Francisco Lindor, who has been nothing short of an enigma this April. The veteran has been notorious for his slow starts since coming to Queens, and this year in particular, I think this was to be expected after he missed all of spring training with hamate surgery.

That said, his .205/.293/.307 slash line is simply hard to comprehend.

Even more alarming, however, is the several mental lapses he’s exhibited in the field and on the bases. That part of his game has never been called into question, and it’s become concerning to the level of worry over something going on behind the scenes to affect his focus and mindset.

Both Bichette and Lindor are the type of star players who can carry a team and theoretically prevent a losing streak of this magnitude.

The Mets were shut out in three out of four games during one stretch on this recently completed road trip. I understand they’re playing without Juan Soto at the moment, but that simply cannot happen.

The greeting this team is going to get from the Citi Field faithful tonight is deservingly not going to be kind. Can they actually show a shred of heart, emotion, spirit, and take the first step towards turning this debacle around?

Nolan McLean is certainly the right pitcher to have on the bump.

But from an offensive standpoint, a turnaround simply has to start with Lindor and Bichette.

Show us something. We’re begging you.

Around the League 🚩

• Former Mets and current Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz is undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies from his throwing elbow. He’s expected to miss multiple months (Athletic)

• RHP Sonny Gray left early due to injury, but seven Red Sox relievers combined to get through the remaining innings and help Boston to an 8-6 win over the Tigers

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• The Mets lost their 11th game in a row, falling 2-1 to the Cubs on Sunday — they are 7-15 on the season (box)

• The club went with an opener on Sunday, giving the ball to Tobias Myers for the first two innings, during which he allowed no runs. David Peterson followed him with 3.2 scoreless innings of relief. Huascar Brazoban, Brooks Raley and Luke Weaver combined for 2.1 scoreless innings of relief as well, but it was Devin Williams who allowed a game-tying RBI double to Michael Conforto in the ninth, and Craig Kimbrel allowed the ghost runner to score in the 10th

• DH MJ Melendez provided the only offense for the Mets on this day, a solo home run in the fifth, one of only two extra-base hits among the six total hits the club notched on Sunday

• The 11-game losing streak is the longest for the Mets since the 2004 season, and the 7-15 start is their worst since 1983

• New York has scored two runs or less in nine of their last 11 total games

• The Mets went 1-for-9 with RISP in the loss, and stranded six runners on-base

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Play of the Game 🤬

It was a former Met who changed the complexion of the Mets latest loss on Sunday.

Michael Conforto ripped an RBI double off of Devin Williams in the ninth inning to plate another former Met in Pete Crow-Armstrong tie the game for the Cubs at 1-1 and pretty much send the Mets on their way to their 11th straight loss.

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

After the Mets latest deflating loss on Sunday, Andrew and Rich commiserated about the miserable week for the club as they went winless on their road trip, and discussed the safety of the manager.

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• LHP Jonathan Santucci (no. 9 prospect, AA): 4 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 5 K

• INF Elian Peña (no. 8 prospect, High-A): 3-for-5, 2B, 3 RBI, R

AA Binghamton was no-hit on Sunday, dropping a 4-0 contest to the Akron RubberDucks.

BOX SCORES

Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR (PPD)

Today’s Game 🗓

The Mets are off on Monday. They open a three-game series with the Twins at Citi Field on Tuesday.

Absolutely pathetic! ✍️

There’s not a whole lot left to say about this organization, is there?

They think they’re so smart, and they have it all figured out. David Stearns said after Edwin Díaz walked, followed soon thereafter by Pete Alonso, that there was a lot of off-season left and insisted the Mets would have a roster for 2026 that people would be pleased about.

They went out and signed players. They went out and spent a ton of money on those players. They tried to reduce the volatility, improve in the areas they felt compromised them in 2025, and insisted they had it right this time.

