How much does Bo Bichette have to rake against the Braves to make up for his dismal start? That may be impossible to answer but Bichette had himself a day in his first game as a Met against Atlanta, leading the good guys to a 7-5 victory Friday night at Citi Field.

Bichette got the scoring started with a home run in the bottom of the first. New York went back-to-back, as Juan Soto followed Bichette with a homer on a 3-2 pitch to put the Mets up 2-0.

The Braves tied the game in the second inning but Bichette untied it, as he smacked a grand slam to put the Mets back in front, 6-2.

In the fourth inning, Bichette delivered a sacrifice fly for the Mets’ final run. He finished with six RBIs and his two-homer game lifted his OPS to .635 for the season, the highest it’s been this year.

Nolan McLean started but struggled with his command, as he gave up 4 BB and 2 ER in 4 IP before being lifted after he threw 93 pitches. The Braves scored three runs against the Mets’ pen but Devin Williams got the final four outs, striking out the final two batters he faced to nail down his 10^th save of the season.

Soto had two hits and a walk, while Luis Torrens had two hits and a run scored.

The Mets are now 20-2 when they score at least five runs in a game. It was great to see three homers and they added three walks, too, which is a bountiful harvest these days. Offense is fun and hopefully the bats show up Saturday afternoon for Sean Manaea in the 4:10 p.m. start.

Before the season started, the Mets’ “Big Three” offensively was supposed to be Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Bo Bichette. Soto has done his part. But Lindor has missed most of the season to date with a calf injury, while Bichette has been awful.

Bichette has a decent game every once in a while, and everyone claims this is the start of his breakout. He had back-to-back multi-hit games in April and then proceeded to post a .567 OPS over his next 55 PA. Bichette then hit safely in 10 of 12 games only to follow up with a .310 OPS over his next 47 PA. Now, in his last seven games, Bichette is slashing .345/.333/.586 – thanks to two doubles, a triple and a home run in 30 PA. Is this the beginning of a return to normalcy for him? Everyone can be forgiven for not hopping on that particular hype train.

So, who’s the Mets’ best hitter right now after Soto? Just like we all predicted, it’s Jared Young. Now in his age-30 season, Young has all of 191 PA in the majors. But in 75 trips to the plate this season – he missed a large chunk of time with a meniscus injury – Young has an .890 OPS and a 147 OPS+. Since being activated from the IL, he has a .911 OPS with two doubles and four home runs in 52 PA.

In the past couple of years, Gary Cohen has marveled about Lindor’s numbers in Mets wins versus his stats in losses. Someone should tell him to look up Young’s production in that split. In wins, Young has a 1.175 OPS and in losses, it’s a .542 mark.

So, if Soto and Young are the top two hitters, who’s the third leg in the Big Three? We’re already being charitable including Young as a solid hitter, rather than someone enjoying a hot streak. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to do the same with the third hitter. And that player may not have Young’s 75 PA, either.

Let’s meet our contenders.

Francisco Alvarez had an .802 OPS in his last 21 PA before suffering a meniscus injury. He made a rapid return to action and in the three games since, sports a .900 OPS. In his close to 2025, Alvarez had a .910 OPS in 109 PA. And he did that with a fairly normal – still elevated - .317 BABIP. With a 25-HR season also under his belt, Alvarez is the player Mets fans hope becomes the third leg. He’s got the talent – his only issue is being able to stay on the field.

Carson Benge was rushed to the majors and after 30 games, he sat with a .498 OPS. But in his last 35 games, Benge is slashing .314/.373/.486 in 153 PA. That .858 OPS represents a terrific turnaround. It also comes with a .379 BABIP. Currently, the MLB average for BABIP is a .288 mark. If that was Benge’s season-long mark in the category, it would place as the seventh-highest mark in the majors. In 2025, that would be the best BABIP among qualified hitters.

When the hits are falling in at a terrific rate – you’d like to see better production than an .858 mark. This is not an attempt to belittle Benge. Rather, it’s trying to put his recent hitting into a proper perspective. The streak by Alvarez mentioned above to close 2025 had an OPS 55 points higher, with a BABIP 62 points lower.

I’m a big believer in Benge’s talent and the last 35 games is a giant step forward for him. Yet we still need to be honest with ourselves over his production. At this point in his career, he’s better considered as a complementary piece, rather than a member of a Big Three. Hopefully sometime soon – perhaps as early as 2027 – we can view Benge as a member of the team’s core. He’s just not there yet for me here in the middle of June.

Which brings us to Marcus Semien.

It’s no secret that Semien is over the hill, with a giant fork sticking out of his back. Yet those things don’t preclude him from going on a six-week hot streak. There’s no shortage of players on the wrong side of 30 who’ve done that for the Mets in the last 15 years, whether it’s Harrison Bader or Adrian Gonzalez or Austin Jackson or James Loney or Tommy Pham or a bunch of others. The dead-cat bounce is real.

In his last 43 PA, Semien has an .877 OPS, thanks in large part to four homers. And that OPS comes with a 1-11 in his past three games. This recent span comes with a .231 BABIP – so it’s based on power, rather than the hits falling in. As long as pitchers keep trying to attack him with inside fastballs, Semien has a chance to go on a six-week heater. It’s just when they throw him breaking balls on the outside that it falls apart.

Perhaps our most-realistic, best-case scenario is for Semien to have that hot streak that lasts until Lindor’s return. My rose-colored-glasses scenario is for Young to keep hitting, with Alvarez putting it all together. Shoot, as long as we’re dreaming, let’s say Bichette’s latest binge is not a mirage, either.

When it comes to the Mets’ offense, I want to believe. Unfortunately, they haven’t given me much reason to carry that forward for much longer. Right now, we’re in the “hold on for Lindor” section of hope. May one or more hitters step forward to carry the load, even if it’s a BABIP mirage or a homer-fueled hot streak.

The Mets hit three homers and got outstanding relief pitching to salvage the final game of the series, defeating the Cardinals 5-4 Thursday afternoon at Citi Field. The Mets are now 19-2 when they score five or more runs this season.

Bo Bichette and Jared Young hit first inning homers to stake the Mets to a 3-1 lead. But the Cardinals hit three home runs in the first two innings to go up, 4-3.

