Mets embarrassed by Cubs in double-header of misery
Plus, it looks like the sell-off has begun with David Peterson being dealt to Chicago...
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets reportedly traded LHP David Peterson to the Cubs in exchange for INF prospect Cole Mathis (story)
RHP Kodai Senga will be moved to the bullpen following a string of disastrous starts
Game 1
The Mets were smacked around in the first game of the doubleheader on Wednesday afternoon, losing 10-3 to the Cubs at Citi Field (box)
RHP Nolan McLean started off strong before imploding, allowing six earned runs - including two homers - on seven hits and two walks with nine strikeouts over six innings, while RHP Jonathan Pintaro didn’t help matters out of the bullpen, giving up four earned runs on two hits and two walks
1B Jared Young and C Francisco Alvarez hit back-to-back home runs to give the Mets a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth, but the offense did nothing from that point on, finishing 0-for-7 with RISP and leaving five runners stranded on base
Game 2
The Mets were humiliated again in the second game of the doubleheader, imploding defensively in an ugly 10-5 loss to the Cubs (box)
LHP Sean Manaea gave up four runs - three earned - on six hits and two walks with four strikeouts over three innings, but the story of the game belonged to the defense, who committed six errors with 2B Marcus Semien and 1B Mark Vientos each finishing with two
C Francisco Alvarez homered for the third straight game, while OF A.J. Ewing, Vientos and 3B Bo Bichette also all hit homers
SS Francisco Lindor’s long-awaited return didn’t exactly go to plan as he went 0-for-5 at the plate, including grinding out with runners on the corners in the seventh, while committing an error in the field
The Mets have now lost five straight, giving up a whopping 50 runs over that span. They are also a season-low 12 games under .500
Injury Updates 🩺
OF Juan Soto (lower right back tightness) remains day-to-day but has yet to undergo imaging and a stint on the IL hasn’t been ruled out
OF Tyrone Taylor (right hip flexor strain) went 1-for-4 with an RBI single while playing all nine innings in the outfield in his latest rehab assignment for Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday
Roster Moves 📰
INF Francisco Lindor returned from rehab assignment and reinstated from the 10-Day Injured List
INF Ronny Mauricio returned from rehab assignment and reinstated from the 10-Day Injured List, and optioned to Triple-A Syracuse
INF Zack Short designated for assignment
Plays of the Games 🤬
We’ve got two POTG for you today, and neither of them is particularly nice or pretty to watch, I’m afraid.
Let’s start with the first game of the doubleheader. Having blown a 3-0 lead and trailing 6-3 in the eighth inning, those inside Citi Field were subjected to yet more punishment.
With the bases loaded, Dansby Swanson, who is having the series of his life in Queens, stepped to the plate and landed the knockout blow on the chin of the Mets with a grand slam. That dagger to the heart officially put the game to bed, if it wasn’t already tucked away by that point.
The infield defense was an absolute horror show for the Mets in the night portion of the doubleheader, finishing with six errors.
Yes, you did read that correctly.
Mark Vientos had two of those errors, including making just a half-assed, lazy throw to first base that A.J. Minter had no chance of getting to in the eighth inning.
The end result?
A run scored, and that set the tone for the rest of the game, with the Mets going on to implode from there.
This is the end result when you play players out of position on a consistent basis. It isn’t pretty.
Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
Rich takes on the front office’s decision not to revamp the rotation ahead of the 2026 season in this preview of the latest Just Mets Patreon Pod.
SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Down on the Farm 🌾
SS Ronny Mauricio (Triple-A): 2-for-5, 2 RBIs, 2 SB
3B Yonny Hernández (Triple-A): 3-for-4, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 2B
1B JT Schwartz (Double-A): 2-for-4, 2 RBIs
2B Yonatan Henriquez (High-A): 4-for-5, 2 R, 1 RBI, 2 2B
LF JT Benson (High-A): 2-for-5, 3 R, 3 RBIs, 1 HR
LHP Daviel Hurtado (High-A): 6 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K
OF Simon Juan (Single-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBIs, 1 2B
BOX SCORES
Single-A SLU | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Games 🗓
Match-up: Mets (34-46) vs. Cubs (43-37)
Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY
Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (5-6, 4.83 ERA) vs. LHP Matthew Boyd (2-1, 6.00 ERA)
When: 7:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
Let’s just wave the white flag now ✍️
What an absolute embarrassment the 2026 New York Mets are.
