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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Jason Fry on 22 April 2026 11:50 pm With two outs in the ninth and the Mets up by a skinny run, the Twins’ Brooks Lee slapped a ball into the hole, to the right of fill-in shortstop Bo Bichette. Bichette made a nice play to corral it, threw across his body with everything he had … but no, Lee had beaten it out.
Lee had beaten it out and was replaced at first by the annoyingly speedy James Outman. Striding to the plate to face Luke Weaver was Byron Buxton, the same Byron Buxton who’d tortured the Mets over two games with both bat and glove, and who now was perfectly placed to break hearts again in a way that felt like it might be irreparable.
“I’m too old for this,” said my soon-to-be-83-year-old mom from her post in the chair next to me.
“So am I,” said about-to-be-57-year-old me.
“Me three,” said my not-yet-23-year-old kid in distant Tacoma.
(I don’t know if that last part is true, but probably.)
Weaver, the Mets’ Shetland pony reliever, went to work on Buxton the way pitchers have gone to work on hitters for a century or so: fastballs at the top of the zone, breaking stuff below it. I was admiring Weaver’s compact motion and finding amusement in Francisco Alvarez being so amped behind the plate that he was practically vibrating. But I was also imagining Weaver leaving a fastball too low or a changeup too high and Buxton getting those lightning-fast hands in motion and 3-2 Mets becoming 4-3 Twins and Citi Field going silent as a tomb and after a last flurry of pointlessness the dreadful metronome of this 12-game losing streak ticking over to 13.
Except Weaver made a changeup dive enticingly, Buxton swung over it, and the Mets — perhaps improbably yet undeniably — had won.
No, it wasn’t easy.
There was Francisco Lindor slowing down rounding the bases, almost getting thrown out at the plate and then vanishing into the tunnel with a calf strain, which was what felled Juan Soto.
There was Mark Vientos running through Tim Leiper’s stop sign — Leiper’s helpless look was priceless — and getting thrown out at home by a margin big enough to accommodate a compact car, maybe even a midsize sedan.
There was Soto strolling off first and belatedly discovering the “walk to second” trick doesn’t work without Antoan Richardson pixie dust, as said magic powder is now the property of the Braves.
There was Buxton lurking along with various other annoyingly competent Twins, wearing applied-by-the-quart eyeblack (which a] doesn’t do anything; and b] anyway it was night) and pinstripes on the road. The former’s just silly; the latter will be a capital crime once I’m crowned Godking for Eternity.
And there was the sense of doom we could all feel lurking, the gnawing sense that hope is just disaster that hasn’t grown up yet. Twelve-game losing streaks do that to you.
But — and maybe this is just storytelling after the fact –it felt like there were other things at work too. Like Clay Holmes‘ steely performance, or Weaver stepping up when Brooks Raley looked shaky. Like the welcome sound of Soto’s bat connecting authoritatively with a baseball. Like patient ABs from Bichette and Alvarez and Brett Baty and Marcus Semien, whose approaches had been the stuff of consternation during this awful stretch.
And there was the sense that maybe said awful stretch had tired us all out to the point that we’d passed through despair and anger and venomous irony (those “MVP” chants for a baffled Austin Warren were simultaneously everything that makes me love and hate being a Mets fan) and wound up somewhere strange and new, in which we put everything else aside and simply hoped something good might happen.
Which it actually did.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring? There may well be talk of strains and MRIs. Christian Scott might remind us that getting back to the big leagues with elbow 2.0 isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. The ABs may get anxious again, the pitching may falter, the defense may turn porous.
Any number of bad things might happen. But tonight they didn’t. And tonight that feels like more than enough.
by Greg Prince on 22 April 2026 12:18 pm From innings one through five on Tuesday night, a perfect game took hold at Citi Field. From the sixth through ninth, four more perfect innings were thrown. Selective arithmetic indicates twenty-seven batters came up, twenty-seven batters went down in something approximating succession.
More down than up, per usual, for the New York Mets, noted perfectionists when it comes to crafting imperfect results that follow one after the other.
Nolan McLean did indeed convert the first fifteen Minnesota Twins he encountered into sullen siblings. This was the second time in four starts the second-year rookie had overwhelmed the opposition from the outset in exactly this fashion. For five innings, it was all Nolan, all the time, except for the bottom of the third, when Francisco Lindor cranked a three-run homer off former Met farmhand Simeon Woods Richardson, onto Carbonation Ridge. In the midst of this perfect never mind necessary start, it could not be said the Mets couldn’t score for McLean the way they couldn’t score for Jacob deGrom, the last Mets starting pitcher who routinely took command of every contest he commenced. Given how he utterly muffled Minnesota, McLean was reminding me hard of deGrom from those nights during Jake’s imperial phase of 2018-2021 when he’d reduce schools of Marlins and delegations of Nationals to cap-tipping spectators. In Nolan’s previous outing, at Dodger Stadium, he got me thinking about, at various junctures, 2013 Matt Harvey (whose older self was spotted in the L.A. stands watching him duel Yoshinobu Yamamoto); 1985 Doc Gooden (whose epic showdowns versus Fernando Valenzuela emanated from that very same mound); and 2010s Tom Seaver (who likely would have called the budding ace a “stud muffin,” the phrase the Franchise took to deploying to identify aces of his own ilk late in life).
