If only the Mets had a pulse out there
It was another non-competitive loss for the Mets, and the same old, same old with the offense
What’s Up with the Mets? 🤷🏻
The Mets extended their latest losing streak to five games, falling to the Reds 7-2 on Tuesday night (box)
LHP David Peterson turned in a typically frustrating performance, allowing six runs on 11 hits in his five innings of work
LHP Sean Manaea was solid in relief, tallying six strikeouts and allowing one run in three innings
LHP A.J. Minter made his long-awaited season debut, striking out two Reds in his scoreless ninth
DH Juan Soto drove in the Mets’ only runs of the night with a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning
Every Met hitter struck out once, except Mark Vientos, who contributed a GIDP and nothing else on his hitless night after subbing in for Jared Young
The Mets are 1-24 this season when held to two or fewer runs; they have a team run differential of -31
Roster Moves 📰
A.J Minter activated from the 60-day IL
Jared Young activated from the 10-day IL
Nick Morabito optioned to Triple-A Syracuse
Jonathan Pintaro optioned to Triple-A Syracuse
Eric Wagaman selected from Triple-A Syracuse
RHP Craig Kimbrel signed a major league contract with the Rays
Injury Updates 🏥
OF Tyrone Taylor (right hip flexor strain) was placed on the 10-day IL; his timetable for return will be determined once he restarts baseball activities
INF Jorge Polanco (left Achilles bursitis) will likely be managing pain all season, but could start a rehab assignment this week, provided his progression keeps going smoothly
CF Luis Robert Jr. (lumbar spine disc herniation) was moved to the 60-day IL, and his timetable for return remains fluid; he is consulting outside doctors, but surgery isn’t a consideration
Play of the Game 🙃
At least there’s Juan Soto.
This one was all but lost early, so today we’ll highlight the one good thing to come from yesterday’s game. (Though ‘bittersweet’ may be more apropos.)
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Soto smoked a down-and-in 97 mph heater from Reds stud Chase Burns. It was Soto’s 11th homer of the year, and his fifth in his last six games.
Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
ICYMI: Rich and Andrew met on the latest weekly recap pod to commiserate about this relentlessly miserable Mets team and to celebrate the NBA Finals-bound New York Knicks!
SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Down on the Farm 🌾
LHP Jonathan Santucci (No. 8 prospect, Double-A): 4.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K
1B JT Schwartz (Double-A): 1-for-3, 1 HR, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB
LHP Daviel Hurtado (High-A): 4.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K
SS Mitch Voit (No. 6 prospect, High-A): 1-for-3, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 1 K
RF/1B A.J. Salgado (Single-A): 1-for-4, 1 HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, 1 BB
BOX SCORES
Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR (OFF)
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (22-33) vs. Reds (29-25)
Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY
Starters: RHP Huascar Brazobán (3-1, 1.73 ERA) vs. LHP Andrew Abbott (4-2, 3.97 ERA)
When: 7:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
The road ahead for the Mets only looks bumpy and uninviting ✍🏻
“If you expect nothing from somebody, you are never disappointed.”
—Sylvia Plath
The New York Mets have a very bad offense. They told us that months ago.
Back in March, about two weeks into Grapefruit League play, the Mets were ranking among the league’s least competitive offenses in quite a few categories.
And before you say Spring Training doesn’t matter, maybe in this case, it did.
They sat comfortably among the league’s bottom-20 units in team slugging percentage, total hits, home runs, doubles, runs scored, RBI, and OPS.
On May 26th, those same problems persist, and they have gotten worse.
Let’s see where things stand precisely:
Team SLG: .350 (30th)
Team OBP: .292 (30th)
Team OPS: .643 (30th)
Total Hits: 411 (25th)
Home Runs: 47 (22nd)
Doubles: 69 (29th)
RBI: 198 (26th)
Runs Scored: 208 (26th)
Even problems that didn’t yet exist in spring have become problems. While the Mets were then walking at a league-average rate and had the second-fewest team strikeouts by mid-camp, it’s now the inverse. They’re walking less than 8% of the time (26th) but are striking out at an average rate. That means even fewer opportunities for this team to score than they were creating in highly inefficient exhibition play, and even more swings at bad pitches (33% team chase rate, ninth-highest in MLB).
It’s a mess.
Whether it’s the product of bad coaching or hitters just going to the plate with no plan and doing whatever they want, this team’s hitting approach is holistically bad, and it’s led to an unfathomable level of collective failure. Their batted-ball data is awful: despite having a top-10 team hard-hit rate (HH%), there’s minimal production to accompany it. All that high-EV contact is being driven into the ground (43.9%, 5th in MLB) — the Mets have the second-worst team line-drive rate (LD%) in MLB, with less than 9% of the balls they hit in the air going for homers.
