A brutal effort in St. Louis

Lackluster play, mental mistakes, and more poor hitting defined their series loss to the rebuilding Cardinals

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The Mets lost 2-1 to the Cardinals in extra-innings on Wednesday afternoon to drop their first series of the year (box)

• RHP Freddy Peralta was sharp overall and, despite letting four of his final eight batters reach base safely, he allowed just one earned run while striking out seven with two walks over 5.1 innings

• Sandwiched in-between the two runs allowed, LHP Brooks Raley, RHP Luke Weaver, and RHP Devin Williams all threw scoreless innings out of the bullpen

• LF Juan Soto hit his first home run of the year in the sixth, snapping a 17-inning scoreless streak and giving the Mets the lead

• However, that was it for the day with the offense scoring just one run over their final 23 innings in St. Louis

• The Mets went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position in the finale, and went 1-for-29 with RISP during the series

• Joe Buck will be on the call for the Mets at Dodgers game on Jackie Robinson Day on April 15 for ESPN. Ron Darling and Orel Hershiser will be the analysts (ESPN)

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Play of the Game 🙃

There are bad days. And then there are the kind of bad days Francisco Lindor endured on Wednesday.

The shortstop forgot how many outs there were in the first inning, ruining the chance of an inning-ending double play.

More egregious, however, was what happened in the sixth. With Juan Soto at the plate, Lindor was somehow picked off after being caught in no man’s land. The play gets more embarrassing the more you watch it. Then, of course, Soto went on to hit a solo home run just three pitches later. Had Lindor not been thrown out, the entire complexion of the game could have been different.

Lindor also went 0-for-4 at the plate, capping off just an all-time tough day for the shortstop.

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

In the first edition of the Midweek Show, Rich MacLeod recaps and reacts to the Mets rough series loss to the Cardinals and their horrific stretch of offense over the last five games.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Jack Wenninger (No. 6 prospect, Triple-A): 4.2 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

• 3B Christian Arroyo (Triple-A): 2-for-4, 2 RBI, 1 2B

• CF Nick Morabito (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A): 1-for-4, 1 R, 1 SB

BOX SCORES

Triple-A SYR | The rest of the MiLB season starts today

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Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (3-3) at Giants (2-4)

Where: Oracle Park - San Francisco, CA

Starters: LHP David Peterson (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. LHP Robbie Ray (0-1, 3.38 ERA)

When: 9:45 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY | MLB Network

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An all-round Mets stinker! ✍️

AP

Man, talk about a rough day at the office.

As bad as dropping a series to the rebuilding Cardinals was, the manner in which the Mets lost on Wednesday afternoon should spark the most concern.

Other than Juan Soto’s home run, nothing good happened for the Mets in the series finale.

Not a damn thing.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little overdramatic. After all, Freddy Peralta looked better in his second outing of the season. And Brooks Raley, Luke Weaver, and Devin Williams all did their jobs out of the bullpen.

That’s where the positives end, however.

There were too many mental and physical mistakes. Too many costly lapses. The defense wasn’t great. The baserunning was poor. Some of the decisions were questionable at best. And the offense. Heck, where do we even begin with the offense?

Just another brutal, lifeless display.

All in all, it was just a terrible day for the Mets and they deserved to lose the series.

They did all they could to throw it away.

Of course, I feel I am obligated at this point to make clear that it is still early and you can’t draw any concrete conclusions after just six games. Players are still easing themselves in and trying to settle into a groove. I am by no means confusing April with September.

With that said, I do strongly believe that it is both perfectly fine and natural to have strong reactions to a game in which the collective effort just sucked all around.

And I’m also a firm believer in the old adage that while you can’t win a pennant in April, you can sure lose one.

I mean no disrespect to the Cardinals but if the Mets have serious designs on being a top contender in 2026, then crapping the bed and chucking away two games against a team tearing it all down is just not acceptable or good enough.

It just isn’t.

There are simply no excuses for the Mets to be this sloppy this early in the season. The kind of half-hearted, mistake-ridden, slop-filled game we saw on Wednesday shouldn’t happen at any point in the year. Period.

Even if things aren’t going well on the mound or at the plate, players should still be locked in mentally and capable of executing the very basic fundamentals of the game. That should be a given every single day.

You can’t really blame Carson Benge for missing on that game-ending play, but you can blame Francisco Lindor for forgetting how many outs there were in the first inning, and then getting picked off after committing an absolute brain fart with Juan Soto at the plate.

It is those kind of silly mental errors that can kill a team over the course of a full season.

Now, in saying all of that, while you hope the team can put right everything that went wrong yesterday, this arctic-cold offense remains a real bewildering concern. Just what happened to the gritty, tough, and disciplined at-bats we saw on Opening Day?

Jeff Curry - IMAGN IMAGES

The unrelenting, pulsating offense we saw in that first game against the Pirates has disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. Outside of Opening Day, the Mets are averaging just 2.4 runs per game.

More concerning, however, is the continuation of one of the fatal flaws that sunk this team in 2025. Runners in scoring position have been a real issue for this new-look lineup, and never was that more evident than on Wednesday. The Mets had countless opportunities to put the game away, especially late on. Luis Robert Jr. and Marcus Semien both struck out in the ninth with a runner in scoring position. Two men were left stranded on base in the 10th. Then, worst of all, the Mets loaded the bases in the top of the 11th but were unable to push even one run across.

As a result, this lineup finished an ugly 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position, and are now hitting just .162 in those situations this season.

Furthermore, from the sixth inning Tuesday through the fifth inning Wednesday, the Mets sent 27 consecutive batters to the plate without recording a hit, while they also went 17 straight innings without scoring a single run. That’s just not good enough for a lineup with so much talent, especially at the top.

And what makes the overall offensive struggles even more galling is the fact that the Mets have now gone to extra innings in three of their last six games, meaning that they have had ample opportunities to come through with a clutch hit but have still failed to do so.

Being unable to come up money with runners on last year led to huge changes, both on the roster and among the coaching staff. But, even with a new hitting coach and a bunch of different guys in the lineup, the same old problems are continuing to give Mets fans PTSD. And, while a small sample size, the fact that so many hitters have been aggressive, failed to control the strike zone, and developed poor contact over the last few games does raise a few red flags.

All in all, the Mets need to flush what was just a horrible effort all-round as quickly as possible, while doing everything they can to rectify a stagnant offense that is trending in all the wrong directions.

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Around the League 🚩

• The Pirates and top prospect Konnor Griffin are in negotiations over a new contract (ESPN)

• The Orioles beat the Rangers 8-3, with the game ending on MLB’s first-ever ABS challenge

• RHP Sandy Alcantara recorded his second career Maddux and fifth career shutout to help the Marlins beat the White Sox, 10-0

• RHP Paul Skenes rebounded from a tough Opening Day start, striking out five and allowing just one run on three hits as the Pirates beat the Reds, 8-3

• RHP Cam Schlittler tossed 6.1 scoreless innings and 1B Paul Goldschmidt had three RBIs as the Yankees beat the Mariners, 5-3

• 2B Jonathan India hit a grand slam and finished with five RBIs to help the Royals beat the Twins, 13-9