Nolan is already at a level where he’s keeping between-pitches company with Met legends. DeGrom, Harvey, Gooden, and Seaver at their best cruised through lineups the way McLean does, not once in a while but as a matter of course. It didn’t last with Harvey, but at the top of his game, he was atop every game. It lasted longer with Gooden, if not forever, which was how long we assumed he’d be pulling down Cy Youngs. DeGrom couldn’t stay physically whole as a Met, and even when he did, he was compelled to frequently operate without offensive support. Seaver was Seaver. You get one of him in a lifetime, though you’ll take the occasional reasonable facsimile when one lands in your plans every fifth day.
McLean every fifth day represents the best reason for not deciding the 2026 Mets are an automatic lost cause. Prior to Tuesday night’s game, Steve Gelbs was burning sage outside the ballpark to chase off the bad vibes of an eleven-game losing streak. Candles were lit in the television booth. Images of horseshoes, positioned right side up, floated on the monitor behind Gary Cohen and Ron Darling. Everything that had a chance of going wrong had gone wrong over eleven consecutive games. Any lunge at better luck was worth a shot
The best chance to change Met luck, however, could be found on the mound. Handing McLean the ball was the tide-turning ritual this club required. You couldn’t have Juan Soto in the lineup for another 24 hours, so you figured if any among nine other hitters could put a little something together, Nolan would do the rest. By launching his bottom-of-the-third lunar exploration mission with two teammates aboard, Lindor had provided McLean the booster rocket his start cried out for. In what could be interpreted as a fit of premature jocularity, the giddy Met dugout celebrated Francisco’s blast by draping their slugger in construction gear, as if they were building a victory. The game before, at Wrigley, MJ Melendez homered in the fifth inning, putting the Mets ahead by one run. After circling the bases and eliciting heartiest congratulations from his new coworkers, MJ grabbed — with everybody’s approval evident — a handy sledgehammer and swung it like he had his bat, tacitly communicating, I guess, that the Mets were fixing to smash their losing streak to smithereens. The losing streak continued. The “good for us!” bit was altered. Perhaps the next Met to go deep will be handed a duffel bag in which to carry home the World Series trophy.
Following the ceremonial donning and subsequent removal of the vest and hard hat, McLean went back to work. A fourth perfect inning ensued. The Mets threatened to add on in the bottom of that frame. It couldn’t have hurt had at least one of their two runners who reached been driven in. They weren’t. When Nolan retired the visitors in order in the top of the fifth, it didn’t seem to matter that the Mets were up by only 3-0.
In the top of the sixth, McLean ceased being perfect when he allowed a leadoff single to Matt Wallner. Each among Jake, Matt, Doc, and Tom gave us the idea that some night he’d throw a perfect game for us. None ever did. Expecting perfection is folly. Expecting a 3-0 lead to remain impenetrable is a gamble. Major League Baseball will gladly take your action. We would have gladly accepted a couple more runs and called it a jackpot, but unbeknownst to us, that SS Mets Baserunner had already set sail from Flushing Bay and would soon be adrift in murky waters. But who wished to think about what wasn’t going perfectly? We had Nolan McLean on the mound, one Twin on base and a masterful one-hitter in progress.
What, us worry?
After getting the next two Twins, McLean faced Byron Buxton, who’s been the face of his franchise the way David Wright once fronted ours, through many years and many injuries. Buxton played for the same WBC squad McLean did just last month. In working the count to three-and-one, Nolan came up and in on Byron more than he meant to. The Team USA pitcher gestured to the Team USA hitter that he didn’t mean to administer such a close shave. An instant later, the hitter communicated no harm had been done…by doing terrible harm to the next cutter the pitcher delivered.
That thing was in orbit faster than you could say Artemis. The Mets’ lead was now 3-2. In the bottom of the sixth, the string of perfect innings continued. Not the top, but the bottom. The Mets have been revealing themselves as bottoms in every relationship they forge with their opponents of late. That tantalizing 1-2-3 magic that had belonged to McLean transferred to the Twin bullpen. Anthony Banda, Mets Journeymen Class of ’21, set down the Mets in order. In the top of the seventh, no longer perfect Nolan gave up the hits that tied the game. Mets 3 Twins 3. Our best hope to actually win a baseball game made it through six-and-two-thirds, striking out ten, qualifying for no more than a no-decision. McLean was awesome for most of his stay, just not all of it.
We’d get to make some Twin reliever acquaintances in the forthcoming frames, though it would become difficult to tell them apart. Isn’t that how it is with Twins? Justin Topa did in the bottom of the seventh what Banda had done in the bottom of the sixth, while Cole Sands did in the bottom of the eighth what Topa had done in the bottom of the seventh. Setting the Mets down in order was the new Nolan McLean is pitching a perfect game.