It didn’t bother them they signed a career shortstop who was below average defensively to play third base (Bo Bichette).. It didn’t bother them that they moved a solid defensive third baseman who was finally feeling comfortable into a role where he was playing positions he has never played before at this level (Brett Baty). It didn’t bother them that they signed a career oft-injured middle infielder to play first base who had never logged a single inning there (Jorge Polanco). It didn’t bother them that they were keeping another player who was basically good at one thing and nothing else and relying on him for a prominent role on this roster well into April (Mark Vientos who, to be fair has been decent so far at first). It didn’t bother them at all that they let their departed, all-time great first baseman walk (Pete Alonso) and not replace him with an actual first baseman, when many were available to them.

Not in the least. On any of those matters.

Yet, here we are, with every single one of those players underperforming or not even playing on both sides of the ball for the New York Mets.

Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

But honestly, I don’t even think that’s this club’s biggest problem right now. It’s a big part of it, of course. And, they can say whatever they want about it, but it’s all in plain sight with all of them.

Anyway, their biggest problem is that, in the midst of a historic losing streak for this franchise, nothing is changing. They keep running the same formula that fails them time and time again out there. They keep employing the same impatient, offensive approach that is yielding a minimal amount of baserunners and a complete inability to move runners around the bases and score runs. And when they do get baserunners, their running game is generally absent (after a year of brilliance on the bases thanks to the departed Antoan Richardson).

There’s no power, there’s no movement. And it’s the same old, same old every single day with no apparent adjustments or change in approach. They can’t even score ghost runners this season.

This isn’t negativity. This is a fact.

It’s their job to stay positive, it’s Mendoza’s job to shield them from the noise and calls for drastic change. But, it’s also their job to adjust in a game that is defined by adjustments, and they just don’t, which is why they keep making the same physical and mental mistakes behind their pitchers, and the same empty results at the plate in support of their pitchers.

I guess they did make one change for Sunday when they ran Tobias Myers out there to open the game for David Peterson. That did seem to help Peterson, who turned in a quality relief appearance over 3.2 IP.

But that’s merely a moral victory in all of this.

I am not going to sit here and quote the offensive statistics for you today. The analysis is done at this point. It’s the same story every day for this lineup no matter who Mendoza runs out there. The same helpless, hapless absence of a pulse. They score one run per game, can’t hit with runners in scoring position, and they all have the same, defeated look on their faces after every empty at-bat.

And, if this lineup is truly dependent on Juan Soto not just being present, but being himself without ever getting into a slump, the problems with this team run even deeper than we think right now.

Sunday had all sorts of angles to ride the Mets over. You can hit them over the offense, which is the obvious argument to make. You can hit them over not walking Nico Hoerner in the ninth inning to set up a double play, which is debatable. You can get on Devin Williams for not making a big pitch to hold the game at 1-0 and end this losing streak.

In the end, it’s probably a little of all of that except for the offense, which is unquestionably the underlying root cause for the loss, and pretty much all of these 11 losses minus two or three.

The offense is flat out and absolutely pathetic. Period, end of story.

And, I do think they’re completely incompetent right now. They are among the worst teams in this sport since last June.

I do think Mendoza is going to pay the ultimate price for all of this, perhaps sooner rather than later. But it’s not his fault, and whether it’s Kai Correa or somebody else inside the organization that replaces him if such a move occurs, it won’t matter. Sure, you can question lineup construction, you can question bullpen usage, you can question a lot of other things. But the roster itself is non-competitive at this point, and neither Mendoza, Correa, nor anybody else who could manage this team built it, nor can they mitigate the deep flaws which are unquestionably apparent with this team.

So, aim higher, way higher with your calls for change.

And I seriously don’t want to hear another reporter or fan, for that matter, mention the playoffs and their odds and the historical context with respect to making the playoffs after going through this kind of losing streak. Like, don’t mention it. It’s silly to even consider. I also don’t want to hear about how there are good things happening with one player or another and how everyone is following whatever process they’re following.

This club couldn’t be any further from that conversation right now.

Around the League 🚩

• Shohei Ohtani reached base for the 51st straight game in the Dodgers 9-6 win over the Rockies

• The Blue Jays put up an eight spot in the first inning on the Diamondbacks as they rolled to a 10-4 win

• Ben Rice hit his eighth homer and Aaron Judge his ninth as the Yankees rolled to a 7-0 win over the Royals

• Mitch Keller gave the Pirates seven strong innings as the Pirates improved to 13-9 in their 6-3 win over the Rays

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Hey there, Mets fans!

