The Mets have now lost 12 of their last 14 games

The Braves homered five times and Chris Sale tallied his 500th strikeout with the franchise in a dominant win.

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The Mets suffered one of their worst losses of the season on Saturday, losing to the Braves by a 14-3 score (box)

• LHP Sean Manaea gutted his way through a five-inning, 100+ pitch appearance in which he allowed six runs on six hits, including homers to Eli White and Mauricio Dubon

• It wasn’t a strong night for the Mets bullpen, as RHP Austin Warren and RHP Joey Gerber gave up seven runs between them with a homer allowed apiece

• C Luis Torrens also surrendered a homer in position-player mop-up duty

• The bleeding started early thanks to a misplayed flyball in the third inning by CF Tyrone Taylor and SS Francisco Lindor that kicked off a four-run frame for Atlanta

• Taylor and 1B Mark Vientos both homered to put the Mets on the board, but that was the extent of the run scoring

• Vientos’ homer aside, the Mets were predictably bad with runners in position last night — they managed 10 hits off Chris Sale & Co., but went just 1-for-9 with RISP, leaving 11 runners stranded

• LF Juan Soto was named to his first All-Star team as a New York Met and will be starting for the National League

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Injury Updates 🏥

• RHP Clay Holmes (fractured right fibula) should advance to live BP within the next few weeks and will progress to minor league rehab games from there

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Play of the Game 🤦‍♂️

Yet another play that perfectly encapsulates this season’s disconnected ethos.

With two outs, the bases loaded and the Mets already down 2-0, Sean Manaea desperately needed an out. On the 1-0 pitch, Manaea got his newly minted nemesis, Eli White, to pop the ball up to shallow center field, prompting both Francisco Lindor and Tyrone Taylor to go for it.

Lindor called for the ball, but Taylor kept charging, and the two narrowly avoided a collision as the ball fell to the grass between them, allowing three more Braves runs to score.

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The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Jack Wenninger (No. 4 prospect, Triple-A): 7 IP, H, 0 R, 3 BB, 5 K

• DH MJ Melendez (Triple-A): 1-for-3, HR, BB, 2 R

• RF Matt Rudick (Double-A): 2-for-4, HR, 2 R, SB

• 3B Colin Houck (High-A): 2-for-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI, BB, 2 R

• LF JT Benson (High-A): 3-for-5, 2B, 2 RBI, R, 2 K

• CF Simon Juan (Single-A): 1-for-4, HR, 2 RBI, SB

BOX SCORES

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

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Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (36-53) at Braves (52-35)

Where: Truist Park — Atlanta, GA

Starters: RHP Nolan McLean (5-5, 3.78 ERA) vs. LHP Martín Pérez (6-5, 3.27 ERA)

When: 12:30 PM EDT

Where to Watch: NBC/Peacock

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At least there’s Juan Soto ✍️

SNY

This team is so bad. But Juan Soto is not.

On Saturday, MLB announced the rosters for the 2026 All-Star Game, with Soto garnering his first selection as a Met and his fifth overall. And though he may have only gone 1-for-4 in yesterday’s rout in Atlanta, he’s been a formidable force since returning from his early IL stint in April. Soto’s hitting .320 over his last 15 games, and is now just shy of .300 on the season. His slugging percentage hasn’t dipped below .550 since June 12th and he’s got a .404 on-base percentage on the year.

Through all the bad that this Mets season has given us, it’s absolutely worth taking a moment to recognize how impactful his first half has truly been.

Through the first three-plus months of play, Soto ranks firmly among the National League’s very best hitters by most crucial metrics:

• AVG: .297 (8th)

• OBP: .406 (1st)

• SLG: .565 (2nd)

• BB%: 15.6% (2nd)

• K%: 12.6% (9th)

• wOBA: .411 (1st)

• wRC+: 165 (1st)

• OPS+: 168 (1st)

Given the numbers above, it should come as no surprise that Soto alone accounts for more than 20% of the team’s run total this season. Further, while the Mets’ .672 team OPS ranked dead last in MLB entering yesterday’s contest, Soto’s personal .971 OPS is tops in the National League. And he’s doing this while ranking among the league’s choosiest hitters, swinging at less than 40% of pitches he sees (third-lowest rate in the NL).

Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

Soto’s also having his best defensive season since his time in the nation’s capital. In just over 360 innings this season, Soto’s posted a -1 DRS, +1 OAA, and -1 FRV in left field. Those metrics may not seem great, and they’re not, but the fact is that Soto hasn’t graded this well on defense since the 2021 season (6 DRS, +4 OAA, 1 FRV in right field), and this is the best full-time sample he’s put together in left field since 2019 (3 DRS, 6 OAA, 0 FRV). He fared well in over 50 innings with the Yankees in 2024 as well, so it shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise that he’s performing better at a position he’s consistently fielded competently.