Huascar Brazobán did his part to maintain the tie, taking care of his four Twin batters. Devin Williams did his part to unknot everything. Our closer who’s had nothing to close in weeks busted the game as wide open as it needed to be from a Minnesota perspective. He walked Josh Bell. Shortly after pinch-runner James Outman stole second, he walked Ryan Jeffers. Kody Clemens laid down a sac bunt that led to no outs when first baseman Mark Vientos got ambitious and fired the ball to third. Too late to get Outman, too misguided to get any out, man. Luke Keaschall bounced one through the left side to give the Twins the lead, 4-3. Williams walked Wallner to give the Twins additional cushion, 5-3. Austin Warren, emerging as the people’s choice to take over as closer (whenever there will be something to close), came on and struck out the next three batters, stranding the bases loaded and earning cheers that sounded 75% sincere and 25% sarcastic. Thank you for preventing this from being worse. Thank you for not being Devin Williams..
Sands stuck around for the bottom of the ninth. The sands of time ran out for the Mets. Three up, three down, just like in the bottoms of the previous three innings, just like in the tops of the five before those. For the Twins, it was sufficient for a 5-3 win. For the Mets, it was tantamount to rolling a perfect series of boxcars: twelve batters up, twelve batters down, twelve consecutive games lost to five different teams situated in four different divisions hailing from three different time zones, the most losses they’ve strung together since August of 2002, one month after Nolan McLean turned one year old. I haven’t checked with NASA, but I strongly suspect you can see this losing streak from space.
by Jason Fry on 20 April 2026 6:19 am On Saturday I had nothing to do with the 2026 New York Mets, and honestly it was the nicest day I’d experienced in some time.
Oh, Emily and I kept it Mets-adjacent: We spent the afternoon in the stands at Maimonides Park on one of those “nice in the sun” early spring days, watching the Brooklyn Cyclones dismantle the Greensboro Grasshoppers and paying mild attention to the hot dog race, the amiably bush-league fan skits and the dogs attending Bark in the Park, doggily cheerful at being included.
I have a (rather modest) flex plan for this season; to my surprise the Cyclones decided this meant I deserved what seems to be a game-used jersey from last season’s Superman Night, with Superman and Krypto splashed across the front. Being me, I spent about 15 minutes Googling old rosters trying to figure out which Cyclone it had been issued to; in a shift to very much not being me, I then decided that it didn’t particularly matter and I could let it go.
The Cyclones, as I suggested to Emily while we lazed in the sunshine, are ambient baseball: even more enjoyable because close attention isn’t really necessary. And the Cyclones, wisely, made no mention of what their big-league brethren were up to; Emily and I didn’t know anything was amiss until the kid texted to anoint Brooks Raley the savior of our losing streak, news we greeted with … a vaguely existential shrug. Losing streaks of this duration will do that to you.
Come Sunday, though, we were back on duty, at our stations with my mom riding shotgun, wearing her O.G. Faith and Fear t-shirt in a bid to change the luck. And hey, the Mets didn’t play badly: David Peterson‘s outing was encouraging, Francisco Lindor didn’t do anything inexplicably dopey, Luke Weaver looked better than he has all year, and poor lost-at-sea Brett Baty even stopped lunging at bags of peanuts tossed into the cheap seats by vendors.
But the Mets’ offense was limited to a lone run, a bolt into the stands from MJ Melendez, and as the game ground through the late innings you knew that wasn’t going to be enough. The fatal blow came in the ninth, when Devin Williams offered once-upon-a-time Brooklyn Cyclone Michael Conforto a four-seamer in the middle of the plate. Conforto smacked it down the right-field line for a game-tying double; following a maddening top of the 10th, Craig Kimbrel advanced free runner and former Met farmhand Pete Crow-Armstrong to third via a wild pitch and then lost the game on a deep-enough fly ball from Nico Hoerner, who’d kept the Mets from scoring with heads-up defense in that tooth-grinding top of the frame. The Mets had lost, running their streak to 11, but honestly it came after an hour of seeing that as a when and not an if.
(Conforto and Crow-Armstrong, sheesh. Nothing like a defeat with a side of irony. But hey, who doesn’t cherish the memory of Javy Baez sulking around Citi Field giving us the thumbs-down?)
Impossible though it seems right now, the Mets will eventually win a baseball game and probably follow that win with other wins at various intervals. The question is whether any of us will care, ground down by this interminable stretch of winless baseball but also by the collective shruggability of David Stearns’ stopgap collection of misfit toys.
To be fair, April isn’t destiny in terms of records or identity: The 2024 Mets were still mismatched and off-putting as they staggered to the end of May, without so much of a hint that the season would gift us on-field concerts and then a deep playoff run. The 2015 Mets were fielding late-summer lineups so feeble that fan moaning could be heard a time zone away and columnists wanted Sandy Alderson’s head on a pike for negligence.