Juan Soto hit a double in the fifth inning and scored on a single by Young. Soto did not get a good jump and could have easily been out at the plate with a good throw. But it didn’t arrive on the fly and was too tough for the catcher to corral. Soto made perhaps the ugliest slide you’ll see this year but ended up scoring the tying run.

Then in the seventh inning, Soto gave the Mets the lead with his 14^th homer of the year.

Christian Scott gave up the early homers but settled in to pitch into the fifth inning. And then the pen took over. A.J. Minter went 1.1 IP and then was followed by the three trusted relievers who each pitched an inning to shut the door. The four relievers did not allow a hit, with Devin Williams posting two strikeouts while notching his ninth save of the year.

The Mets had 10 hits, with five of those going for extra-bases. If the hard hits are coming like this, we can look past another outing with zero walks.

Next up for the Mets is the first series this year against the first-place Braves. Nolan McLean gets the start in against the mustache man.

If you have never seen the famous Abbott and Costello routine, “Who’s on First,” Google it. It is a classic and no matter how many times I may have seen it, it is still funny. As you go through the entire “bit” there is so much that is applicable to the current Mets. It has taken a while but I’ve learned the names of the players on their roster, even if I could not pick most of them out of a lineup without a hint of who’s who. Can’t imagine how long it takes Yankee fans to learn their roster just from a number without a name.

But let’s go back to the theme of this blog of who’s on first. Remember that what we were all sold with all of that off-season wrangling was supposed to be a team that hit less homeruns, made better contact, would be stronger hitting with RISP, and wait, here comes the big one, would excel defensively and therefore increase the team’s chances of winning with something Stearns referred to as “run prevention.”

We said goodbye to three long-time Met favorites and hello to a 28-year-old budding star who needed to learn third base, a second baseman who can certainly field but has only started to hit the ball a third of a season in, and an over the hill and frequently injured player who needed to learn first base. Jorge Polanco became the first answer to the question who’s on first. He neither provided offense nor defense. That’s okay says management, because we have plenty of players who can play first base, as if that position is a walk in the park. We were not thinking we would get the second coming of Keith Hernadez in the offseason, but we did expect a bonafide first baseman on the roster. We are still waiting.

In 1960’s and 1970’s (the olden days) when I started watching baseball, first baseman often turned out to be outfielders who could still hit but no longer had the legs to roam the outfield. Teams simply suffered with whatever they could get as long as they could still hit. But that should not be happening anymore in this age of specialization and all those training and incubator programs to help players be all that they can be.

So, management doesn’t bring an outfielder in to play first (dare I suggest that Brandon Nimmo could have moved to first base and still given the team strong offense and the ability to play 150 plus gamers) but decides to put Mark Vientos out there because he stinks playing third base. And after all, how hard could playing first base be? Vientos, who never found his stroke after his explosive rookie season, plays a mediocre at first base, but did turn a couple of nifty double plays, which made us think that perhaps we could at least get some run prevention out of him. Nah. And what makes matters worse is that he is currently hitting .214 with an OPS of .617.

A few days ago, Locked on Mets, an interesting daily Mets blog broadcast on XM Radio, opined that when Franscisco Lindor comes back from his injury, the Mets should move Bo Bichette, an average shortstop at best, back to third base, where his experience at that position has come just this season, and install Baty at first base. This is a position he is not good at, and by the way he is hitting just .235 with an OPS of .639 with just three homeruns. That move would give the team two novices at the corner positions.

In the same breath talking about putting Baty at first, the Locked on Mets broadcast also tried to rationalize trading away Nimmo because it made room for the emergence of Carson Benge and AJ Ewing. Nice try but shut up. Let’s also not forget Jared Young, who I railed on last year for not even deserving a spot on the roster and all he has done this year so far is play adequately wherever they put him, while hitting .291 with an OPS of .884, an OBP of .375 and us currently slugging at a .509 level, ahead of everyone but Juan Soto. Young has played 28 games at first base in his career without an error. That does not make him a first baseman, but at least he is hitting.

Given all the options, he would be the answer to my question in the title of this piece and I’d let him play first until he stops hitting. I can’t possibly end this Mets360 entry without noting that Pete Alonso, the former poor fielding Met first baseman, has made just two errors in 62 games at first, a .996 fielding percentage. In fact his career fielding percentage over a 162 games season is .993. And, just to add insult to injury, he’s hitting .239 with an OPS of .758 to go along with 13 long balls and 41 RBI. He would be tied with Soto for homers and leading the team in RBI. But instead of paying him $30 million plus a year for all he could bring to this team, they instead chose to give $20 million a year for two years to Polanco.

Once they figure out who’s on first, they can then move on to second base, where Marcus Semien and the three remaining years on his contract that will pay him $72 million is hitting .236 with an OPS of .639.

The use of an opener again put the Mets in an early hole. But we can’t really blame that as the Cardinals scored throughout the game en route to a 9-2 victory Wednesday night at Citi Field.

Normally, I’d be pretty deflated after another sub-par performance from the Mets’ offense. But the New York Knicks just completed the largest comeback in NBA Finals history so I’m not going to let the Mets’ lousy offense bring me down.

Francisco Alvarez hit a two-run homer for the Mets’ only runs.The offense was limited to three hits and two walks and you’re simply not going to win many games with that type of output.Lather, rinse, repeat.Or

“Third verse, same as the first
Just last night I was reminded of just how bad
It had gotten and just how sick I had become”

Among the many hitting woes for the Mets is their production with runners in scoring position. Their 566 PA and 184 runs scored with RISP both rank 28th in the majors and their .678 OPS in this split ranks 25th.

Marcus Semien’s .778 OPS with RISP is the fourth-best mark on the club and tops among those not on the IL. But there are a couple of issues with his production here. First is that .778 OPS comes with a .391 BABIP, which means there’s been some incredible luck with hits finding holes.

The second issue, somewhat related to the first, is the number of hits in these situations that don’t drive in a run. Semien has 18 hits with RISP, 3 SF and 14 RBIs. We know he has one hit with RISP that drove in two runs, which means he has eight hits in these situations that did not drive in a run.