It’s also worth noting that he’s not stealing bases anywhere near the rate he did last year, though he’s homering almost as frequently, with a long ball every ~14 at-bats. Soto’s stolen six bags so far in 2026, which puts him on pace to steal roughly 14 this season, about his career per-162 average on the high end. While the Braves aren’t exactly blowing the Mets out of the water in the stolen base department, it’s clear Soto wasn’t overstating his personal experience and relationship with former first base coach Antoan Richardson. Whether any extra bases would have resulted in a noteworthy number of additional runs is worthy of debate given this team’s persistent RISP issues, but undoubtedly having that weapon still fully fueled up in his arsenal would only make his efforts so far that much more valuable this year.

Digging a bit deeper through the stats, the most glaring hole in Soto’s day-to-day MVP case has to be his own lack of contributions with runners in scoring position, a woefully common trait among Met hitters. There’s some merit to that argument: a .222 average with a 27.7% walk rate certainly hasn’t been doing much to bring extra runs in those spots.

In fairness to Soto, though, his lineup cohorts haven’t given him many opportunities to drive them in: Soto’s had 65 plate appearances this season with runners in position, 91st in the NL. But even when you start getting into it and massaging numbers a bit, the story doesn’t get much better: his 18 RBI in those spots rank 94th, and his 10 total RISP hits are the National League’s second-fewest. So, while he may not be getting many opportunities to drive guys in, he’s also not doing much with them when he does. That will need to change if the Mets have any hope of finishing this season in even somewhat respectable standing.

And, of course, there’s the Shohei Ohtani of it all.

When discussing the realities of Soto actually winning an MVP as a Met, the conversation is incomplete without addressing the ultimate elephant in the room. As it stands today, Ohtani’s offensive numbers are eerily similar to Soto’s:

The biggest difference, obviously, is that Ohtani also pitches, and he’s doing it exceptionally well so far this season.

Though his innings sample doesn’t stack up to the likes of true Cy Young frontrunners Cristopher Sánchez or Jacob Misiorowski, Ohtani’s been highly effective when he has been on the mound. In 85 innings, he’s posted a 1.79 ERA (2.62 FIP) with 95 strikeouts (27.9% K rate), a 51% ground ball rate, an 81.2% strand rate, and a 0.95 WHIP.

There’s also Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Schwarber to contend with, both of whom also rank ahead of Soto in ESPN’s MVP odds tracker. PCA and Schwarber offer two completely different player profiles, one that Soto is an interesting blend of. PCA’s .899 OPS, 19 homers, 21 steals, 151 OPS+, and exceptional defensive data are quite the fun foil to Schwarber’s MLB-leading 30 homers before the break, .935 OPS, .570 SLG, and 1.105 OPS with runners in scoring position. While Soto isn’t the baserunner or fielder PCA is, nor the same brand of slugger Schwarber is, he offers well-rounded enough a player profile that he can have serious impact on both sides of the ball, which will be key for any serious contender for the throne in the Ohtani era.

All of this to say, the excellence on display throughout the NL this season has made Soto’s MVP hill a steep one to climb.

And yet, climbing he is, Sisyphean a task as it may be.

Getty Images

Time will tell whether Soto actually takes home a trophy this year, but he’s making as serious a push as he ever has. Alongside the debuts of Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing, Soto’s given Mets fans just about everything they’ve had to cheer for this season. While Lindor was down for two months, Soto hit .289 with a .974 OPS, 16 homers, and 33 RBI with a 164 wRC+. The Mets went 25-28 over that stretch, a period that also saw them lose Luis Robert Jr., Jorge Polanco, and Clay Holmes to the 60-day IL. Looking at the numbers, it’s not an exaggeration to say Soto essentially single-handedly carried the team during that stretch (though Benge definitely did his fair share).

Even if Soto doesn’t come away with his most coveted piece of hardware this season — and his team’s woeful performance around him makes that very unlikely at this point — he’s reinforcing that he can be a cornerstone of a franchise and take the reins of a developing roster. In him, Benge and Ewing, the Mets potentially have their outfield of the future today, and it’s as talented a group of youngsters — the 27-year-old Soto included — as the league has to offer on a single roster. Though the rest of the 2026 season doesn’t look all that promising, there’s discernible brightness on the horizon.

That, if literally nothing else, is worth showing up and rooting for.

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Around the League 🚩

• Angels OF Mike Trout is the third AL player to ever be elected as an All-Star Game starter 11 times, joining Cal Ripken Jr. (17) and George Brett (11)

• AL MVP frontrunner Yordan Álvarez had himself a two-homer night, including a two-run walk-off bomb to push the Astros ahead of the Rays, 10-8. Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero also homered, his 11th in as many games

• White Sox breakout slugger Colson Montgomery hit a go-ahead homer to set up a 3-1 win for Chicago; he’s hit 43 homers in 155 games since his July 2025 call-up, third in MLB over that span behind Kyle Schwarber and Junior Caminero

• Dodgers RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 10 Padres over seven scoreless innings in a 3-0 win in Los Angeles

• Red Sox C Willson Contreras issued a formal apology for his fight with Cade Cavalli, then hit a three-run first-inning homer