But I’m not finding “assume another miracle” a particularly satisfying north star. It sure is getting late early around here.
by Greg Prince on 18 April 2026 7:26 pm The New York Mets, entering Saturday’s matinee as losers of nine in a row, intermittently overcame some of what was stacked against them. The wind was blowing in at Wrigley Field, but Mark Vientos ripped a fly ball so hard that it landed well over the fence in the top of the second inning. That made for a run. They were going up against the defensively excellent Chicago Cubs, yet during the top of the eighth, a series of bounces and bobbles went their way, allowing them to build another run.
What a great way to take on destiny. Except the Mets have become a team destined to lose on a regular basis, as evidenced by the tops of the other seven innings when they scored not at all. Meanwhile, in those pesky inning bottoms, there was Ian Happ matching Vientos’s solo blast in the bottom of the second, and Freddy Peralta stopping short of serving as a stopper in the sixth. Freddy got the first two outs. Then he issued two walks on full counts. Peralta left. The formerly flawless Brooks Raley replaced him. The very first pitch the lefty threw, to pinch-hitter Carson Kelly, got belted beyond the ivy-sprouting barrier.
At that point, Cubs 4 Mets 1. Ultimately, Cubs 4 Mets 2, a tenth consecutive Mets loss. Not the sign of a good team. I think it’s been established that the 2026 Mets are not good. What few breaks they catch, they drop after an instant. If they can score more than one run in an inning, they don’t. If poised to prevent an opponent’s rally, they are instead trampled. A good team finds a way to win. By definition, this eliminates the Mets from consideration as a good team.
Does this make them a bad team? Well, bad is the opposite of good. On the other hand, I’ve watched Mets teams that I knew were bad, and this team, while not good, hasn’t quite sunk to the level where I’m ready to label them as awful. I suppose it doesn’t much matter. A record of 7-14 pretty much labels itself. Maybe it’s the Aprilness of it all that’s kept me from deciding they are truly horrendous. When the Mets dive into a lengthy losing streak in other months, they’ve had time to identify themselves as good, bad, or middling (usually bad or en route to bad). These Mets continue to strike me as assorted individuals not close to forming a collective identity. I’m tempted to say they’ve shown no heart, though it’s only April, probably too soon to render such an unkind judgment. I read a quote from “an American League executive” who termed the Mets “a weird collection of high-profile players,” and observed, “I’m not sure there’s much of a soul to that team.”
Heart in question. Soul uncertain. Identity vague. Wins absolutely non-existent. After each loss, Carlos Mendoza and whichever veteran is designated to step in front of the backdrop of dancing logos to answer reporters’ questions acknowledge the season isn’t going according to plan. Then Carlos and the dour old pro du jour reject any notion that the Mets doubt themselves or need a good internal talking-to. There’s eventually a dose of familiar blather about competing and grinding. None of that rock-steadiness that baseball people love to cite as necessary across a long season seems to be getting it done. Maybe somebody needs to admit they are dwelling on their lack on results. Maybe somebody needs to stand up amid an assemblage of 26 introverts and get everybody else’s attention. Maybe, as long as they played a day game in Chicago, they should all avail themselves of the nightlife on Rush Street.
That same AL executive alluded to above inferred from afar, “That has to be an odd clubhouse. […] It just doesn’t scream ‘winning team,’ even though objectively it adds up.” In our decades as Mets fans, we’ve periodically seen clusters of players who’ve proven themselves in other places and seasons simply not coalesce in the here and now. We’ve been able to detect the toxicity of those can’t-miss “back of the baseball card” mixes the second we step off the 7 train. I don’t sense that’s the case here. Whatever constitutes leadership, whether vocal or quiet, appears to be absent. Or most everybody has decided in unison to be less effective at what they do than they have been previously.
If you want to deem them a bad baseball team, the Mets have offered no compelling counterargument, save for just wait until Juan Soto returns. The Bill Parcells insistence that you are what your record says you are rarely fails to apply once it joins the group chat. When your record is 0-10 in your last ten, your record leaves little room for interpretation. You don’t need Bill Parcells to tell you that’s dreadful. Ray Handley could have figured that out.
Still, to not accidentally win even one ballgame over this span while not being clearly one of the worst Mets clubs you’ve ever witnessed is, perversely, kind of impressive. Just not good.
by Greg Prince on 17 April 2026 11:29 pm “The Mets are a team bursting with all the desperation, psychosis, pain, chaos, and cruel optimism for a better future that persists though civilization’s sunset. We watch the catastrophe unfold, refusing to fully admit our doom…”
—A.M. Gittlitz, Metropolitans
Today I decided the Mets would win a ballgame. They were playing the Cubs on a Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, where everything except the ivy appeared summerlike. Back here in New York, I know everything felt summerlike. We’re two months from summer. Why not take premature wonderful weather as an omen?
At Wrigley, a summerlike afternoon has always offered the possibility of The Wind Blowing Out, meaning the hits would accumulate, the homers would fly, and the Mets might win by some absurdly high score. Why not in this game?