Now, a hit is always preferable to an out. But let’s look at the WPA for his last two hits with runners in scoring position.

6/7 - .001 WPA (hit did not drive in a run)
5/30 - .078 WPA (hit drove in a run)

There are other factors in play in WPA, so it doesn’t mean that every hit with RISP that doesn’t score someone is worth .001 WPA. Instead, it’s just an example. Same goes for the .078 WPA. You can find hits with a greater WPA score, as well as one that aren’t quite as high as this one. These are simply that last two hits with RISP that Semien has.

Forgive me if I don’t get excited about a hit with RISP that delivers a .001 WPA.

Meanwhile, Brett Baty has 10 hits with RISP, 2 SF and 18 RBIs. That’s fewer hits, fewer sac flies and four more RBIs. But you don’t hear the announcers talk about how productive Baty is in these situations.

It’s easy to see Semien’s .333 AVG with RISP and get excited and also to view Baty’s .263 AVG and not get inspired. But once you look at things past that initial glance, Baty seems more productive. It’s just another reason why you need to look past AVG when evaluating how good a player is in reality.

Freddy Peralta got lit up and the Mets’ offense reverted to early-season form, resulting in a 7-0 loss to the Cardinals Tuesday night in the first game of the homestand. It’s the seventh time this year the Mets have been shut out.

After two strong frames to start the game, Peralta blew up in the third inning. He struggled with his command and when he did throw strikes, the Cardinals smacked him around. Peralta gave up four runs in the third inning and two more in the fifth.

We’ve seen the Mets pull starters when they’re cruising and tonight it was the exact opposite. Peralta was sent back to the mound in the sixth inning because his pitch count was low. For all of those complaining about “five-inning Freddy,” well he went six tonight. Call me crazy, but I’d rather see 5 IP and 1 ER than 6 IP and 6 ER.

What was really dismaying was the lack of offense. The Mets managed just five hits and one walk, which shouldn’t be acceptable. Hitters struck out nine times. You’re excited if your pitchers have a 9.0 K/BB ratio but it’s terrible for your hitters. Night after night we see three walks or fewer from the Mets’ hitters. Why isn’t there more heat on the hitting coach for this terrible approach at the plate from the club’s batters?

A.J. Ewing had two hits to pace the Mets’ offense. Five slots in the order ended up hitless, including Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien and Jared Young – who were all hitting well in the past nine games. To be fair, Semien hit a ball deep to center field that seemed like a hit initially, only to have the center fielder make a twisting-turning catch.

Francisco Alvarez returned to the lineup and ripped a single his first time up. He had surgery on May 12 and it’s remarkable how quickly he returned to action. Hopefully Francisco Lindor will soon follow but don’t hold your breath on that one.

1. Elian Peña, SS (Age 18) Low A Port St. Lucie: Given that he is only 18 and already playing well as 18, there is a lot of deserving hype surrounding Peña, who brings a lot of skills to bear. He makes good contact and is actually a high batting average player who boasts both power and speed. His overall power production is slightly down from his DSL numbers in 2025 but not in a truly impactful way as he is still hitting plenty of doubles. He is a bit of a swinger and he has seen an uptick in his K-rate but he also walks a healthy amount. As a lefty we should not be surprised that he strikes out more against lefties but we should watch it moving forward.

2. Yovanny Rodriguez, C (Age 19) Rookie FCL: Rodriguez was a big hype catching prospect in a string of Mets big hype catching prospects. We went from Francisco Alvarez, to Daiverson Gutierrez and then to Rodriguez in seemingly sequential years. (It wasn’t, but it sure felt that way) Rodriguez wasn’t amazing in his first season of DSL at age 17 but came on strong in 2025 with a .331/.446/.493 slash line. The age old wisdom tells us not to trust the DSL so, we look at 2026 and his numbers are almost better. He presently has a .294/.400/.559 slash line and looks like he is ready to move on up.

3. Wandy Asigen, SS (Age 16) DSL Orange Mets: Asigen hasn’t played a game in 2026 but comes with Elian Peña levels of hype and expectation. If you want to tune into the DSL for anything, it might be to see his numbers when he starts getting into game action.

4. Edward Lantigua, OF (Age 19) Low A Port St. Lucie: He only managed 30 at bats over 9 games before going down to injury with a nice game on May 8th right before going down. His 2025 FCL numbers are pretty exciting, and we hope he has a speedy recovery.

5. Cleiner Ramirez, OF (Age 17) DSL Orange Mets: While not as hyped as Asigen or Peña, Ramirez has some solid international prospect buzz. Through 5 games he already has 2 doubles and 2 home runs so it seems some of that buzz is warranted but it’s too small a sample and the DSL.

6. Roybert Herrera, 3B (Age 18) Rookie FCL: Herrera appeared on the scene in 2024 where his DSL numbers were good but could have been anomalous. He then followed that up with solid steady improvement in 2025 where he began to establish power credentials. His 7 games in 2026 are too small a sample, particularly with his .500 BABIP numbers but it seems that Herrera is on track to be a stateside success.

7. Peter Kusow, RHSP (Age 19) Rookie FCL: A rare pitcher on this list, Kusow was the Mets 4th round pick in the 2025 draft and, because fate is cruel, he won’t be playing at all in 2026.

There are plenty other young players in the Mets organization who might be worthy of note, but it is hard to judge them based on their limited sample size. I will keep my tabs on these players and do my best to bring them to your attention as they arise.

A lot has been made about the Mets making five trips to the West Coast. It certainly seems odd not to have fewer trips than that and for all of the trips to be done by the first week of June. The Mets have a 14-21 road record but the five trips to the West Coast is not the reason for their poor record in away games to date.

There are eight potential teams to play in either the Mountain or Pacific time zones and this year the Mets played seven of them, missing only the A’s, who they’ll play at home this year after having a three-game set in West Sacramento in 2025. Their record against the seven teams they did play was 11-11. That included getting swept by the Dodgers, playing without Juan Soto, and going 1-2 against the Mariners. The Mets are now 4-11 lifetime in Seattle

The poor road record is due by getting swept by both the Cubs and the Marlins.