Be sure to join us LIVE tonight for the latest edition of The Just Mets Podcast. Rich MacLeod and Andrew Claudio will be going live on our YouTube channel at 6:30pm ET to react to the club’s 11-game losing streak, their worst start to a season since 1983, and will respond to your questions in the chat!

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• The Mets lost their tenth game and fourth series in a row, falling 4-2 to the Cubs on Saturday (box)

• RHP Freddy Peralta got off to a solid start, allowing just one run on three hits through the first five frames, but walked two consecutive Cubs with two outs in the sixth before getting the hook

• 1B Mark Vientos broke his latest slump with a mammoth 434-foot homer in the top of the second inning to give the Mets an early 1-0 lead

• RF Brett Baty finally notched his first walk of the season, but did nothing with it

• 3B Bo Bichette scored the Mets’ second and final run of the game after C Francisco Álvarez reached first base on a two-out throwing error by Cubs 2B Nico Hoerner

• After taking over for Peralta, LHP Brooks Raley surrendered a three-run pinch-hit homer to Carson Kelly on the first pitch he threw; it was the first home run he’d given up since 2023

• The Mets outhit the Cubs, but failed to drive in more than two runs for the fifth time in the last six games

• LHP David Peterson was scratched from his scheduled start today; RHP Tobias Myers is starting in his place. It is not believed to be a health-related substitution

Roster Moves 📰

• 1B/DH Jorge Polanco (right wrist contusion) placed on 10-day IL, retroactive to Wednesday, April 14

• C Hayden Senger recalled from Triple-A Syracuse

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Play of the Game 🤬

Sigh.

Of course Brooks Raley gave up his first homer in years in the worst possible moment. Of course.

After securing the first two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Freddy Peralta walked Chicago outfielders Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki. With lefty Moises Ballesteros due up, Carlos Mendoza called on lefty Raley to take the hill. The Cubs countered with Carson Kelly off the bench, who immediately did this:

Mendoza, Peralta, and Semien Speak 🗣️

Carlos Mendoza, Freddy Peralta, and Marcus Semien addressed the media after the loss:

• Mendoza said you could “make a case” that there’s a psychological element to the team’s struggles as the losses mount, but also reiterated that “no one’s going to feel sorry” for them.

• He said they have five and a half months ahead of them to “write their own story” and that “multiple people” are talking about the on-field issues behind closed doors, but also acknowledged that it only matters so much what’s said in the clubhouse.

• Mendoza said that he thinks the coaching staff is doing a “tremendous job” keeping the players prepared and putting them in positions to have success, despite the lack of results on the field.

• Mendoza validated the fury of the fans, saying that he and the players are similarly “pissed.”

• Regarding the losing streak and keeping the right mindset, Peralta said, “We are professionals, and we need to make adjustments and play better.”

• Peralta said he wasn’t feeling any extra pressure on himself and felt he was competing up to the last pitch.

• Semien doubled down on Mendoza’s sentiments, saying, “This is a big boy league; there’s no time to dwell on tonight. Tomorrow is a new day.”

• He said it’s not challenging to keep the right mentality amid the losses: “I understand the game doesn’t owe you a thing…we gotta go out and get it.”

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

ICYMI: Join Andrew for a much-needed vent session in the latest midweek episode.

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• 1B/DH Ryan Clifford (No. 4 prospect, Triple-A): 4-for-6, 3 R, 5 RBI, 2 HR, 2B, BB

• RF Nick Morabito (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A): 1-for-6, 3 R, 2 BB, SB

• DH/SS Ronny Mauricio (Triple-A): 3-for-7, 2 R, 3 RBI, HR, 2B, SB, K

• CF A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Double-A): 2-for-5, R, 2 K, 2 SB

• SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 2-for-5, R, 2 RBI, BB, K, SB

• LF Randy Guzman (Single-A): 0-for-2, 2 R, 2 BB, K, 2 SB

BOX SCORES

Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR (Game 1) / (Game 2)

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (7-14) at Cubs (11-9)

Where: Wrigley Field - Chicago, IL

Starters: RHP Tobias Myers (0-1, 3.46 ERA) vs. RHP Javier Assad (1-1, 8.10 ERA)

When: 2:20 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

Looking to stave off a record-tying loss, the Mets are making a change ✍️

At the risk of sounding maudlin, these middling Mets certainly have a knack for cultivating misery en masse.