Carlos Mendoza and whatever committee that weighs in on the subject had shuffled the lineup. Carson Benge would bat leadoff. Francisco Lindor would bat third. MJ Melendez, our bolt of offensive lightning from the other night in L.A., would remain relied upon. Maybe a computer spit out this batting order. Maybe nine names went into a hat. However it arrived, why couldn’t it work?
It was fun convincing myself the Mets were going to win. I’m glad I tried it, since it appears envisioning a Mets victory is the only way I’m going to see one.
I was feeling good enough in my faith-based delusional state to withstand the four runs Kodai Senga allowed in the bottom of the first, three when Moises Ballesteros homered with two Cubbies on. As if Mendy’s Metsies were on my wavelength, they answered with three in the top of the second. Melendez was in the middle of that rally. So was Marcus Semien. What’s that old saying about hitters you can wake up in the dead of winter and several months later they’ll finally get a base hit? Way to go, Marcus! And who is that coming through with a two-run single, but Tyrone Taylor? Taylor’s still here, despite my usually forgetting him when doing a quick roster head count, but he occasionally drives in runners. His attempt to stretch his single into a double was cut down at second, which was too bad yet not necessarily a serious setback, ’cause it was Wrigley on a breezy Friday afternoon. There’d be plenty more runs.
In the bottom of the second, there were indeed two more, via a Nico Hoerner homer. OK, being down, 6-3, isn’t the ideal next step when we’ve just closed to within 4-3, but this is merely more proof of concept. Man, what a story the Mets are going to write, breaking their eight-game losing streak by winning an old-fashioned North Side barnburner. Take that, Leo Durocher, wherever you are.
The Mets didn’t lack for the hitting to do it. They rapped out 14 hits in the course of the day. In ten different games, spanning 1969 to 2024, the Mets came to Wrigley Field and recorded exactly 14 hits. Their record on those occasions? A pristine 10-0, winning by classic Wrigley finals like 10-8, 10-9, and 9-8. Those kinds of scores were what I was calculating it would take once the Cubs stretched their lead to 7-3 in the fourth. Heckuva comeback gestating. I was willing to be sure of it.
Problem on Friday was the Mets created only four runs from their 14 hits. They hit OK with RISP (4-for-11) and didn’t leave a ton of runners on (7). The three DPs they hit into, along with a strike ’em out/throw ’em out twin-killing, kept those totals respectable, I guess. The bigger issue was Senga not lasting four innings. And the defense committing a couple of errors, first baseman Brett Baty’s with the bases loaded the most glaring. And Sean Manaea’s innings-eating not going down so smooth as the afternoon grew late. The Cubs totaled 12 runs. Giving up 12 runs while scoring four, in any ballpark, doesn’t break a losing streak.
The Mets have now lost nine in a row for the first time since 2004. They’d gone this long without losing so many consecutively that the last time they did it, there was no Blog for Mets Fans Who Like to Read. It’s still early. Teams have been known to turn around 7-13 starts and play viably when actual summer comes. A dismal stretch like this one doesn’t automatically doom the remainder of a season, though I’m not prepared to project that far ahead.
Right now, I’ll settle for one game won eventually. By the Mets, I mean.
by Greg Prince on 16 April 2026 3:13 pm “And it’s one more day up in the canyon,” Adam Duritz observed joylessly some thirty years ago, “and it’s one more night in Hollywood.” In that same chilly Southern California spirit, here’s to no more nights in Chavez Ravine.
The doubly defending world champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, extended their winning ways not once, not twice, but thrice by completing an inevitable three-game sweep over the New York Mets, 8-2, on Wednesday night. Shohei Ohtani pitched without bothering to hit. Like the Dodgers with World Series titles, Shohei Ohtani tends to grab every MVP award in sight. He is so honored because he can pitch and hit (though judging by the impact of his absence, is any player in the National League more valuable than Juan Soto?). Shohei Ohtani pitching might be enough to merit a trophy case expansion. The living legend went six, struck out ten, and allowed no hits, except to the newly recalled MJ Melendez, who can proudly tell anybody who asks that he became the 1,300th Met in franchise history when he started as our, if you’ll excuse the expression, designated hitter. Lefty reliever Josh Walker became our 1,200th Met less than three years ago, though we couldn’t tell you whether he still mentions that to any of his Oriole minor league teammates these days. MJ nicking Ohtani for an earned run with one of his two doubles will make for a less esoteric brag. Shohei came into Wednesday with an ERA of 0.00. Melendez raised it to 0.50. The rest of the Met offense kept it from rising any higher.
Instead of using Ohtani as their DH per usual, the Dodgers deployed their reserve catcher, Dalton Rushing. Rushing might not be the hitter Ohtani is, but we can’t say he was overshadowed at his quasi-position by Melendez. The Dodger DH doubled to set up L.A.’s first runs — which scored on Hyesong Kim’s subsequent two-run homer in the second — and cast off any appearances of a competitive contest when he walloped one of Devin Williams’s less effective deliveries for a grand slam in the eighth. Not a bad night for a backup.
