Before, During, After

Before the Mets fell — and I do mean fell — in Atlanta on Saturday night, 14-3 (Pete Gogolak connected for a late field goal, but those two Falcon touchdowns were too much to overcome), Juan Soto was named as a starting outfielder to the National League All-Star team. This might be a fact worthy of sustained celebration had the Mets not just lost, 14-3, for their twelfth defeat in their fourteen most recent attempts at not being defeated. But good for Juan being voted in by fans everywhere. It’s nice to know being the most recognizable player on these particular New York Mets hasn’t totally sullied his brand.

During the game in which Mets lost by eleven to the first-place team they now trail by seventeen, there was little to commend, but I’m of a mind to tip a cap to Sean Manaea, starting pitcher. The Mets during their eerie bookend phase (38-55 to end last year, now 36-53 to begin this year) have shown a knack for transforming established starters into staff nomads. I suppose the pitchers have done it to themselves just as much. David Peterson was an All-Star starter midway through 2025. He wandered into an undefined bullpen role, never to fully return to form. Kodai Senga, 2023 All-Star, is currently a man without a routine. Manaea, who earned Cy Young support in 2024 as the closest thing the Mets had to an ace, was stranded in that leaky boat when 2026 started. He wasn’t a reliever, yet there he was, soaking up odd innings in the pen, sometimes making progress, sometimes regressing a tad. Yet here we are, in tatters in general, but with Sean Manaea having taken the ball for five consecutive starts. I mean, sure, that’s why he was re-signed two winters ago, but we’ve watched wayward paths devour all sorts of plans of late. Undermined by what we’ll call his defense, Manaea lasted five innings Saturday. It took him 108 pitches of effort, the epitome of inefficiency, but he could have very well been done after three. Within the context of this game, he held the fort just enough to let the Mets creep back to viability (from 6-0 to 6-3 in the sixth) against a less than stifling Chris Sale, though the Mets’ bats crept back into their hole at the first sign of Sale’s successors. At the very least, Sean Manaea saved wear and tear on the pitching arm of Luis Torrens the catcher who had to face only three batters in the eighth.

After the game that put a damper on the Fourth of July, assuming you could hear anything over your friendly, local unsanctioned fireworks shows…and I mean the next morning, we learned Joey Gerber was optioned to Triple-A. Joey Gerber had to be rescued amid mop-up duty by Luis Torrens, so his demotion wasn’t a surprise. The absolute shock greeting us this Fifth of July was the Mets calling up a righthanded reliever named Guillermo Zuñiga. Despite the gentleman (listed as Guillo Zuñiga by Baseball-Reference) having thrown an inning against the Mets in 2023, I hadn’t tracked his career much. I didn’t know he had been pitching for us in 2026 at Binghamton and Syracuse. I didn’t know he was considered Next Man Up on our depth chart. Most of all, I didn’t think Tyler Zuber’s hard-earned place at the end of the all-time Mets alphabet would be vulnerable to a nudge so soon. Zuber, as you have surely retained, was acquired at the trade deadline in 2024, but didn’t make his Met debut until last June. When he did, he supplanted Don Zimmer as the last of the Z’s in Mets history. Pat Zachry couldn’t do it. Todd Zeile couldn’t do it. But Tyler Zuber did it, with one appearance in 2025. One appearance was all it took. It’s barely a year later. Guillermo Zuñiga is on the scene. Like so much of the 2026 Met season, I did not see a new ‘Z’ coming to town. Most of what we’ve seen of the 2026 Met season we wish to unsee. Zuñiga? We’ll zee…