Here’s some basic math:
High LD% + High HH% = more extra-base hits
High GB% + High HH% = more singles
And thanks to all those singles (and a lack of stealing), that frequent hard-hit groundball contact is resulting in equally frequent double plays (39, T-8th). There’s unproductive contact everywhere.
Unsurprisingly, Juan Soto is the only consistently functional, productive hitter in the lineup right now.
His .390 OBP ranks among the top 20 marks in baseball (and 100 points higher than his team’s mark); his .949 OPS is sixth-best among hitters with at least 150 plate appearances, as is his 164 wRC+. Nearly 50% of his contact has produced hard-hit balls in the air, and he’s barreling it up nearly 20% of the time.
Soto’s current chase rate is the highest of his career, which may look like a red flag at first, but it’s still among the league’s lowest. (For what it’s worth, his team is chasing at a 33% group rate, ninth-highest in MLB.) He’s also swinging more than he ever has, so a good chunk of that chase inflation is likely just a byproduct of him taking those extra hacks and less an indication that his eye and/or discipline are slipping. Additionally, Soto is making in-zone contact at the highest rate of his career (91.2%), and his overall contact is up on his 2024-25 average. All of the above has led to Soto posting his fourth-highest wOBA (.406) and third-highest wRC+
By all means, keep swinging.
But as good as Soto’s been, he obviously can’t win games alone, and he certainly can’t fix this offense alone. And unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the impending reinforcements are going to do all that much to help things either.
It’s good that Jared Young is back to cover first base and swing from the left side of the plate. It’s encouraging to see Francisco Álvarez already taking swings. Getting Francisco Lindor back should hopefully help give this group a boost as well.
But beyond that, there isn’t much to look forward to. Whenever he does return, Jorge Polanco will reportedly be battling pain for the rest of the season, and I’m not all that confident we’ll see Luis Robert Jr. play for this team again. They’ll get Tyrone Taylor back soon enough, followed by Ronny Mauricio, but otherwise it’s back to the farm, where Ryan Clifford, Ji Hwan Bae, and Christian Arroyo await their respective turns.
No matter what direction you look, the road ahead looks bumpy and uninviting. And yet, it must be traveled.
In summary, the Mets have many clear and bad issues without any clear and good solutions.
And at this point, I’m one of those fans nearing apathy that Justin mentioned yesterday.
Plath’s advice up top to ‘expect nothing’ from others in avoidance of eventual letdown sounds a bit nihilistic, perhaps, but really, what other course is there to take with this roster? Sure, it feels better to believe, but what have they actually given fans to chew on this season beyond a few big wins and a single good week? Considering that this fanbase still ranks seventh in attendance, the on-field product has been disrespectfully bad. It’s not yet June, but after some brief bursts of excitement that have all quickly proven to be little more than occasional smatterings of false promises, it’s gotten easier to declare their season dead with every loss.
Inevitably, I’ll keep watching this team. That’s going to be the case for many of us. But sitting 11 games under .500 with multiple losing streaks already to their name, we obviously can’t trust this particular collection of professional baseball players to get anything done. That’s annoying.
I presently expect nothing from the 2026 New York Mets. Until they prove otherwise (next year?), that’s the lens I’ll be viewing all remaining games through.
Around the League 🚩
Following his DFA, Craig Kimbrel signed a Major League deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, striking out two Orioles in a scoreless appearance the same night (MLB.com)
Tigers ace Tarik Skubal threw live BP only 20 days after elbow surgery (MLB.com)
Facing his former team, Shane Baz struck out nine Rays as the O’s toppled Tampa 6-1 in Baltimore
Mookie Betts homered twice in his first game hitting cleanup in almost a decade; the Dodgers trounced the Rockies, 15-6
Cade Cavalli delivered his third straight quality start as the Nationals beat the Guardians 6-3 in Cleveland
A day after being no-hit by the Astros, the Rangers scored eight runs in the first inning off Houston starter Jason Alexander; Texas won 10-7
I keep returning to the hitting coach...no adjustments???? If poor hitting is an organizational problem is it philosophy & who would have the influence to dictate that? What the hay is going on???
"If only the Mets had a pulse..." should be changed to "If they only had a heart". And for Stearns: "If he only had a brain." Uncle Steve: "If he only had the nerve" to fire Stearns.