What a bad night for the Mets. That can be said about almost any night in an eight-game losing streak. A little less so when the losing streak reached seven, as Nolan McLean’s excellence versus Yoshinobu Yamamoto almost made the final score (LA 2 NY 1) spiritually immaterial, but you can only silver-line so many clouds. Eight losses in a row will age a season, no matter how relatively young the math says it is.
The Mets were conceivably viable on the scoreboard through seven-and-a-half. Clay Holmes was no Ohtani, but he and his left hamstring were sound enough through five. Tobias Myers got touched for a Teoscar Hernandez homer to start the sixth, but otherwise tamed the champs for a two frames. It wasn’t until the eighth, at 3-1, that things totally fell apart, instigated by Francisco Lindor not charging Hernandez’s leadoff grounder. It became an infield single and the second wha…??? moment of the game committed by a Met named Francisco. Earlier, Francisco Alvarez, on first base, undermined a Met rally by misreading a fly ball that was trapped in left field. Alvy thought it was caught. It wasn’t, but he was — off of first, where he retreated toward despite Carson Benge standing on it after his single. You could almost excuse the blunder, based on Benge’s ball being hard to read; and the third rather than second base ump signaling it fell in; and the heavy night air at Dodger Stadium; and everybody wearing 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, which has got to be confusing. There’s always an excuse.
In the inning of Alvarez’s infamy, the Marvelous Mr. Melendez, rescued the Mets from total situational futility by doubling home Benge. In the inning of Lindor’s iffy approach to the Hernandez grounder, the floodgates were just begging to open. Williams, presumably preserved to close out Met leads, whatever those are, was likely rusty after not pitching since his club’s previous victory. Of course somebody not properly fielding a ground ball was going to pave the way for the Dodgers to load the bases. Of course the Dodger DH who wasn’t Ohtani would slam grand when granted the opportunity. Of course Austin Warren, up for Joey Gerber, who was up for the since-released Luis Garcia until a blister got the best of Joey with the high leg-kick, would give up a homer as well, this one to Kyle Tucker, who over the winter was reportedly en route to signing with the Mets until he was sidetracked by a boatload of Dodger dollars.
Instead, we pivoted to Bo Bichette, and what a get, we were told. Same for the rest of the transformation that has transformed the Mets from a team that endured three losing streaks of at least seven games between June and September of 2025 to one that has built an eight-game losing streak in April of 2026. Nice transformation, everybody. Perhaps that will be how 2026 gets framed if a turnaround isn’t imminent. It was a year of necessary transformation fror the organization. Everybody had to get comfortable with one another. Better on-field results would have to follow in years to come. Then, give or take a lengthy lockout, we can be reminded that David Stearns is building something sustainable that can’t be measured in terms as grubby as immediate wins and losses. David Stearns was quite a get in his day, you might vaguely recall.
The season’s still young. It feels very old.
by Jason Fry on 15 April 2026 7:53 am Nolan McLean keeps getting better and better — but not even he can escape the Mets.
In just his 12th start as a big leaguer (!!!), McLean was nicked for a first-inning run but looked sparkling after that, making the best team in baseball look downright silly for the rest of a long night at Dodger Stadium. Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernandez … they and their fellow Met tormenters all got undressed by McLean over seven superb innings. McLean — and again, let’s note he’s only made 12 starts as a big leaguer — is channeling peak Jacob deGrom or once-upon-a-time Dwight Gooden, with the first hit against him feeling like a surprise bordering on a betrayal.
Alas, the Mets looked downright silly with bats in their hands for most of the night too. Francisco Lindor, who’d been on the back of a milk carton as a hitter with nary a 2026 RBI to his name, started the night promisingly with a Daniel Murphyesque home run off Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But that was all the Mets would do to support McLean for the evening. A continuation of the team’s baffling, nauseating offensive blackout? Yes. Testament to Yamamoto being every bit as good as McLean? Also yes.
Maybe the Mets should take a page from Yamamoto’s mound mate Ohtani and let McLean be a two-way player again. He swung a bat in anger as a professional not so long ago, after all, and he can’t fare any worse as a hitter than the pacifist band sent out on his behalf.
I’m not entirely kidding. Hell, I’m not kidding at all. Remember the night Noah Syndergaard beat the Dodgers and hit two home runs? I miss stuff like that. (Good recap title too!)
With McLean not allowed to ride to his own rescue, the game wound up as a bullpen affair, and I waited grimly for the fatal mistake to come, which it did in the form of a little Kyle Tucker ducksnort against Brooks Raley in the eighth. The Mets were at least spared a reunion with old friend Edwin Diaz, whose velocity hasn’t been to the Dodgers’ liking; it didn’t matter, as Alex Vesia needed only one extra pitch to strike out the side in the ninth and seal a Dodger victory.