Some have characterized this slump as the Mets hitting rock bottom; others have insisted that the sky is falling. I’d instead suggest that this team would be most accurately represented by a Hanna-Barbera cartoon where a less-lucky Mr. Magoo type goes skydiving with a faulty parachute, lands in a tree, and hits every single branch with a veritable ‘thud’ on his way to the ground.

As Marcus Semien told Steve Gelbs in his postgame comments, each game has been different, and these Mets have lost in a lot of different ways. Each of those losses has featured at least one moment that hits palpably harder than the rest preceding it, as if to signal that any hope of a victory has once again been squashed. Several of those moments have come at the hands of uninspiring outings from Kodai Senga and David Peterson, each of whom entered the 2026 season with question marks hanging over their heads that they’ve done painfully little to answer.

With Peterson struggling since the season began and a further-demoralizing 11th-straight loss on the table, the team decided it was time to make a move, giving Tobias Myers the nod to take the pill in the series finale instead. Peterson was a healthy scratch, so it seems a clear signal is being sent that his days as a rotation regular are numbered, if not already up. While it remains to be seen if this demotion is permanent, the proverbial leash is being pulled ever shorter until there’s a discernible improvement in performance.

It’s been a little while, but Mets fans famously got a front-row seat to Tobias Myers the Starter in the 2024 postseason, when he allowed just two hits over six innings of work in Game 3 of the Wild Card series. While he only got nine starts in 2025, his stat line in a relief-forward role looked almost the same as it did as a full-time starter — an encouraging sign of adaptability, even considering the near 90-inning difference in sample size.

Though he hasn’t been striking out a ton of hitters to start the year, Myers’s debut season in Queens is off to a solid start. Through his first 13 innings of the 2026 season, he’s posted a 3.46 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP with nine strikeouts against just one walk allowed.

So far, Myers has been throwing a four-pitch mix that features the expected fastball and slider paired with a cutter and a new-ish splitter that he only started throwing last year. That splitter has been his most effective pitch out of the gate, eliciting a 30% whiff rate and generating nearly half of his strikeouts — it should get quite a bit of usage today.

Upon an admittedly cursory glance at the data, this group of hitters will be an interesting one for Myers to square off against; they look to be a good matchup for his pitch mix. Through his first few appearances, Myers has been deploying the majority of his mix and getting the bulk of his results in parts of the zone where Chicago hitters have proven vulnerable so far.

While the Cubs have been hitting fastballs and sliders well to open the season, they’ve been less effective against splitters, and generally ineffective against breaking balls; Myers likes to deploy his fastball across that northwest-to-southeast slash through the zone seen in the heatmap above, mostly working it into the corners or on the edges and then deploying the splitter roughly 10 miles per hour slower and two feet lower in the zone. Looking at the K charts, the same spot where Myers has gotten most of his strikeouts this season is where Chicago’s hitters have struggled the most; if his splitter’s locked in this afternoon, I’d anticipate Myers finding some swing-and-miss success with it.

Of course, if Myers delivers a strong outing and the offense again fails to contribute more than a run or two, this could all quickly prove to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

If you skipped past all the charts and numbers to head to the comments section and let off further steam about how bad this team is, I do not blame you at all. The Mets are almost impossible to watch right now…but you don’t need me to tell you that.

They will win again at some point; if Myers puts up a quality start and the lineup scores more than two runs, that day could very well be today. They obviously won’t lose every game the rest of the way, and it’s still early enough that any hole being dug isn’t insurmountably deep. There are some precious few positives hiding among the copious negatives.

But they’re losing. A lot. No positive spin there.