So much depends on how well the opponent is playing, as well as how the Mets are faring. They played the Cubs at the start of Chicago’s best stretch of the year. The Cubs won the two games before the Mets came to town by a combined 21-6 score. The sweep was part of a 10-game winning streak by the Cubs. And the Mets didn’t have Soto. Right now, the Cubs are 5-16 in their last 21 games. Too bad the Mets didn’t play them in the last two weeks.

On the flip side, the Mets got to play the Padres while they were in a rough patch. They started off the season 31-20. But in their last 10 games before the Mets came to town, the Padres were 1-9. The Mets took two of the three games and could have realistically swept, having a lead entering the seventh inning, only to fall by a 3-2 score.

The Marlins weren’t playing particularly well when the Mets came to town. But the Mets’ hitting woes reached their nadir in that series, as they scored one run in two games and zero in the other. But when the Marlins came to New York four days later, the Mets scored 25 runs in the three games

Everyone frets because the Mets have a bunch of games remaining against teams that are currently above .500 this season. That’s less than ideal. But who knows how those squads will be playing at the time they square off against the Mets? The next series comes against the Cardinals, who are seven games over .500 and enter on a four-game winning streak. But St. Louis was 2-7 before then. Was the winning streak a brief break in a bad stretch or the start of a hot streak? We’ll have the answer by Thursday evening.

To me, the big question is which offense shows up for the Mets. The average team scores 4.44 runs per game and the Mets are below average with a 4.08 mark. But in the last nine games, the Mets have scored 51 runs, an average of 5.67 rpg. And that came against three clubs with better records than the Mets.

Here are the top four Mets in wRC+ in those nine games:

227 – Carson Benge
194 – Marcus Semien
157 – Jared Young
120 – Bo Bichette

Benge, Bichette and Semien had been less than good prior to these last nine games, with Bichette and Semien below the Galvis Line and Benge just barely above it. And Young was out injured for most of the year. Can these four continue their hot hitting? If not, can four others step up and take their place?

For most of the year, the Mets have had 2-3 players hitting well at various points and the rest were anchors. Even in this hot streak, we still see a lack of players hitting at a somewhat normal rate. While the four mentioned above, along with Luis Torrens, are all playing well, the other four hitters with at least 20 PA in this span all have a wRC+ of 82 or worse, with three being under a 55 mark. Can some of these bottom-dwellers come up to a 90-110 wRC+?

No one should expect Benge and Semien to continue at this rate. Yet what if they’re average offensive performers going forward? Average would be a huge improvement over what they’ve given the club most of the year.

And what about Young? In 111 PA as a Met, he has 11 XBH, an .815 OPS and a 127 OPS+. Can he be an average offensive player going forward? It would be wonderful if the Mets could get average (or better) production from three slots that have been basically sink holes all year long.

Let’s just hope the clock doesn’t strike midnight on Benge, Semien and Young and they go back to being pumpkins. Because if that does happen, it’s going to be tough for the Mets to mount any sort of a consistent offensive attack.

The Mets are a remarkable 24-5 when they score four or more runs this year. The problem is scoring that many in the first place. It shouldn’t be this much of a slog to score runs at a league-average rate. But that’s where we are with the 2026 club. A bunch of good teams coming up? No problem, so long as the Mets’ offense shows up.

Semien hit another home run as did Melendez and Benge. Benge also hit a triple in going five for five raising his batting average to .265 and his OPS to .733. I’ll bet you would not guess that Benge leads the Mets with 34 runs scored. Lots of offense today with 13 hits. Day off tomorrow before facing the Cardinals at home on Tuesday.

From Wikipedia: “”Truth serum“ is a colloquial name for any of a range of psychoactive drugs used in an effort to obtain information from subjects who are unable or unwilling to provide it otherwise.”

There are serious questions both about the validity of results from these drugs and also to the morality of their use. Yet let’s pretend that these concerns don’t exist. Our magic wand can deliver a truth serum with perfect reliability, no side effects and a pleasant experience for the recipient. But this is a one-shot deal. Who would you administer the truth serum to – Steve Cohen or Carlos Mendoza or David Stearns? My choice would probably be Stearns but here are some questions for all three:

Cohen

1. Do you regret buying the Mets and spending all of the money you have for mostly a lousy product?
2. How big of a role was the possibility of a casino license in the decision to purchase the club?
3. Is Stearns the right guy to be running the operation?
4. The mainstream media likes to portray you as a Mets fan from way back. How accurate is that?
5. Do you believe a salary cap is good for anyone besides the owners?

Mendoza

1. Do you have the autonomy in the dugout that you feel you need to succeed?
2. What would need to happen for you to give Bo Bichette and/or Marcus Semien a day off?
3. Was the 2025 clubhouse toxic? How about this year’s version?
4. How did you feel about all of your coaches being let go after 2025?
5. Is there anything you can learn from Mike Brown’s coaching the Knicks to the finals?

Stearns

1. With the benefit of hindsight, how many moves in your tenure would you like a do-over?
2. How do you sleep at night with an obscene payroll and a last-place team?
3. Is this job too big for you?
4. What directives are you giving Mendoza?
5. Do you refuse to fire Mendoza because then all of the heat would be on you?

Shoot, since this picture has Gary Cohen, too, let’s have him as an option.

1. Do you get instructions to praise (or not to criticize) certain players?
2. Does Keith Hernandez’ cons outweigh his pros here in 2026?
3. Is your vision ok? You seem to be missing a lot on how well a ball is hit.
4. What change do you feel the team needs to make ASAP?
5. You’ve cited DRS multiple times this year - are you aware of Semien’s DRS?

The Mets took the lead in the top of the seventh only to immediately lose it in the bottom of the frame and end up on the wrong end of a 3-2 game in San Diego against the Padres Saturday night.

It looked like Marcus Semien was going to be the star of the game. He singled and scored the Mets’ first run in the second inning and hit a solo homer in the seventh. But it wasn’t enough. Semien had another shot in the ninth but popped up for the second out of the inning.

Austin Warren relieved Nolan McLean to start the bottom of the seventh inning. He got the first two batters and got a weak ground ball on the right side from the third hitter of the inning. It was setting up to be a bang-bang play at first base. Warren dove for the ball and was unable to complete the play. He might have been better off letting the first baseman field it but even then, it wasn’t a sure thing to turn into an out.