I just don’t know what else to think or say after witnessing just two stinking, humiliating efforts against the Cubs on Wednesday afternoon.
In just two games, the Mets allowed 20 runs and just crapped the bed in every single area. It was awful to watch.
This team is sinking faster than the Titanic and, in my opinion, it has already crashed on the ocean floor and exploded into a million different pieces. Now a season-low 12 games under .500, I think now is the time to start waving the white flag and settling for a lost season. I’m not even worried about that coming back to bite me, because the Mets haven’t shown me a single shred of evidence to suggest that they can turn this shipwreck of a season around.
Not even close.
I think the entire organization is starting to wake up to that reality too, as evidenced by the late-night trade that saw David Peterson dealt to the Cubs. At least he only has to stroll over to the visiting clubhouse in order to meet up with his new team, I guess. In all seriousness, I hope this move allows Peterson to finally put everything together in order to take his game to the next level. I’ll be rooting for him, and I’m happy for him that he will finally have a competent infield defense behind him the rest of this year now.
I think Peterson will be the first domino to fall too, or at least he should be. But just selling off pieces won’t be enough. At this point, given everything we’ve witnessed so far this year, only full-blown accountability will suffice now. And what I mean by that is everyone in the organization should be on notice now, especially David Stearns and Carlos Mendoza.
We’re now nearly in July, and things are only getting worse, not better. We haven’t even seen any tangible signs of improvement in any area. We can keep hoping that the talent on this team eventually figures it out, but to be totally honest, I think we’re just kidding ourselves. I don’t think there is very much talent on the roster as it turns out, and what talent there is is being hindered by poor roster construction and poor management on a day-to-day basis.
I mean, just look at the last five games alone. The hapless Mets have allowed 50 runs - yes, 50 - over that span. They’ve managed just 19 runs of their own in response. If you stretch that out a little further, they’ve given up a total of 101 runs over their last 15 games.
Forget not good enough. That’s bush league stuff.
And don’t get me started on the absolute circus we witnessed in the second game of yesterday’s doubleheader. Do you know how hard it is to commit six errors in a single game? And all from the infield at that. It is just beyond laughable, especially when you consider that Stearns’ fingerprints were all over last night’s disaster.
Mark Vientos, playing out of position at first base, committed two of those errors. He’s also not been good enough offensively for the most part this year, and he should have been dealt somewhere during the offseason, especially when he went to the WBC rather than stay in camp and focus on learning a new position. Stearns created that particular mess all by himself.
Marcus Semien also committed two errors and is clearly losing a step in every aspect of his game. The front office acquired Semien knowing his bat was gone, but maybe they should have been aware that his defensive skills were also on the outs. Especially when they gave up Brandon Nimmo in the deal. Bo Bichette committed an error too, and that is yet another example of Stearns’ sheer ineptitude given that he signed a below-average defender to play out of position at third base. Francisco Lindor was the fourth player to end up with an error, although I want to give him a pass given that it was his first game back from injury. Saying that, Lindor did have a rough night overall, including going 0-for-5 at the plate and grounding out in a big spot late in the game.
Stearns preached all about run prevention all offseason, yet proved that he was speaking out of both sides of his mouth. None of his moves made any sense then, and they make even less sense now. The infield is an absolute messy mishmash, filled with players who don’t fit and probably aren’t good enough. When you couple that with the mess Stearns has made of the starting pitching, then I don’t know what else to tell you. Stearns knew that Kodai Senga wasn’t good enough to be in the rotation, yet stuck with him. And look at how that has turned out. The pitching sucks and is non-competitive for the second straight year, and that’s all on Stearns.
Mendoza also deserves plenty of blame. He decided, for some unfathomable reason, to start both Vientos and Brett Baty in unnatural positions in last night’s game, even with Lindor back in the lineup. There is no defending that kind of decision. Furthermore, Mendoza clearly has no answers as to how to stop this slide. He comes out with the same lame excuses and empty platitudes after every single game, and it is getting beyond grating now. Whatever he’s saying in the clubhouse - if he’s saying anything at all - clearly isn’t working or sticking anymore. It is becoming increasingly clearer with every passing day that a new voice is needed in the dugout, and perhaps that should have happened following the collapse of last season.