The team is pissed. The fans are pissed. And that’s going to persist until they’re back in the win column consistently. No amount of hopeful stat analysis is going to change that.

To loosely quote Mendoza’s postgame presser, it ultimately doesn’t really matter what gets said here, there, or anywhere — they simply need to start winning.

Around the League 🚩

• Braves lefty Chris Sale recorded his 2,608th career strikeout, surpassing Hall of Famer and former Met Tom Glavine on the all-time strikeout list (MLB.com)

• Former Met and current Oriole reliever Rico Garcia has 10 hitless innings to start his season; Garcia is currently in the midst of a 31 1/2 scoreless inning streak dating back to last season

• Shohei Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 50 games with a two-out single in the ninth inning

• Tigers ace Tarik Skubal allowed just one run on four hits and tallied 10 strikeouts over six innings in Detroit’s 4-1 win in Boston

• Diamondbacks center fielder Corbin Carroll hit his fourth career grand slam to walk off the Blue Jays, 6-2

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• The Mets have now dropped nine straight after losing 12-4 to the Cubs in the opening game of the series in Chicago on Friday (box)

• RHP Kodai Senga had another rough outing, allowing seven runs (six earned), including a pair of homers, on six hits and three walks while striking out three over 3.1 tough innings

• LHP Sean Manaea was not good out of the bullpen, giving up five earned runs on six hits and one walk while striking out two over four innings of work

• The offense showed some signs of life with 2B Marcus Semien hitting an RBI double and LF Tyrone Taylor adding a two-run single to make it a one-run game in the second inning

• C Francisco Alvarez went 2-for-3 with a run scored, a RBI, and a walk, while DH MJ Melendez continued to impress with two hits and a walk

• RF Carson Benge - hitting leadoff for the first time - went 1-for-4 but now has six hits in his last seven games and is showing signs of figuring it out

• SS Francisco Lindor went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored and is starting to come out of his early season funk

• All in all, the Mets finished with 14 total hits with nine different players finishing with one and five of them finishing with two, although they did go 4-for-11 with RISP

• The Mets’ nine-game losing streak is their longest since 2004, when they lost 11 straight

Injury Updates 🏥

• LF Juan Soto (right calf strain) took live at-bats at Citi Field on Friday for the second consecutive day, while he also took part in some “high intensity running” and outfield work as he continues to ramp back up

• 1B/DH Jorge Polanco is in a “better place” with his Achilles bursitis, but is now dealing with right wrist soreness with the Mets awaiting the results of an MRI

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Play of the Game 🤬

For the second straight start, Kodai Senga just didn’t have it.

The righty struggled from the outset, and he gave up a three-run blast to Moisés Ballesteros in the first inning to hand the Cubs an early 4-0 lead.

Senga never recovered from that, and neither did his team, and he’s now allowed 13 earned runs over his last two starts combined.

It is hard to win baseball games when your starter gets beat up early, especially with the way this Mets offense is playing right now. But make no mistake about it, Senga’s first inning implosion doomed his team from the get-go.

David Stearns Speaks 🗣️

Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns met with the media prior to Friday’s game against the Cubs. Here’s a selection of highlights from what Stearns had to say:

• Stearns confirmed that Juan Soto is expected to return in time for the Mets’ next homestand.

• Carlos Mendoza’s job security has been a hot topic throughout this losing streak, but Stearns defended his manager, adding that he believes Mendoza is doing a “good job” and putting the players in the best position to succeed.

• Stearns pushed back on the notion that the Mets are playing with a lack of urgency, insisting that “there’s plenty of urgency, there’s plenty of want.”

• However, Stearns did acknowledge that having plenty of urgency can lead to an increase in chase rate, which is what we’re seeing with this offense right now.

• Stearns reiterated his belief in the players, stating his confidence that they will eventually turn things around.

• Stearns also spoke about there being an adjustment period for so many new players, especially in New York, while adding that he believes the team has jelled pretty well. Stearns went on to detail that a team’s identity can be forged through adversity and that the Mets have an opportunity to turn this current stretch into something good over the longer term.