Warren came up and seemed to have tweaked his elbow a bit. At the very least, he was rubbing it. His first pitch to the next batter turned into a gopher ball and that was all she wrote.

McLean gave six innings but they were not easy or pretty. He had trouble throwing his pitches for strikes and there was a lot of traffic on the bases. But he limited the damage to just one run. We can argue whether it was gutty pitching or just bad offense by the Padres. Either way, kudos to McLean for keeping the game within reach.

The Mets had a golden scoring opportunity in the eighth inning. With one out, Carson Benge and Bo Bichette hit back-to-back singles, bringing up Juan Soto. And Soto scalded the ball, hitting a line drive with an exit velocity of 100.9 mph, with an xBA of .910 – but it was caught and turned into an inning-ending double play.

In the ninth inning, A.J. Ewing had a terrific AB, which included getting a pitch overturned for a ball, and ended up with a 7-pitch walk. But Mark Vientos struck out on three pitches, the final one nowhere close to being a strike that he flailed on, to end the game.

The Mets will try to win the series and finish the six-game road trip at .500 with Sean Manaea on the mound for the 4:10 p.m. start.

My ideal, my preference is to have a roster with the 26-best available players. Of course, it never works out that way in real life. You never have all of your players healthy. Beyond that, you have players on your roster due to a lack of options. Teams carry players because of their out-sized contracts. And sometimes a more-deserving player is in the minors because of a more-established player at his position in the majors. Plus, we often think someone is kept around because they have incriminating photos of powerful people in the organization.

So, let’s wave a magic wand and make everyone healthy. Further, let’s pretend options and contract clauses don’t exist and we can send anyone to the minors. Finally, let’s not be concerned about what’s best for the long-term status of a player by sitting him on the bench in the majors, rather than having him play every day in Syracuse. What would the 2026 Mets look like?

Let’s start with the locks:

SP – Holmes, McLean, Peralta, Scott
RP – Brazoban, Minter, Raley, Warren, Weaver, Williams
C – Alvarez, Torrens
INF – Baty, Bichette, Lindor, Young
OF – Benge, Ewing, Soto

That’s 19 players, with three who are currently on the IL. We still need a starter, two relievers, two infielders and two outfielders.

There are at least five players to consider for the last spot in the rotation. We can choose from Sean Manaea, David Peterson, Kodai Senga, Jonah Tong and Jack Wenninger. If part of the rules included having players perform at their top level, it would be Senga. But that’s not the rule and the reality is that Senga’s margin for error is tiny. Combine that with the thought that his presence would require a six-man rotation and it becomes impossible to pick him.

Both Tong and Wenninger might have the highest upside of the remaining four yet it’s hard to pick either one if you’re looking to maximize results for the rest of 2026. Tong doesn’t look ready and Wenninger has yet to throw a pitch in the majors. Which brings us to the two maddening lefties.

Manaea got busted to the pen because his velocity was down in Spring Training. But now it’s back. In his last six appearances, a stretch of 17 IP, Manaea has a 3.18 ERA, supported by a 3.05 FIP, with 6 BB and 19 Ks. Meanwhile, for a bit it looked like Peterson’s trouble came with the pitch calling. But in his last start, he allowed 6 ER in 5 IP. So, Manaea for the last rotation spot.

Moving to the pen, there are numerous candidates if we include minor league players. To simplify things, we’ll eliminate those guys from consideration, as there’s no one having a lights-out season in Syracuse. Essentially, they’re good, not great, options. Still, that leaves us with Reed Garrett, Joey Gerber, Tobias Myers, Dedniel Nunez, Cionel Perez and Peterson.

You can make strong cases for all six of the players listed above. Ultimately, my picks are Garrett, who’s shown the ability to pitch both multi-innings and back-to-back when healthy and Nunez, who seems to have the most-electric stuff of the group.

The infield needs a RHB to complement Jared Young and someone capable of playing both middle infield spots. I’m a quasi-fan of Mark Vientos yet I’m having a tough time pulling the trigger to put him on this roster. Which leaves Jorge Polanco as the RHB to pair with Young. Throughout his career, Polanco has been better versus RHP but last year he had an .888 OPS against southpaws and in 2023, it was an .823 mark against lefties, so he’s certainly capable.

There’s no way on earth Marcus Semien gets the middle infielder nod because he, you know, stinks. Vidal Brujan can’t hit. Which means that Ronny Mauricio becomes the other infielder. Yes, he’d probably be better served getting playing time in the minors. Yet if all things were equal – it seems easy to pick Mauricio, who has the most-realistic upside here.

Which brings us to the outfield. What do you want from the remaining two bench players? Maybe someone who could allow Juan Soto to DH some. Maybe a righty-hitting bat to pinch-hit late for a catcher or second baseman. A good glove is always handy to have on the bench, as well as someone who can enter as a PR and steal a bag.

Luis Robert Jr. is the righty bat with the most upside. He stole 33 bases in 2025 and is generally regarded as a good defensive center fielder, even if we didn’t see a ton of evidence of that in his brief stint with the Mets before hitting the IL. He’s the pick for the first outfield reserve.

That leaves two players vying for the last spot. We have Tyrone Taylor, a righty batter who hasn’t hit consistently enough since joining the Mets but does everything else. And there’s MJ Melendez, a lefty hitter who’s not as good defensively but who holds a 97 to 48 edge in OPS+. Throw in the fact that Melendez can serve as an emergency catcher and he claims the final spot. Here’s the final mythical roster:

SP – Holmes, Manaea, McLean, Peralta, Scott
RP – Brazoban, Garrett, Minter, Nunez, Raley, Warren, Weaver, Williams
C – Alvarez, Torrens
INF – Baty, Bichette, Lindor, Mauricio, Polanco, Young
OF – Benge, Ewing, Melendez, Robert, Soto

So, my ideal roster has no Semien, no Vientos and eight players currently on the IL. It’s never the guys you want to get hurt who end up being lost to injury.