A Dodger victory, a seventh straight Met loss. If the Mets quietly disbanded rather than return to New York, would anyone notice? Would we not on some level be relieved?
by Jason Fry on 14 April 2026 8:13 am Not having grown up a Yankees fan, I always thought that as a broadcaster, well, Phil Rizzuto sure was a Yankee legend.
But Rizzuto had a bit of scorekeeping shorthand that I always loved for its combination of honesty and puckishness: WW, which stood for “Wasn’t Watching.”
I thought of the Scooter in the bottom of the sixth inning, as the Mets continued to do nothing with bats in their hands and the Dodgers kept the sportscar thrumming along in the left lane, several car lengths ahead of their theoretical pursuers.
It was late, I was tired, and the two-thirds of the ballgame I’d watched hadn’t exactly intensified my love for the 2026 Mets. What could the last third bring? An epic comeback that everyone would be talking about come Tuesday? Oh ha ha ha. Another look at the latest recidivist Met, Tommy Pham? I was familiar with his work. The possibility that Joey Gerber might become the 1,299th Met in the Holy Books? OK, actually I did kind of want to see that (and it came to pass), but that was more about my weirdo collector mindset than anything else.
So I decided to add a notation to my own mental scorebook, a variant of Rizzuto’s: WS. You can probably guess what that stands for.
I checked the scores as soon as morning came and my eyes opened, and let’s just say I wasn’t surprised. I’d made my decision, and looking back on it I RN.
by Greg Prince on 13 April 2026 2:57 pm A button at the end of one of my favorite Mad Men episodes has been circulating through my head ever since Opening Day. Don has come home to discover young Sally is still freaked out by the appearance of her new little brother Gene. Dad has to sell daughter on the notion that this infant is not the ghostly reincarnation of the recently deceased Grandpa Gene (despite having the same name and sleeping in what had been the late Gene’s room), so he makes the following pitch right before the end credits roll:
“He’s only a baby. We don’t know who he is yet, or who he’s going to be. And that is a wonderful thing.”
The Mets represented the spirit of that newborn as of March 26, more than they usually do when baseball gets going. All seasons start 0-0, clean slate, fresh outlook, the whole bit. But the 2026 Mets loomed as particularly mysterious given that so many of those who composed and defined the Mets of not just 2025 but the years directly prior had been replaced in a phalanx of key roles by an influx of near-total strangers. We may have been acquainted with individuals’ reputations from a distance, but distance is wide when you focus mostly on a single team summer after summer. Of course we knew the new Mets’ names. We might have known their stats and a few other things about them. We had never lived with them before. We had never leaned on them before. We had never asked them to be, in concert with select holdovers, the Mets.
We are sixteen games into the 2026 season. We still can’t say we know who this team — the strangers, the holdovers, the end product — is yet or what it’s going to be. How much of a wonderful thing that is depends on your tolerance for finding out.
Did you know the Mets once held the top spot in their division all by themselves? Not last June, not forty years ago. Practically just the other day. After this year’s first eleven games, an admittedly small sample size but one just large enough to enable the formation of impressions if so inclined, the 7-4 Mets sat alone in first place in the NL East. Five games later, the 7-9 Mets sit alone in last place in the NL East. The sample size has hardly grown. Nascent 2026 impressions have curdled.
The Mets have lost five in a row, including the three they just played versus the Nowheresville Athletics, getting shut out in the Citi series finale Sunday, 1-0. A sweet sliding catch from Carson Benge kept the score from becoming 3-0. Nothing any Met did with a bat came close to preventing a loss from becoming a loss. Losing five in a row in April grants a fan early access to frustration, aggravation, disgust, what have you. It’s never too early to be frustrated, aggravated, or disgusted by any Met sample size, Sotoless or otherwise. It’s almost certainly too early to determine that those will be your overriding emotions during the summer to come. They could be. Or they could very well not be.
We don’t know who this team is yet. That’s not letting them off the hook for a hollow baseball weekend. If anything, the lack of familiarity is what makes this latest on-field dip more disconcerting. When the Mets of the previous five seasons endured losing stretches, we could default to denial. From 2021 through 2025, intimate as we were with our core and unless thoroughly disabused of our innate optimism by overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we could convince ourselves in the first month of a season that “this team” is too good to drop five in a row; or too good to get swept by the A’s at home; or too good to go into a teamwide slump.
This team? The 2026 Mets? Damned if I know if they’re too good to have endured the indignities of the defeats they were handed by the Diamondbacks and Athletics. Damned if I knew if the Mets were a worthy first-place first team after eleven games, but I was willing to ride the high, especially after they frustrated, aggravated, and disgusted us in the days immediately preceding their upward blip.
The average US life expectancy is 79 years old. For convenience sake, let’s give the average American an extra year and call it 80. Thus, somebody in this country stands an average chance of living until the age of 80. Of course we don’t know what this person is or will be when born. How about by the time that person has lived eight years? You might see that kid and conclude great things are on the child’s horizon. You might gather the sense that this kid is, in one way or another, bad news. Or you might extend the grace of time to kids of that age. They’ve got their whole life in front of them. Let them be who they’re gonna be. Eight years amount to 10% of an average lifetime, with 90% very much in the to-be-determined column.
