So the Mets had another team meeting … and things got worse.
Worse as in 12-1, worse as in out of it by the top of the second, worse as in Travis Jankowski finished up on the mound (before seeing a 2025 Mets AB, no less). Frankie Montas was terrible, the relievers who followed him weren’t much better, Oneil Cruz destroyed two baseballs, and the Mets’ ABs were wan and lacking conviction. It was terrible and endless, concluding with the Mets not only swept by a 100-loss team but defeated by a combined reckoning of 30-4, the most lopsided series defeat in team history.
The lovable, terrible Mets of Jimmy Breslin chronicles? Never beaten this badly. The in-denial North Korea Mets of the first years after Messersmith and McNally? Never beaten this badly. The not so lovable, exquisitely terrible Mets of the Alomar/Phillips era? Never beaten this badly.
And, I must confess, it broke me.
Being a fan in enemy territory means minding your Ps and Qs — you mute your unhappiness, similar to how criticism of the president used to be on hold when he was overseas. But as Montas trudged off the field after the first something came unglued in me and I began booing vociferously, pausing only to scream “HAVE ANOTHER TEAM MEETING!”
I’m a little embarrassed … but only a little. Sometimes you can’t take any more. The last such eruption I can remember came after Braden Looper was incompetent for the fourth or fifth straight appearance; I booed Looper so loudly that I felt something in my throat give way and was reduced to a whisper for a few days.
The Mets are off today, and few teams have needed an off-day more. It will be interesting to see what happens in response to the weekend’s debacle. Maybe nothing — more stoic “such is life” stemwinders from Carlos Mendoza or Francisco Lindor or David Stearns. Maybe a roster shuffle — luckless relievers out, new luckless relievers in. Or maybe it will be decided that a head or two must roll — if I’m Eric Chavez or Jeremy Barnes, I’d be a little nervous every time my phone buzzes.
Should such a thing happen? Don’t ask me that right now — as attested above, I’m a little too PO’ed to see things clearly.
* * *
Baseball aside, Emily and I had a lovely visit to Pittsburgh and PNC. The first time I saw PNC, I was seeing a lot of new ballparks and wrestling with the question of how to weigh the view from parks in assessing them. My caveat about PNC, as stated at the time, was that the Pirates didn’t build the view of the Pittsburgh skyline, so why fall to the earth praising it?
I’ve rejected that idea since then — siting is part of the design process, and there are plenty of parks that do nothing with lovely views. (Looking at you, Nationals Park.) But my other (mild) criticism of PNC remains: For a park hosting a team called the Pirates, it’s strangely light on pirate-themed stuff. There are watering holes called the Crow’s Nest and Skull Bar, but they’re just names. Three cannons sound when an enemy better gets struck out, but it’s just a graphic on the video board.
PNC needs a big dumb pirate ship, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have at Raymond James. You could put it above the spiral ramp in left field, which is currently topped by an unadorned steel trellis of sorts. Have it fire actual cannon blasts (just smoke, you maniacs) after strikeouts, raise flags and launch fusillades after home runs, and hoist the Jolly Roger after wins. The Crow’s Nest should have shrouds and sails and cutlasses; the Skull Bar should have treasure chests and parrots and old maps. PNC is lovely, but it’s also weirdly subtle. You’re the Pirates! Go all in!
* * *
At the beginning of May I started a new dumb tradition: Every month I try to spot all 30 MLB caps in the wild. (T-shirts and what-not count, provided they’re adorning a person and not, say, on a shelf in a clubhouse store). I found 29 out of 30 clubs in May, with only the Texas Rangers escaping me, and so started over in June — with nine days in Europe making this go-round a little more challenging.
On Sunday Emily and I circled PNC a couple of times before the game started, looking for the three remaining caps I needed: the Brewers, Rays and Rockies. I found a Brewers cap relatively quickly (paired, oddly, with a Toledo Mud Hens jersey), then spotted a Rays t-shirt in an outfield bar.
That was 29 of 30, but a Rockies sighting seemed highly unlikely: Who would wear the gear of an 18-win team while several time zones away and attending a Mets-Pirates game? At least the Rays and Brewers are having good years.
But hey, keep hope alive: As we neared our seats, an older gentleman walked by wearing not only a Rockies cap but also a jaunty Hawaiian-themed Rockies shirt. That meant 30 of 30 for June, and earned the passing fan a salute from me: It’s hard to be Mile or High or Die given what the Rockies are enduring this year, but one man was up to the challenge. Respect!
I’ve never seen a team just stop in its tracks like this one. Bumping along at the nadir. No pitching. No hitting. Uninspiring fielding. You can be forgiven for thinking that the Mets are putting impostors out there, but the names and numbers on the jerseys are the same. I’ve been a Mets fan my whole life, and I join you all in your disbelief.
Something broke when Senga was injured. I don’t know what it was, and obviously neither does anyone connected with the team. It’s a little difficult for me to believe that Senga is that much of a clubhouse leader that it would send the team into freefall, but maybe it’s as simple as the team has seen Senga fight but has had almost continuous bad luck for about two years now, and when you see that, you almost reflexively become cautious in your own play, which is a killer for any athlete at this level. We saw it again Thursday, after Canning’s gruesome Achilles rupture, and although the Mets won that game, the kind of hush that fell over the stadium may have had a kind of hangover effect. ( If you watched any of the NBA playoff series this year, it’s notable that neither the Celtics nor the Pacers could overcome seeing their teammates fall).
