The roller coaster season for the Mets rattles on!

Poor defense, poor pitching, and weak hitting all played their respectively pernicious parts in the Mets' latest loss

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The Mets dropped their series in Seattle, falling to the Mariners 8-3 on Tuesday (box)

• RF Carson Benge continued his ‘psychopathic’ stretch at the plate with a two-homer night, providing all three of the Mets’ runs

• Mets hitters turned in a particularly undisciplined performance, striking out 11 times while walking just twice

• The Mets’ pitching faltered fantastically, surrendering eight runs on nine hits; three of them were homers

• LHP A.J. Minter was the lone bright spot on the mound as he delivered a scoreless eighth inning

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Injury Updates 🩺

• INF Jorge Polanco (left Achilles bursitis) advanced to Triple-A Syracuse and could be back with the big league team as soon as Friday, June 5

• C Francisco Álvarez (torn right knee meniscus) was expected to miss 6-8 weeks but started a rehab assignment on June 2; will return to MLB when he’s successfully caught seven-plus innings on consecutive nights

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Play of the Game 😭

Tuesday was not Jonah Tong’s night.

After two (mostly) painless bulk appearances to start his 2026 MLB season, Tong started Tuesday’s appearance strong enough: he struck out J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodriguez to start his night, then escaped back-to-back errors from Marcus Semien and Mark Vientos in the third with a single unearned run.

But after a few scattered walks and hits led to another Seattle run in the fourth inning, Tong’s cracks were really starting to show — and Jhonny Pereda took full advantage.

After allowing consecutive singles to Cole Young and Dominic Canzone, Pereda smoked a leaking two-out cutter from Tong and planted it in the left field seats, putting the M’s up on the Mets by five runs.

It all but immediately put the game out of reach.

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Just Mets Podcast 🎙️

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• C Francisco Álvarez (Triple-A): 2-for-3, 1 2B, 1 RBI

• 2B Ji Hwan Bae (Triple-A): 0-for-2, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 SB

• C Chris Suero (No. 14 prospect, Double-A: 2-for-4, 2 K, 1 SB

• 1B Corey Collins (High-A): 1-for-3, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 BB

BOX SCORES

Single-A SLU (PPD) | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

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Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (26-35) at Mariners (33-29)

Where: T-Mobile Park – Seattle, WA

Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (3-4, 3.55 ERA) vs. RHP George Kirby (5-4, 3.77 ERA)

When: 3:40 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

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Carson Benge looks great, but the Mets remain frustrating ✍️

Steph Chambers-Getty Images

How many more times can I write the same story?

Tuesday night’s loss to Seattle featured many of the bad habits that have defined many (if not all) of the Mets’ losses so far this season. Carson Benge put on a show, yet the rest of the offense put on a chase-rate clinic. Jonah Tong showed more flashes of his tantalizing potential, but simultaneously reminded us that prospect development is often a long and winding road.

And that’s what makes this season that much more frustrating: it’s becoming increasingly difficult to celebrate the small individual wins when they’re accompanied by an all-too-familiar loss.

Benge was far and away the biggest story of the day. That’s familiar territory for him recently — in his last 30 games, he’s slashing .304 /.375/.470 with four homers and 18 RBI. Benge continued building upon his breakout campaign, delivering the hardest-hit ball of his career in the process. In a recent interview, he said these games are starting to feel more like they did for him in high school and college. That’s a terrifying notion for opposing pitchers: he hit .340 with a 1.064 OPS in his two years at Oklahoma State.

After getting off to a not-so-powerful start to the spring, Benge’s pop is starting to push through to the surface of his game. Of his four homers in his last 30 contests, he’s hit three of them in his last seven games; he’s slugging .704 in that span. That’s quite a turn from the contact-first, oppo-heavy slap hitter profile he put on display for all of spring and through his first few weeks.

The problem, of course, is that beyond Juan Soto and a healthy Francisco Lindor, there just isn’t much consistent offensive firepower with which to build around Benge right now. (Keyword: ‘consistent.’)