• Finally, Stearns again pushed back on the idea that the Mets haven’t been good defensively, stressing that the team has improved in that area and that the defense hasn’t been a problem.

The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

In this week’s edition of the Midweek Show, Andrew Claudio vents his frustrations over the Mets getting swept by the Dodgers.

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Jack Wenninger (No. 6 prospect, Triple-A): 5.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 1 HR

• SS Ronny Mauricio (Triple-A): 3-for-4, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 HR, 1 SB

• DH Ji Hwan Bae (Triple-A): 2-for-4, 1 R, 3 RBI, 1 2B, 1 HR

• 3B Jacob Reimer (No. 5 prospect, Double-A): 1-for-4, 1 R, 1 BB, 1 2B, 1 SB

• OF Eli Serrano III (No. 13 prospect, Double-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 1 HR

• SS Mitch Voit (No. 7 prospect, High-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 HR

• C Chase Meggers (Single-A): 2-for-4, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 2B

BOX SCORES

Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BRK | Triple-A SYR

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (7-13) at Cubs (10-9)

Where: Wrigley Field - Chicago, IL

Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (1-1, 3.86 ERA) vs. RHP Jameson Taillon (0-1, 4.86 ERA)

When: 2:20 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

David Stearns deserves the blame for this Mets mess ✍️

I’m going to be honest right off the bat here.

It was my intention to try and spin a positive into today’s editorial and highlight MJ Melendez’s positive impact since being called up.

I was sick to death of writing about just how bad this team is right now - as I’m sure you are reading about it - and I desperately wanted a break from all the negativity and doom.

However, by about the third or fourth inning, I jumped ship and abandoned that particular idea. There was just no way I could try to write anything positive after watching yet another horror show.

Despite David Stearns’ best and somewhat laughable attempt to downplay the crisis currently engulfing Queens, the Mets took backward steps in Chicago on Friday. Forget about rock bottom, this group has somehow found a way to dig beneath it.

In other words, he tried to pull the, “nothing to see here!” bit. Nice try.

And I don’t care that we’re still in April. I think we are way beyond the point of being able to be officially panicked about what this team is and the direction it is heading in. Things are bleak, and I’m not seeing anything on the field that suggests a turnaround is imminent.

Therefore, it is time to start asking some really serious questions of Stearns.

While a baseball executive is always going to be positive and stick to clichés, I thought Stearns’ comments before the game on Friday were tone-deaf. I’d go as far as to say that he was treating the fanbase with contempt with how he was twisting himself into a pretzel to defend this team.

But, again, he was never going to smash a baseball bat against the dugout wall and call this team out. That just isn’t his style. Although dishing out empty platitudes is hardly the issue here.

The biggest problem, of course, is the mess of a team that Stearns is directly responsible for constructing.

Sure, the players are ultimately responsible for not hitting. Francisco Lindor is the only one to blame for committing the most basic of mental errors. And melting down on the mound is on David Peterson and Kodai Senga, nobody else. And Carlos Mendoza does deserve blame for lineup and in-game decisions, while he’s ultimately accountable if players are turning up for games unprepared or aren’t putting in enough effort.

However, with all of that said, the bulk of the blame lies with Stearns, not with Mendoza or even the players. At the end of the day, Stearns is the one who put this team together and crafted a roster in his image.

Stearns is the one who wanted no part of the Pete Alonso business from day one, despite the fact that Alonso is one of the best power hitters in all of baseball.

Stearns is the one who then didn’t do enough to replace the power that walked out of the door with Alonso, or sign an actual first baseman to replace him.

Stearns is the one who made the decision to get rid of Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil, sacrificing defense and versatility in the process.

Stearns is the one who wasn’t willing to go that little bit extra to retain one of the best closers in baseball in Edwin Díaz.

Stearns is the one who preached about run prevention all offseason, only to then sign Bo Bichette and Jorge Polanco to play alien positions, while relying on Mark Vientos and Brett Baty to fill in the gaps, at alien positions.

And Stearns is the one who clearly didn’t learn his lessons from the debacle that was the 2025 season, insisting on doing things his way only to build a roster that clearly has sizable holes.

