The Mets look really bad right now, but patience is needed
There's a lot of work to do for the Mets to right their ship, but there are 146 games left to play
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets lost their fifth straight game on Sunday and were swept by the A’s 1-0 at Citi Field (box)
The Mets merely scattered four singles against the A’s on Sunday, two of which came off the bat of Francisco Lindor
Freddy Peralta gave the Mets his best start to-date as a Met, allowing just one run over six innings but took the loss despite his strong effort
Sean Manaea gave the Mets three very strong innings of relief, striking out four and retiring all nine batters he faced
The Mets were shutout twice by the A’s this weekend, and scored just 13 runs on their homestand, going just 1-5 during that stretch
The Mets will select the contract of OF Tommy Pham before Monday’s game against the Dodgers (Athletic)
Roster Moves 📰
Selected RHP Joey Gerber from Triple-A Syracuse
Designated RHP Luis García for assignment
Injury Updates 🏥
LHP AJ Minter (recovery from lat surgery) struck out one over one inning for Single-A St. Lucie on Sunday
RHP Clay Holmes (hamstring tightness) is expected to make his next start against the Dodgers on Wednesday
Play of the Game 😡
On Sunday, Nick Kurtz hit a solo home run in the top of the third inning, the only run of the game for either team, and that proved to be the difference as the Mets got swept for the A’s at home.
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
On the latest edition of the Just Mets podcast, Andrew and Rich recapped the Mets uninspiring 1-5 homestand and discussed the clear issues facing this team as they head out to Los Angeles to start another west coast swing.
SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Down on the Farm 🌾
OF Tommy Pham (Low-A): 0-for-2, BB
OF Simon Juan (Low-A): 1-for-4, 2 RBI
SS Mitch Voit (no. 7 prospect, High-A): 1-for-2, 2B, 2 BB
INF Jacob Reimer (no. 5 prospect, AA): 1-for-4, HR, 2 RBI
OF Nick Morabito (no. 12 prospect, AAA): 1-for-4, HR, 2 RBI, 2 K
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (7-9) vs. Dodgers (11-4)
Where: Dodger Stadium - Los Angeles, CA
Starters: LHP David Peterson (0-2, 6.14 ERA) vs. LHP Justin Wrobleski (1-0, 4.00 ERA)
When: 10:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
This is bad, but patience is still warranted for the Mets ✍️
It’s times like this that make you wonder if the Mets really got this right, doesn’t it?
They’re in one of those vintage Mets stretches where they look as feeble as they do incompetent. They’re simply not a good team right now, and that’s all there is to it. They can’t hit - they don’t even hit a lot of balls hard. Sunday might’ve been the nadir of all of this as they scattered only four singles on the afternoon against the A’s, who allowed six runs against the Mets the entire weekend and shut them out twice in the process.
They were booed off the field after an empty ninth inning on Sunday afternoon, which capped an empty weekend and an empty home stand.
This offense seemed to have been struggling to get themselves in gear when Juan Soto was out there. With Soto out, the Mets just look lost at the plate.
Francisco Lindor had a nice afternoon on Sunday, something he needed after being generally terrible on both sides of the ball over the first 15 games of the year. I want to say his problems are attributed to not having a full slate of at-bats during Spring Training, but his poor defense and mental lapses at shortstop weren’t the result of missing time in camp. But it was nice to see him put all of that behind him and have a promising day at the plate.
He was the only player to even show a pulse offensively on Sunday - the rest of the players hardly put up a fight against Aaron Civale and the A’s bullpen.
Their general problem over the first ten percent of this season has been the offense. It’s that simple. Yeah, they have a mounting issue with David Peterson, who will have to begin to right his ship against the Dodgers tonight in Los Angeles. They have a potential health problem with Clay Holmes, although Carlos Mendoza said on Saturday he is still expected to make his next start on Wednesday. Kodai Senga set off the alarms after his non-competitive outing on Saturday. Luke Weaver has pitched poorly in his last couple of outings too. They made a curious at-best roster move by shipping Luis García out on Sunday- who was rostered on a $1.75 million major league contract this winter - even though they needed a fresh arm for the bullpen, that which they ended up not needing on Sunday thanks to strong performances from both Freddy Peralta and Sean Manaea, who carried the load on the mound for them in their 1-0 loss to the A’s.