Seattle’s Logan Gilbert obviously deserves some credit for the Mets’ offensive ineptitude. The Mariners’ staff simply does not walk people (league-best 2.56 BB/9), and Gilbert’s stuff was clearly more than good enough to get the job done…but the Mets did almost nothing to help themselves. Their team chase rate was characteristically high — 34% — ultimately resulting in an ugly 11 strikeouts against just two walks; that chase rate was accompanied by an equally poor 31% team whiff rate.

Though a lack of on-base traffic has been costing the Mets all season, a lack of free bases wasn’t what sunk their ship last night: it was their inability to rein in their swing discipline, an all-too-familiar issue with this lineup.

Stephen Brashear-AP Photo

Now, onto the pitching.

A.J. Minter was the only Met arm to have a good night; all of Tong, Huascar Brazobán, and Cionel Pérez gave up homers. Braz gave up a two-run homer to Patrick Wisdom in the bottom of the second inning, but the Mets (Benge) responded immediately with a two-run homer in the top of the third.

Unfortunately, Tong was not the beneficiary of the same sort of run support before ultimately putting the team in a five-run hole.

Tong was getting swings-and-misses, and he elicited a near-40% chase rate, but the Mariners swung at nearly half of what he offered them, frequently attacking him when he came into the zone and eventually turning it into runs. Though it didn’t result in excessive walks in this outing, Tong’s stuff found the zone less than half the time on Tuesday, and though he was able to find the corners and edges regularly, those balls got batted around quite a bit.

It’s worth remembering that Tong is still only 22 years old. Young pitchers need time, development is seldom linear, bad outings are inevitable — you’ve heard it all before, because it’s all true. Tong remains a work in progress who has demonstrated why team officials remain so high on him. The primary issue with him remains one of consistency. (A theme is building…)

If he can figure out how to totally master his pitch mix and command the mound, Tong could certainly cement himself as a fixture in the Mets’ long-term rotational plans. But it’s worth questioning whether his development should continue at the big league level, at least through the All-Star break.

Granted, he’s only made three appearances so far, and the Mets admittedly don’t have a ton of appealing alternatives beyond yet more rookie promotions, but the rapid increase in on-base traffic and run scoring over his last two outings isn’t an encouraging trend. Of course, he’s only going to get better against big league competition by facing big league competition, but if his pitch shapes and attack angles aren’t fully realized, why not work on them in an environment where there’s less pressure on you to be ‘Right’ whenever you take the hill?

It seems a bit counterproductive to continue running out a work in progress when you have the option to take it back to the shop and define the details. Yes, the Mets need pitching length, and it’s completely fair to question where the club would turn for rotation help were Tong to go back down. But if he’s not contributing to the Win column as it is, the team probably wouldn’t lose much by taking a chance on another rookie anyway.

Forgive my bluntness this morning…I’ve very quickly grown weary of seeing the same recurrent issues pop up with this team. For every three-game win streak, they lose another four; if something’s going right, at least one other thing is probably going wrong. That’s an impossible rhythm to rally around, both literally on the field for the players and spiritually for fans. The same questions that have stunk up this team’s air from day one continue to linger after yet another loss so familiar it almost feels templated.

Until this team proves capable of finding some semblance of consistency on all fronts, there’s only so far it can go — regardless of who’s performing well or which rookie gets promoted next.

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Around the League 🚩

• Aaron Nola turned in a vintage performance, tallying eight strikeouts over five innings to help the Phillies hold off the Padres, 3-2

• José Ramirez hit three doubles as the Guardians took down Cam Schlittler and the Yankees, 9-4

• Pete Alonso homered over the Green Monster, and the Orioles opened their series against the Red Sox with a win, 4-2

• Breakout Brewers lefty Kyle Harrison racked up a dozen strikeouts in a breezy 8-3 win over his former Giants

• Highly-touted Athletics rookie southpaw Gage Jump earned his first MLB win with a stellar seven-inning performance, allowing a single run on just three hits while striking out five Cubs in a 2-1 win