Someone also needs to send out a search party for owner Steve Cohen, who has now emptied his account when it comes to goodwill with Mets fans. Being stubborn and sticking by a decision when it clearly isn’t working is one of the worst things any owner can do. Stearns is building a lengthy track record of failure in Queens, and he’s made more wrong moves than right ones over the last season and a half. Can Cohen really trust Stearns to navigate the Trade Deadline and the Draft this year given the slew of Godzilla-sized eggs he’s already laid when it has come to putting this team together?
I don’t think that he can anymore.
As bad as this season has been, the last five games, and the two yesterday in particular, have been really eye-opening in proving to us that this team is just beyond lost.
There’s no heart.
There’s a really concerning lack of effort and a lot of quit.
There’s zero pulse.
And there’s less than zero ability to adapt, adjust, and correct all of the faults that have led to this point.
You can’t get rid of the entire team, but you can make meaningful changes at the top and, following the absolutely embarrassing, non-competitive efforts we saw yesterday, both Stearns and Mendoza need to be held accountable and put on the hot seat.
And it needs to happen now before things find a way to hit below rock bottom.
Around the League 🚩
Cubs INF Dansby Swanson’s 15 RBIs in a single series against the Mets set a new franchise record
Shohei Ohtani did it all for the Dodgers on Wednesday, striking out eight over six innings while finishing with a run scored and one RBI in a 4-3 win over the Twins, and SS Mookie Betts hit his 300th career home run
Down to their final strike, OF Derek Hill hit a pinch-hit go-ahead home run to seal a 5-4 win for the Phillies over the Nationals
Rookie OF Victor Bericoto delivered his first career walk-off home run to help lead the Giants to a 2-1 win over the A’s
Veteran 1B Paul Goldschmidt hit a pair of home runs off Tigers LHP Tarik Skubal in a 4-2 win for the Yankees
C Logan O’Hoppe walked it off for the Angels who rallied twice to beat the Orioles, 7-6 in extras
This summed it up perfectly. At least the Norwegians had fun at the afternoon game. There seems to be zero accountability in this entire organization. I get that there have been injuries, but EVERY TEAM deals with injuries and don't turn into black holes of awfulness. Stearns doesn't seem capable of accepting responsibility and the silence from Uncle Steve makes me feel like now that he's got his casino, he doesn't really care.
I did a quick down and dirty run down of the money that David Stearns has spent on behalf of Steve and Alex Cohen the last 3 years. Obviously 2026 still has some incompletes but at the midway point it is fair to say where it is trending. I did not count every dollar, just the trades preseason, free agents, decisions like club options, and mid season trades. Nothing on tendering guys who are under team control, nor arbitration either settled or case decisions, just the things that a head of a front office has more specific control of.
In 2024 Stearns acquired 19 players for a total of $89.84 Million, of that $61 MM produced a positive return via bWar, across 9 players. 3 players were neutral for $13.2 MM (neutral are 0 WAR players or incomplete seasons due to injury ie Brooks Raley or Drew Smith, whereas Adam Ottavino was a 0 WAR). 6 players combined to be a negative return on $15.6 MM.
in 2025 Stearns again acquired 19 players for a total of $189.2 MM, if course nearly $92 MM was Juan Soto and Pete Alonso. 6 players provided a positive return on $112.3 MM, the aforementioned 2 accounted for 82% of the spend, the other big upside was Clay Holmes. 3 players were neutral for $14.4 MM. The negative return skyrocketed in 2025, 10 players accounted for $62.5 MM of negative return.
It gets worse, in 2026 as you can imagine. 4 players have contributed to a positive return on $77.4 MM, again one of those is Juan Soto.
Neutral gets a bit trickier at a midway point, 4 players are neutral due to injury and or wretched performance - AJ Minter, Clay Holmes are the former, Bo Bichette and Freddy Peralta are the latter, for a total of $74 MM. 9 players have accumulated a negative WAR, multiple 60 day IL stints or flat-out release, costing a total of $116.5 MM.
A lot can always change with 82 games remaining, but that a lot could also include Bo Bichette crumbling in negative WAR territory, or he could have a .900 OPS the remainder of the year and obviously he moves from neutral to positive.
In 2024 17% of the spend that Stearns was directly responsible for was wasteful. In 2025 that number leapt to 33%, in 2026 that figure is nearly 45% and trending towards a distinct possibility that it could go well over 50%.