Jared Young and Luis Torrens cracked home runs and four pitchers combined on a shutout to lead the Mets to a 5-0 victory over the Padres in San Diego Friday night. It was the second win in a row for the Mets, who are now 6-2 in their last eight games.

Young opened the scoring with a 422-foot blast to right field in the second inning to put the Mets up, 1-0. Bo Bichette had an RBI triple in the third inning to drive in Torrens, who reached base on a double. Torrens added a two-run homer in the fifth and Brett Baty capped the scoring with an RBI hit in the ninth.

Christian Scott put up 5.2 scoreless innings to get the win. He allowed just three hits and lowered his ERA on the year to a 2.50 mark. Huascar Brazoan, Luke Weaver and A.J. Minter finished up, giving the bullpen 3.1 scoreless innings in this one.

The Mets had nine hits, with five of those going for extra-bases. Bichette had a double and a triple and raised his season-long OPS to a .609 mark. It was good to see the XBH but it’s hard not to wonder where the walks are. The Mets did not draw a single free pass in the game.

Still, they upped their records in blowouts – games decided by five or more runs – to 10-10, not bad for a team that generally struggles to score runs. The victory pushed the Mets’ record on the year to 28-35.

This is an answer from a recent mailbag asking what happens to Brett Baty when Francisco Lindor returns:

Given the way Baty seems to produce better when playing third regularly, one could argue the Mets should move Bichette to second and keep Baty at third, forcing a decision on Marcus Semien’s big contract. But Semien has hit better and for more power lately, has played better defense than the metrics indicate, and has been one of the Mets’ most crucial hitters with runners in scoring position.

Plus, Baty certainly has not blown him away in terms of production this year. So any major decision on Semien at this point would seem several steps away, if on the table at all.

Source: Chelsea Janes, SNY

How big of a sample do you need to make assertions with any degree of confidence? Semien hit home runs in back-to-back games. Since then, he’s gone 0-8. Which two-game sample is more meaningful? Before you answer, know that Semien had a 7-game stretch, which culminated in the consecutive games with homers, where he posted a 1.206 OPS in 26 PA. He hit three homers in this span, which accounts for the four-digit OPS. Those seven games happened and in no way should we ignore them.

At the same time, should we ignore the rest of what Semien has done this year? In the 53 games before that 7-game streak, Semien had a .560 OPS. And, as mentioned earlier, he’s 0-8 in his last two games. It’s my opinion that basing anything, on any player, on what they did in 26 PA is the height of wishful thinking.

As for Semien’s results with runners in scoring position, that’s a 58-PA sample where he has a .386 BABIP. And even with this stretch where the hits are falling in at an unsustainable rate, Semien has just 14 RBIs with 17 hits and 3 Sacrifice Flies. That’s at least six hits with RISP that didn’t drive in a run. And if given the chance, you should probably bet the over.

Shoot, there’s only five games this year where Semien drove in two or more runs in a game, so let’s check. And sure enough, on May 1, Semien came up with two runners in scoring position and drove them both in with a single. So, that makes seven hits with RISP that didn’t drive in a run. That’s, um, not good.

Meanwhile, when Baty started playing 3B regularly this season, he has a .682 OPS in 105 PA. That’s nothing to write home about. Yet let’s compare that to Semien’s OPS in his last 103 PA, which includes the recent stretch of hot hitting. In that time frame, Semien has a .617 OPS. If a .682 OPS is nothing special – what does that make a .617 mark? And why should we prioritize a 26-PA stretch over a 103-PA stretch, or the entirety of this year, with Semien having a .608 OPS in 244 PA?

Finally, how on earth can you say with a straight face that Semien has played better defense than the metrics indicate? What is this – alternative facts? We’re all supposed to acknowledge Semien’s defense when the metrics show him as a good defensive player, as they’ve done the previous five years he’s played second base. But as soon as they paint a different picture – now he’s better than the metrics? What kind of fantasy is this?

For what it’s worth, Semien was a poor defensive shortstop from 2015 until he was moved permanently to second base, amassing a (-28) FRV in his final 5,704.1 innings at short. Let’s stop pretending that he’s this incredible defensive player. His defense was bad enough that he had to be moved off shortstop. And it was a plus when he first moved to second base. But now, in his age-35 season, he’s slipped defensively. Again. Why is this so hard to believe? Why does anyone feel the need to make stuff up that goes against what we know from the aging patterns of tens of thousands of players? Why were the metrics just fine before but now they’re not reliable? Hopefully, each and every one of your BS meters are flashing obnoxious red lights with this statement about Semien’s defense.

It would be wonderful if Semien was the player he was in 2023, when he had a 6.5 fWAR. It would be very nice if he was the player he was in 2024, when he had a 4.3 fWAR. It would be acceptable if he was the player he was in 2025, when he was a league-average starter with a 2.1 fWAR. But Semien is not remotely close to that player anymore.

We’ve seen a consistent level of decline in the last few years and that pattern continues here in 2026. After 62 games, Semien has a (-0.2) fWAR. Maybe he rebounds and gets into positive fWAR totals by the end of the year. But unless he finds the fountain of youth, or takes loads of steroids, he’s not reversing the downward trend. He’s only going to continue to get worse for the remainder of his contract.

Meanwhile, Baty may never approach the type of numbers that Semien put up in his prime. Shoot, he may never put up the numbers that Semien posted in 2025. But any objective person would choose to play 2026 Baty over 2026 Semien. Their season-long numbers favor Baty. The most-recent 100-plus sample favors Baty. And Baty, in his age-26 season, simply has the most likely chance to improve his current production.

It’s not rocket science.

The case for Semien depends on a 7-game sample with his offense and closing your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting nah-nah-nah-nah-nah when it comes to his defense.

It was a mistake to acquire Semien in the first place. There’s zero reason to compound that mistake and continue to play him one more day than you have to. Right now, Semien is (probably) a better player than the only reasonable alternative on the roster to play 2B in Vidal Brujan. In 655 PA in the majors, Brujan has a .541 OPS, even worse than 2026 Semien. But when Lindor returns – whenever that may be – the right answer is to play 28-year-old Bo Bichette and 26-year-old Baty and put the 35-year-old Semien on the bench.