To lead in that situation, one must play full throttle and risk the same type of potentially career-ending injury oneself. Ordinarily the Mets have these types of players ( Lindor, Nimmo, McNeil) but they are all battling the injury bug in one way or another. The key here is Alonso, who always plays that way. He needs to make things happen, as he did in Milwaukee last October. Coincidence or not that the Brewers are arriving tomorrow?
In these situations, when nothing is going right, and as difficult as it may be to respond with equilibrium, that’s often the best reaction to a bad situation. The 2008 Mets went through a similar situation and fired Willie Randolph in the dead of night, and we all know how that turned out. Another end-of-season collapse and the wilderness until 2015. This team has as much talent as that one, but I hope Steve Cohen and David Stearns have more steadiness than the Wilpons and Omar Minaya did then. All things must end, and so will this awful stretch of baseball, and then, when heads are clearer, is the time to make long-term decisions.
It’s really tough to be a lifelong fan right now. The specter of 2007 fills me with dread. But I’m trying to Believe. The Mets have seen worse times, as anyone who was around during June of 1977 can attest. Sometimes a long memory is your own worst enemy.
I don’t believe in that sort of thing. The injury to Senga was just a coincidence, and not the “cause” of the current implosion. The Mets have weathered devastating injuries before, and they didn’t have Senga for most of last season.
I’m mad as hell and I’m going to continue talking it!
If you decide to do Logospotting of the 1886 International League, I’ll be the guy wearing an Oswego Starchboxes T-Shirt.
I stuck it out yesterday until I think it was the 7th when 6-1 became something else. Though if I’d known Jankowski was gonna pitch maybe I’d have stuck with it.
I will forever be baffled by the idea that Severino was willing to sign for the same money as Montas. He just wanted 3 years.
In France I saw several Yankees caps and nothing else.
The ball is now in the court of executive management.
Mendoza and the coaches can’t pull rabbits out of hats.
This is a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are currently scattered. Stearns and company have to put the winning picture back in place.
Not that anybody cares, but here are the particulars for the foul ball that I got during the Brooklyn Cyclones game:
Keyspan Park
9/3/04
Bot 6th
Foul ball by Corey Coles of Brooklyn
And to think it was only a few weeks ago that I said that this was the first year since 1986 that I didn’t have to wait for the other shoe to fall for this team. This was their year.
The next day, Senga went down. And clunk went the shoe. You’d think I’d know better being a Met fan as long as I am.
I still believe the Mets can come out of this. The crisp fielding and timely hitting was not a mirage, even if they lost a bunch of their starters and Montas looks lost. They need to make it happen, though, and David Stearns may have to bad-cop it for a while. Remember, we weren’t feeling too good last year after Jorge Lopez’s infamous glove toss. It got better then, and it can get better now. It better.
Jason, I feel your pain regarding Braden Looper. He may have been the most infuriating closer we ever had. And that’s saying a mouthful.
“The most lopsided series defeat in team history”.
Take a moment to ponder the magnitude of that accomplishment. I’ve seen way, way more than my fair share of woeful Mets baseball in my day, but I really don’t recall anything quite like this. It’s safe to say all the residual 2024 vibes have been completely expunged at this point. They could reel off eight, nine wins in a row starting tomorrow, and I’d still be wary of trusting them again. I wish they’d stop doing things like this to me. I thought we were past this. Sigh.
I’ve seen plenty of Mets collapses, but usually these kinds of pitiful runs include a handful of hard-luck walk-off losses, featuring one huge goof, foul up and/or blunder. But these have been almost exclusively uncompetitive, team-wide losses, where almost everyone just plain sucks all of a sudden. It’s shocking, and unexpected, and deeply demoralizing. Just a few weeks ago, I thought “they haven’t even really heated up yet, and when they do, they could be special”. I never expected it to be “the most lopsided series defeat in team history” special, though.
Last year in 2024, the Mets didn’t have Senga for most of the season. He returned for one game and got injured, out for the rest of the year. All the Mets did was march straight to the NLCS and 2 games from the World Series. I will never believe that Senga’s 2025 injury had anything to do with this collapse. There are problems that must go way deeper than one errant throw.
The series it kinda reminded me of was back in 1980 (Aug. 14-17). 5-game sweep by Phils at Shea where the good guys were outscored by 40-12. A total beatdown. This one obliterates that. LGM
Yes, I remember that series well. The overachieving Mets, against all odds, were just one game under .500 and 7 1/2 games out of first place after taking 2 of 3 from the defending World Champion Pirates on the road. They came home to play the ice cold Phillies, and not only did the roof cave in on the Mets’ season that weekend, but the five-game sweep catapulted the Phillies on a two-month hot streak that culminated with them winning the World Series (it was the equivalent of the 2011 Jets losing to the struggling Giants on Christmas Eve, launching the Giants — who would not lose again — on their Super Bowl run).
Okay. They had their team meeting. Now maybe they can bring back Grimace. Or maybe resign Jake Diekman just so they can DFA him again.
If we had a full Senga last year for the whole season and the playoffs, well, who knows?
But Mendy blew it on that one, leaving him in too long on Senga Night!
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