That’s why I don’t want to hear the whole “it’s still early talk” anymore. Yes, this team could still turn it around like they did in 2024, although we’re seeing zero signs of that happening right now.

In any case, this franchise hasn’t earned our benefit of the doubt anyway.

They only made the playoffs in 2024 thanks to a miracle run that was driven by a lot of good vibes, only to miss the postseason the following year. And now, the 2026 Mets have got off to a disastrous start.

Even if they do right the ship and turn this around, should we have any faith that the front office will be able to put a sustained winning product on the field? Because, so far at least, Stearns has failed to do exactly that.

He failed to address the starting pitching in 2025, took way too long to call up Nolan McLean, and, outside of acquiring Freddy Peralta, didn’t do enough to correct the biggest fatal flaw that sunk the team last year. And now the Mets are in a position where Peterson, Senga, and Sean Manaea are all regressing. Senga was awful again on Friday, getting beat up early and giving his team no chance of winning the game. Manaea also didn’t help out of the bullpen.

Despite insisting that the Mets don’t have a problem defensively, our eyeballs tell a different story to the one Stearns is trying to weave. Baty, the man chosen to play first base yesterday, misplayed two routine balls that were just embarrassing to watch. Vientos has hardly looked comfortable there, either.

There were some signs of life offensively on Friday, but hardly anything to get too excited about. Only three of the Mets’ 14 hits went for extra bases and they scored just one run after the second inning. Stearns is ultimately responsible for building that offense. Mendoza can only put together lineups with the pieces he’s been given by Stearns.

All in all, the Mets are an ugly, embarrassing, hot mess right now, and a lot of that boils down to the decisions made by Stearns and the front office. As such, he should be the one firmly under the microscope and the one getting the majority of the heat.

At this point, when you look at the bigger picture, Stearns has made more wrong moves than right ones as the brains of the operation. Look at it this way; since June 13 of last year, the Mets are on a 98-loss pace. We’re talking about a large sample size of pure ineptitude here.

Who knows, maybe the return of Juan Soto will help to spark a turnaround. But it is worth noting that only nine teams in Major League Baseball history have gone on to make the playoffs after losing nine consecutive games.

The omens certainly don’t look good, and if these struggles continue and the Mets fail to make the playoffs again, then Stearns should be the first guy on the hot seat.

He built this flawed team, after all. This is his mess.

Around the League 🚩

• The Angels announced that 2002 World Series champion Garret Anderson tragically passed away of a heart attack on Friday

• The Padres are on the verge of being sold to private equity billionaire José E. Feliciano and his wife for an MLB-record $3.9 billion, nearly $1.5 billion more than what Steve Cohen paid for the Mets (Wall Street Journal)

• 1B Munetaka Murakami hit his first career MLB grand slam as the White Sox crushed the A’s, 9-2

• Angels ace José Soriano lowered his ERA to 0.28 after striking out eight over 5 2/3 scoreless innings in an 8-0 win over the Padres

• 3B Ryan McMahon hit a go-ahead two-run homer late to propel the Yankees to a 4-2 win over the Rays

• 3B Austin Riley hit a pair of homers and finished with four RBIs as the Braves shutout the Phillies, 9-0

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• The Mets were off on Thursday - they open a three-game series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field today

• The Mets might not be as bad as they are playing right now, but cracks are starting to show in how this roster was constructed during the offseason (The Athletic)

• For better or worse this is David Stearns’s team and the gamble he took by rebuilding the team in one offseason (NY Post)

• Even though it is still April, there are reasons to worry about the 2026 Mets (Newsday)

• Despite how things look right now, history tells us that there is plenty of time for the Mets to turn it around (SNY)

• The team unveiled its new $10 million development center in the Dominican Republic (MLB.com)

Roster Moves 📰

• LHP Richard Lovelady traded to the Washington Nationals in exchange for cash considerations

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

In this week’s edition of the Midweek Show, Andrew Claudio vents his frustrations over the Mets getting swept by the Dodgers and extending their losing streak to eight straight games.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Down on the Farm 🌾

