A thumbnail guide to the baseball fan calendar:
MARCH
You don’t know anything.
APRIL
You get used to doing this again.
MAY
You won’t remember much of this, but it all counts.
JUNE
You sense you know some things.
JULY
You hope you’ve figured the rest out.
AUGUST
You have to get through whatever comes up.
SEPTEMBER
You discern at last what you’ve been doing if you haven’t already.
OCTOBER
You still here? Congratulations!
An April like the one we’ve just experienced is one you never want to get used to. The good news is it’s over. The bad news is it doesn’t leave us wanting to find out what’s next.
Relax. It’s May. You won’t remember much of it. But it will count. That is if you’re still of a mind to keep track.
The New York Mets finished April 2026 with a record of 10-21, weighed down by a 7-18 mark that covered April 1 to April 30. As the exchange went in Bull Durham…
“Eight and sixteen. How’d we ever win eight?”
“It’s a miracle.”
Except the downtrodden Durham Bulls through 24 games of their season were better than the current New York Mets in April. And the movie they were in was funny and charming. Not much is charming about the 2026 Mets, and whatever laughs they provide are wholly unintentional.
The 10-21 Mets have spent 31 games in all being not as good as the 1962 Mets were at the same juncture of their schedule. That’s a little misleading per the legend of the lovable losers, because the Original Mets crafted one solitary stretch of bona fide competence, and it occurred between their 20th and 31st games, when they won nine of twelve, raising them to 12-19. In their 32nd game, the Mets commenced a 17-game losing streak, leaving them at 12-36. That’s when they became the 1962 Mets for all time.
I don’t mean to give the 2026 Mets something to shoot for. The 2026 Mets aren’t comprised of the lame and the halting, making do mainly with the scraps the National League expansion draft allowed them. In theory, we have players in their prime. The scraps have been added voluntarily. Sometimes they do OK for themselves. Witness MJ Melendez [1], a fourth, maybe fifth outfielder who started his year in Syracuse. He now hits in the heart of the Met order and occasionally does wonderful things, like blast a three-run homer as he did in Thursday afternoon’s 5-4 loss to the Nationals [2]. He also laid down a sacrifice bunt to build the run that pushed the Mets briefly ahead. Later, MJ would be pinch-hit for by an even “scrappier” player, Austin Slater [3], who was plucked off waivers a couple of days earlier. Matchup stuff. Slater couldn’t come through like Melendez had. He’ll probably get other chances.
The Mets whose April may have made May and all succeeding months immaterial weren’t the Mets their front office projected. Three would-be everyday players (Francisco Lindor, Jorge Polanco, and Luis Robert, Jr.) and one-fifth of the starting rotation (Kodai Senga) are on the injured list. Two other starting pitcher stalwarts of not too many years past (David Peterson and Sean Manaea) pitch as if they have something physically wrong with them. If they’re in great shape yet pitching like this, that isn’t healthy, either. In the meantime, this guy or that guy comes along and occasionally gets something done. Or doesn’t.
At the top end, there’s Juan Soto [4], who hits when pitched to. Usually what he hits lands him on base. Sometimes what he hits lands in an opposing fielder’s glove like James Wood’s many miles from home plate and well above the outfield fence, because when everything’s going Metwise, why should Soto’s luck be any different? In the middle, there’s a guy like Luke Weaver [5] who has his moments until he doesn’t.
Weaver had a great moment on the night of April 22, striking out Byron Buxton of the Twins to dispose of a nettling twelve-game losing streak, which even the most cynical among us had to think would signal an up tick in Metropolitan fortunes. Since the Mets aren’t on a twelve-game losing streak at the moment, maybe it has. This was what Weaver had to say to the fans in his on-field interview after the Mets finally stopped losing:
“Look, this wasn’t about attitude, this wasn’t about work ethic, this wasn’t about bad demeanor. There was none of that. It’s just about showing up every day, giving you something to cheer about. Thankfully, we freaking did that. […] People smell fear. I’m not the biggest guy in the room, but I ain’t scared of nobody. That’s the attitude I try to take. And if I screw up, it’s on me. But at the end of the day, I’m gonna sleep at night, and I’m gonna feel good about the effort I put in. I ain’t fearing nobody, you remember that.”
And this was Luke Weaver on April 30 to reporters in the clubhouse after giving up the eighth-inning two-run home run to CJ Abrams that ensured the Mets’ would complete their homestand at 3-6:
“I’ve been sitting here trying to think about what to even say to you guys and what you’re even going to ask. At the end of the day, this pursuit of perfection is an ultimate pressurized failure mindset. Everybody wants to be the hero because we care and we want to win really, really bad. I just don’t think success lives in that realm. It truly doesn’t. The freedom with which we play day-to-day is kind of being suffocated a little bit. I want to do my job, it’s that simple — there’s moments that feel really close, and then there’s mistakes that magnify our situation. I sit there and feel the weight of the world, like I let the team down […] We sit there and we tell you guys, ‘It’ll come. This is the game. This is the law of averages.’ But those words just don’t hold the same weight when you continue to [lose] day after day. The encouragement and motivation to pursue being the best person and best baseball player you can be is the only answer. Until we prove that, I understand the grievances from the outsiders.”
After ending a double-digit losing streak, it wasn’t about attitude. After losing for the fifth time in six games, it’s about an ultimate pressurized failure mindset and being suffocated. Luke seemed to be as human as possible in both somewhat conflicting explanations. The Mets believed they were better than the 0-12 they had recently compiled. The Mets recognize the reality of being 10-21 after not consistently rising to the level of the three so-so teams that just visited Citi Field (though if the Twins, Rockies, and Nationals are so-so, the Mets are barely so). I know it is in our DNA that we Gotta Believe, but right now, I kind of prefer the recognition. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
One more possibly relevant postgame rumination from a winning pitcher, Clay Holmes [6] on April 28, after the Mets had shut out the Nationals and had tentatively moved on from whatever plagued them during the three-game sweep they were dealt by the Rockies:
“I think you’d be crazy to say you don’t really know the situation as a player. You know we haven’t been playing well. You know the expectations here in New York. You’re aware of it. I think sometimes the hard part is trying to do too much in those situations, pressing, maybe trying to do things you don’t need to. You’ve really just got to have a relaxed focus of who you are and what you can do, and show up every day and do it. If you try to climb out of a hole in one day, it rarely ever works.”
I don’t know how much Holmes’s forthright clearheadedness contributed to his six marvelous innings on Tuesday night or his 1.75 ERA to date, but I liked hearing an acknowledgement that things hadn’t been going well. The professional baseball player ethos, gleaned from consuming so many extended postgame soundbites, is nothing bothers us; we know what we have to do; everything is going to be fine; we don’t lose sleep over any of this.
Why the hell not? It’s a perfectly human reaction to be aware when things aren’t going great and maybe share a little frustration with the nearest ear. The Mets don’t play tight in the sense that balls and opportunities don’t get past them. The Mets are tight in the sense that you wish they could loosen up a little beyond their evanescent longball celebrations. Their manager certainly doesn’t project a sense of convincing calm as much he sort of tries to. Managers, we are told, don’t have as much influence as we used to think they did. Makes you wonder why it’s imperative to stick with one who, whatever his admirable personal qualities, isn’t impacting this spiraling season for the better.
Coming home wasn’t a solution. Going on the road hasn’t much helped, but they’ll try that again. Off to Anaheim, to Denver, to Phoenix. That’s in addition to having relocated to oblivion.