The only question is where to play Bichette and Baty. My preference would be to keep Baty at 3B and put Bichette at 2B. At the same time, you could make the case to have Bichette return to 3B, so he wouldn’t have to play a third different position this year. Yes, Baty has played more than that here in 2026. But no one should fault the Mets if they prioritize the comfort level of the guy with the higher offensive upside, which is Bichette.

Last month I wrote that Mendoza had an 18 game leash, six three game series, and that in my opinion, they needed to win 12 of those 18 games for him to keep his job. May started off strong and then faded. They were eight games under .500 when I wrote that article and today, a month later, they are nine games under, after being smushed 8-3 Tuesday night by the Mariners. Not only did they lose a little more ground, they lost an entire month off the schedule. They are now one month closer to sadly being trade deadline sellers.

No matter how you slice it, Mendoza is not the one on the field performing. He is not in a hitting slump, or failing to make a play in the field, nor walking countless batters. Nine games under is not the end of the world, and if they went 16-12 every month going forward, like they did in May, then their chances of making the playoffs would drastically improve. The problem is they won’t go 16-12 every month going forward, nor do we even realistically expect them to play .500 ball each month.

The Mets are not alone in depressing their fan base as a bunch of competitive teams from 2025 are slumping. The Detroit Tigers, who won 87 games last year are 14 games under .500 with a -30 run differential. The KC Royals, who won 82 games last year, find themselves a half game behind the Tigers in the standings, sitting at 15 games under .500 with a -53 run differential. The SF Giants, wo finished at .500 last year, are strangely 15 games under .500 with a -67 run differential and even the Boston Red Sox, who won 89 games last year and contended for the division, sit at nine games under .500 despite a run differential of just -7. And yes, the Red Sox were team that already sent their manager packing.

In the American league, only five of 15 teams are over .500. In the national league, 10 of 15 teams are over .500. Can anyone recall such an imbalance between the leagues? It’s clearly not just about spending the most on payroll as the Tampa Bay Rays, who finished last season eight games under .500, currently cling to a one game lead atop the AL East. They are doing so with a payroll of a little more than $102 million, putting them at 24^th place in the salary sweepstakes. If you want to put their team payroll into perspective, it is about $1 million less than what the Mets are paying Juan Soto and Bo Bichette. Any school teacher that preaches “reading, writing and arithmetic, ought to teach the strike zone instead.

Spending more on payroll should produce winning results, unless you totally miscalculate who you are spending that money on, as the Mets did. If David Stearns was committed to bringing up the kids, then he should have done so and not saddled the team with old men Polanco and Semien. Carson Benge made the team out of spring training and he has finally starting to get his stroke down, now hitting .252, with an increased OPS of .698 to go along with six HR and 24 RBI, 10 stolen bases and 31 runs scored, which leads the team. There was talk in spring training of bringing AJ Ewing north with the team and it did not take long, with some injuries, to bring him up. After struggling a bit at the plate, Ewing is now hitting .252 with a .667 OPS to go along with 10 runs scored and five stolen bases from the back end of the order. Love his small ball approach to getting on and moving runners up. If it was run prevention Stearns wanted, watching these two track down balls in the outfield is a thing of beauty. If Benge and Ewing keep improving at the plate (Benge hit two HRs on Tuesday) then the Mets outfield should be solid into the next decade.

They say that hindsight is always 20-20, but it seems that they should have forgone the expensive old age free agents and turned it over to these two kids from the start of the season despite their obvious inexperience and flaws. They could have simply let Tyrone Taylor go as he rarely contributes to the offense and instead had Morabito or Clifford playing the bench. What they should have done, and I suggested it, was to embrace the Houston Astro’s tear down method, which was painful, but then produced a decade of competitiveness and a few championships. We all would have hated it, but less, I believe, then our disdain for the underperforming of nearly every high priced new addition to the off season roster.

But back to Mendoza. You cannot fire a team of players and the fact that a slew of the “older” baby Mets still cannot find consistency at the plate or in the field is again not Mendoza’s fault. Nor are the slew of injuries to several starters that have forced the Mets to make a patchwork quilt of players to fill in. It’s also financially difficult, even with the richest owner in baseball, to simply release high priced underperforming multi-millionaires like Sean Manaea and the aforementioned Polanco and Semien. Now Manaea wants to be traded. Perhaps he can work the phones and find a team willing to take his underperforming self along with a decent portion of the $25 million they owe him this and next year. Bye bye Sean – you brought this on yourself.

Can anyone still understand how the Mets could fire every coach but not the manager who led them to one of the worst finishes in Met history? It reminds me of a great line from the movie the Caine Mutiny (worth watching) where Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg refuses to take the blame for his actions and instead disses his crew by saying “all his officers were disloyal.” The Mets logic was insane and since the tone starts from the top, even if Mendoza is a great baseball mind, he has not been able to translate what he learned as a Yankee’s bench coach to effectively lead this team. Sure, he’s a nice guy and the players like him, but that has not translated into wins.

Buck Showalter led the team to 101 wins in 2022 and then was fired after the 2023 season when the team slumped to a 75-87 record. He was an ass-kicking manager, the type of guy the Mets need now to motivate them for the rest of the season.

How about picking a manager who has experience and not someone you hope can a step up from giving advice to the manager, to being the one making the bottom line tough calls. Someone who knows how to handle a pitching staff and is not trigger happy to pulling starters when they get to the third time around the order.

While the only advantage of playing poorly is that it gives the fans a chance to buy great seats at a cheap price on Stub Hub, it is time to try and salvage this season. They will then have several months to figure out who comes next. And of course some will push for Carlos Beltran, another candidate who has no managerial experience. The fact that he has Hall of Fame credentials as a player places him only slightly ahead of the candidacy of our own Brian Joura.

Freddy Peralta came up with a strong six innings and the offense sprung to life with 14 hits, as the Mets avoided getting swept with a 7-1 victory over the Mariners Wednesday afternoon in Seattle. After two disappointing efforts to start the road trip, it was a good win with which to head to San Diego.