• CF A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Double-A): 1-for-3, 2B, SB, BB, K

• SS Antonio Jimenez (No. 16 prospect, High-A): 2-for-5, 2 R, RBI, HR, K

• LHP A.J. Minter (High-A): 1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

BOX SCORES

Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BRK | Triple-A SYR (PPD)

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (7-12) vs. Cubs (9-9)

Where: Wrigley Field — Chicago, IL

Starters: RHP Kodai Senga (0-2, 7.07 ERA) vs. RHP Edward Cabrera (1-0, 1.62 ERA)

When: 2:20 PM EDT

Where to Watch: WPIX

Why is the Mets offense struggling this badly so far this season? ✍️

It’s April 2026, and it is the return of Panic Citi. The Mets have lost eight in a row, and they are batting just .175 over those eight games and have scored just 12 runs. It’s as ugly as ugly can get, and after targeting low-strikeout guys in the offseason, their approach has completely gone out the window. According to SNY’s Chelsea Janes, they have swung at 50% of pitches thrown their way, and 37% of their swings came at pitches outside the zone.

With the losses mounting, following last year’s painful collapse and the offseason overhaul, frustration is mounting in the fanbase. Carlos Mendoza and David Stearns are the subject of the fans’ ire so far, with them getting the blame for the slow start. In postgame press conferences, both the players and the manager seem to be at a loss as to why things have been such a collective struggle.

Obviously, they know technically why they’re not performing at the plate. They know what the stats are, they know what the metrics are. They know that players are doing things they don’t normally do, which is a cause and effect here.

It’s probably no coincidence that this slump has occurred the same time Juan Soto went on the IL with a calf strain. He was officially placed on the injured list on April 7, which is also the last time the team has won a game. Before his injury, he got off to a hot start and was hitting .355 on his young season. Without his elite bat in the lineup, someone else has needed to step up, and so far, nobody has. The good news is that Soto’s return is on the horizon, so hopefully, this team can figure itself out offensively and they can put this losing streak behind them.

The problem is, this can’t be a one-man show here. The offense can’t be dependent on one player. That is not how the offense was designed, and it’s not how any offense in the sport can function. Yes, there’s no replacing Soto no matter what, but a 2-3 week absence from Soto should be survivable.

Again, they’re 0-8 since he went on the injured list and 3-8 since he got hurt.

In addition, while no player will use it as an excuse, the travel schedule has been awful to start the season. It’s not even a month in, and they have already had two West Coast trips, and both trips had no off day in between for travel. Thankfully, all the trips to the West will be over by the beginning of June when they play the Padres. If they can figure out a way to survive the first half of the season, the travel at least will be less of a burden later on in the season.

In other words, they have underperformed, but other factors outside their control might be contributing to their struggles.

Look - every team goes through one of these ruts. Sometimes two or three. Look at the Dodgers of 2025, who had a long losing streak of their own and multiple 7-10 stretches. It happens. That’s not to say the Mets are the Dodgers by any means - they have a long, long way to go before we can have that conversation, despite what they might have you believe at times. But while these games unquestionably count, this is survivable if they stop this now.

And, outside of the Dodgers and now the Padres, no other team looks to be a powerhouse in the National League. They have time to turn it around, especially in their division. They have yet to play any team in the NL East, so they have plenty of time to catch up to the teams ahead of them.

They just need to stop the bleeding, starting with this upcoming series against the Cubs.

The question is, will they?

Around the League 🚩

• Angels OF Mike Trout hit his fifth home run of the series against the Yankees which is a new record for a visiting player against the Bronx Bombers (MLB.com)

• Padres closer Mason Miller finished off San Diego’s 8th win in a row, and his own scoreless streak is up to 30.2 consecutive innings (MLB.com)

• Guardians LHP Parker Messick took a no-hitter into the ninth inning in Cleveland’s 4-2 win over the Orioles (MLB.com)

• There was a benches-clearing incident after the final out of Giants and Reds series when San Francisco reliever Erik Miller and Reds 3B Sal Stewart got into it after the game was over (MLB.com)

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