With sixteen games of a slated 162 in the books, the 2026 Mets have played approximately 10 percent of their schedule, making them the equivalent of an eight-year-old kid if we go by the actuarial tables. They are not, however, an eight-year-old kid in isolation. How the rest of their life, the next 72 years/146 games go will depend on how they interact with a whole lot of other kids/teams who are approximately 10% through their lifetimes, and how those other parties interact with each other. A glance at the National League indicates the fourteen teams who aren’t the Dodgers are bunched up within four games of one other. We would not be wrong to estimate that we don’t who anybody outside of L.A. — where the Mets have landed to play next — is or what they are going to be. Teams having their problems will solve some things. Teams on a hot streak will cool down. Teams lacking an identity will forge one. In the case of the Mets, hopefully a good one.
In the meantime, Craig Kimbrel has supplanted the regularly replaceable Dicky Lovelady, Joey Gerber has bumped Luis Garcia, and Recidivizing Tommy Pham is coming in, which means Ronny Mauricio is going down. Groping at the personnel margins figures to do only so much, but everything has that conditional feel to it. Juan Soto’s calf figures to heal. Jorge Polanco’s bursitis may flare up with less frequency. Freddy Peralta, whose usual grinding pitch count didn’t stop him from going six on Sunday, might begin to last a little longer. Luis Robert, Jr., who rested as a general precaution against overuse Sunday, might require fewer off days. Batting averages wallowing south of .200 might find a northbound exit. The 2026 Mets season will get a little older. How much life we can expect out of it…and how much expectation we can build for this team…that’s what the season’s for.
A slow start. A blah interlude. A sense that we have no idea what’s going on with this team we root for but will continue to dwell on in spite of our instincts to think about something else. Believe me, somewhere in this business, this has happened before.
On Monday night, April 20 (when the Mets are idle), I will be joining A.M. Gittlitz in conversation at the Barnes & Noble in Carle Place at the Country Glen Center, where Old Country Road meets Glen Cove Road, a few blocks west of Roosevelt Field. We will be discussing Mr. Gittlitz’s new New York Times bestseller, Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team, a pre-publication excerpt of which we ran here. The program begins at 6:30 PM. If you’re on Long Island or anywhere in the Metropolitan(s) Area, I hope you’ll drop by.
by Jason Fry on 11 April 2026 11:00 pm A hazard of the recapping trade is you spend the game field-testing narratives in your head while the bedrock story is still unfolding, trying on summations variously grand, tragic or farcical.
After Kodai Senga‘s disconsolate departure, this was my first draft for this entire recap, channeling Dean Wormer’s caustic advice to Flounder in Animal House:
Bad at pitching, bad at defense and bad at hitting is no way to go through life, son.
And that would have sufficed. Senga had pitched horribly; the Mets’ defense had done him no favors, with yet another mental mistake from Francisco Lindor more worrying than the physical gaffes; and the hitting had remained largely somnambulant. Plus Jeff McNeil continued to terrorize his old mates, with auxiliary getting even from once-upon-a-time Brooklyn Cyclone Carlos Cortes.
But after Senga departed the Mets seemed to rouse themselves. They got competent relief, they chipped away at the Athletics’ lead with home runs, which still counted even if they went over fences by inches or were actually helped over by West Sacramento defenders, and no Met wearing a glove stepped on a landmine or managed to garrote himself with his own sanitary socks, which counted as progress.
The Mets, in fact, drew within 7-6 with six outs left to play with, and you could feel Citi Field stirring, thinking there might actually be a reward for having endured the last few days of lousiness. I didn’t have a new narrative ready to trot out — the Mets’ recent play has made me more than a little wary of assumptions — but I was superstitious enough to stick to what I’d been doing, which was reading a novel on my couch and pretending not to watch the game.
And then, well, it turned out Luke Weaver decided to have some of whatever Senga had been having. Tyler Soderstrom had hit his second home run of the day, just like that the Mets were down five, and the remainder of the accounting was best left to masochists.
After the game, I watched Carlos Mendoza be oddly candid by Carlos Mendoza standards when asked about Lindor’s recent run of inattention: “It’s weird … it’s hard to explain.”
It is. Is it lingering effects from hamate surgery? Is it discombobulation at lining up with a new double-play partner? Is it something personal that shouldn’t be our business … except it’s showing up on the field, so it kinda is?
I’m sure wondering about that will be a cottage industry until Lindor looks a lot more like Lindor, which is only fair. As for what the Mets look like, well, last year taught me not to assume an ill-shaped team will magically take on a more pleasing form. And Saturday’s game taught me not to trust any evolving narrative.
In the end, I settled for this on Bluesky: a bit plaintive, a bit angry, more than a bit despairing. At least for now, I think it sums things up all too well:
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