Staked to a 1-0 lead, Peralta gave up a home run to the first batter he faced. But that’s all he allowed the rest of the way. There was a fair amount of traffic on the basepaths but Peralta maneuvered around it without any additional damage. He struck out six batters, lowered his ERA to 3.38 and evened his record at 4-4.

Bo Bichette had a 4-hit game. He scored on an error in the first inning and drove in three runs. A.J. Ewing had a 3-hit day and Jared Young & Luis Torrens both had two hits apiece. It was great to see 14 hits but it’s disappointing to see the Mets draw just one walk.

Brett Baty and Marcus Semien were the only Mets not to join the party, as they both had an 0-5 day, with Baty fanning three times.

Brooks Raley and Luke Weaver each tossed a scoreless inning and recently activated Joey Gerber finished up with a 1-2-3 ninth.

The Mets have a day off on Thursday before a three-game series in San Diego. Christian Scott takes the mound Friday night in the 9:40 p.m. start.

I have an unexpected trip to Boone this afternoon and right now I don’t feel very much like talking about the Mets. Which I guess puts me in the same boat as the rest of the people who visit this site, judging by the lack of comments and participation in the Game Chatters in the last week or so, which included a four-game winning streak.

We all have lives and frequently lives are messy and don’t lend themselves to a bunch of time spent on a sub-.500 team. I get it - boy do I get it.

It’s just that this time - it just feels different. The Mets have had a bunch of times during the Mets360 era where they haven’t been a particularly good team, so it’s not like this is new territory for us fans. Perhaps in the past we were united against a common enemy. And now the enemies are too varied and there’s no consensus and we all feel more helpless than usual in this bad stretch.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Whatever the malaise is that’s affecting both the team and the fans - I hope it lifts soon. My trip will keep me from watching today’s afternoon game. Maybe that’s a good thing. I just hope to get back in time to see the tip for Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Go Knicks!

Carson Benge hit two home runs but it wasn’t nearly enough, as the Mariners beat the Mets, 8-3, Tuesday night in Seattle. The Mariners have now gone 11-5 against the Mets in their last 16 head-to-head tilts.

The Mets decided to go with an opener again and Huascar Brazoban allowed 2 ER in 1.2 IP. He’s now allowed 4 ER in 6.0 IP as a starting pitcher. Here’s a thought – let’s stop using him in that role. When used as a reliever, Brazoban has a 1.46 ERA in 24.2 IP.

And to make it crazier, Jonah Tong was brought in the game to face the leadoff hitter, negating whatever little advantage there is to using an opener.

Tong never appeared comfortable on the mound in this one. And he wasn’t helped by his defense, either. Tong allowed 5 R, 4 ER, in 3.1 IP.

Benge cracked a two-run homer that tied the game in the top of the third and then smacked a solo shot in the sixth. The two-homer game got Benge’s season-long OPS to .705 – the MLB average coming into Tuesday was .710, so he’s no longer the embarrassment that some of his wealthier teammates continue to be.

Speaking of wealthier teammates – Marcus Semien went 0-3, hit into a double play, struck out and made an error. But no doubt he’ll be back in the lineup tomorrow.

Mark Vientos went 0-4 with a ninth inning K and also made an error.

Freddy Peralta will try to help the Mets salvage the final game of the series on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s a “Highway 61 Revisited” kind of day. Gravity has failed and negativity can’t pull me thru. Everyone wants to know how does it feel while I spend my time peeking into Desolation Row. My advice is to not let the boys in.

But this is a blog about the Mets, not my existential dread, even if that’s not two distinct circles in a Venn Diagram.

There are many things around the Mets that don’t make sense to me. We’ve discussed a lot of them and there’s no desire here to rehash those. So, let’s go with the club’s use of openers.

From a pure theoretical point of view, teams use an opener so that when the bulk reliever faces a lineup for the third time, he doesn’t immediately start off with the other team’s best hitters. The third-time-thru-the-order penalty should be less if you’re facing Mike Jorgensen, Jerry Morales and Doug Flynn, rather than Lenny Dykstra, Wally Backman and Keith Hernandez.

But what gets me is using a multi-inning reliever as the opener.

The Mets have used an opener seven times, with three different relievers. Monday night they used Austin Warren and previously they’ve used Huascar Brazoban and Tobias Myers. Those seven games, the opener gave the Mets 8.2 IP. If you’re essentially using an opener for one inning – a reasonable deployment – why not use a one-inning reliever and save the multi-inning guys for later?

With Warren already used, the Mets had to go inning by inning with relievers after the bulk pitcher Sean Manaea was removed. You can argue that’s exactly what Carlos Mendoza would have preferred given that Manaea got them thru the sixth inning. The rested pen had the three main relievers set up to go, with A.J. Minter available, too.

But Brooks Raley lost the lead and Minter lost the game. And what if Minter got the game to the 11^th? Who was going to pitch then? They were trying to stay away from Brazoban and David Peterson definitely wasn’t available.

Because they had burned a multi-inning reliever as an opener, Mendoza would have had to choose between Brazoban and Cionel Perez – neither a great choice at the time.

On one hand, you don’t want to manage expecting disaster. On the other hand, this is the Mets we’re talking about so things going sideways should be part of the equation.

In the paint-by-numbers managing en vogue, you use Raley in the seventh inning, Luke Weaver in the eighth and Devin Williams in the ninth. To be fair, that usage has worked more often than it failed. But by using all three in the same game, you leave the pen in a compromised place moving forward. If they use a multi-inning guy for both the seventh and eighth, the pen is in a better spot.

In eight of his last 12 appearances, Warren went more than an inning. His average leverage in those 12 games was 1.13 – so it’s not like he was just being used as a mop-up man in low-leverage spots. Could he have been used in the seventh and eighth innings last night? To me that’s not an unthinkable usage scenario.

Of course, I’ve long been a champion of multi-inning relievers. The Mets are much more open to the concept than they’ve been in the past. They’re just not as far along the path as we might hope. We want things to happen instantly and change many more times than not goes on a much-slower path.

It looks like the Mets are going to start Jonah Tong tonight, rather than using an opener. Still, my hope is that if the Mets go with an opener next time Manaea goes – they use a one-inning guy in the role, rather than Brazoban or Warren. Hold those guys back in case their multi-inning ability is needed later.