When the Mets decided not to run back the same team that failed them in 2025, they employed a strategy that would, in theory, make them more contact-centric and less reliant on an all-or-nothing power approach, which they believed is what contributed to the deeper-than-tolerable slumps the offense found themselves in at times over the last few seasons.
Well, here we are, and the Mets are at the middle of the pack with 129 strikeouts but nearing the bottom third in baseball with 19 home runs over the first 16 games. They’re back to being a three-hits-for-every-run team, which is just impossible to navigate. Sure, they’re without Soto and that is unquestionably a big deal, but the lineup cannot be solely dependent on just one player, and it wasn’t supposed to be with the additions of Bo Bichette and Jorge Polanco to help complement both Soto and Francisco Lindor.
Over the season’s first 16 games, the Mets don’t have a single player with ten RBI. Francisco Álvarez does have four home runs, but that leads the team and nobody else has three. Only Lindor has scored ten runs on this team, and both Polanco and Brett Baty lead the club with three doubles.
Just look at these OPS’s. And look at those slugging percentages. It’s painful.
Now, the offense will get better. And I say that only because this is awful, and it can’t possibly get worse than this. They literally didn’t score any runs in two of the three games against the A’s, and they will score runs. To be fair, many of these players are playing together for the first time, and while that is not an excuse for multi-millionaires at the top of this game, that’s the reality and I always expected it could take some time - perhaps a long time - for this offense to come together. Not having Soto makes that challenge even harder, but even so, there’s the human element to this game despite the riches these people possess. I have seen enough baseball to know that, while these games count and all matter, new teams take time to come together, the pendulum will inevitably swing the other way and they will play up to their talent levels if they can stay healthy.
But none of that can excuse the simple poor quality of play this team has produced in general over the season’s first 16 games. They’ve been generally bad between this poor offense and the bad defense.
It’s not too hard to figure out why that has happened.
They have a career shortstop who was below average there playing a new position at third in Bo Bichette. They have a third baseman in Brett Baty playing first and right on a regular basis, they have another career third baseman in Mark Vientos who was below average there playing first base. They’re trying to teach a career middle infielder in Polanco to play first, although he generally can’t because of a strained Achilles. They have a rookie in Carson Benge trying to slow things down at multiple positions in the outfield as well.
They seemingly have a first baseman of the day policy, something they didn’t really have to worry about over the last seven years. The funny thing is, it’s Jared Young who has logged more professional innings at first base than any of the other players on this roster.
Make no mistake - I am not suggesting the Mets should’ve signed Pete Alonso to a five-year contract. Not at all. But they did not add an actual major league first baseman after letting him go to Baltimore. That’s a fact, and it’s not open for debate.
All of that might be leading to the poor play behind their pitchers. And, it just calls into question this strategy the front office employed in constructing this roster for the 2026 season.
But, it’s just 16 games. My standard policy is to wait until Memorial Day before drawing any conclusions, which is generally when all teams begin to determine their identities. And I do wonder if that date will lead to the Mets putting actual first basemen on their trade deadline whiteboard, among relievers and the other parts they’ll be looking for this summer.
It doesn’t mean this is all going to work out. But at this point, we have no choice but to exercise some patience as the Mets try and find a way to jolt the offense and turn the temperature down on their disappointing start to the 2026 season.
Around the League 🚩
Jacob deGrom slowed the Dodgers down with six strong innings as the Rangers downed LA 5-2
Jordan Walker hit his sixth home run in his last eight games, but the Cardinals lost to the Red Sox 9-3
Kevin McGonigle hit his first career homer in the Tigers 8-2 win over the Marlins
Mike Trout doubled and scored three runs in the Angels 9-6 win over the Reds
Former manager and three-time All-Star Phil Garner passed away at the age of 76
Blah, Blah, Blah. 40 years and counting. That’s all I’m saying