Centerfield

Bo Bichette is fucking garbage.

Time for a moment Ewing.

Wow. Schlittler’s numbers are amazing.

Also. I know we don’t have many options. But it’s hard to score runs trotting out Marcus Semien and backup catchers in the same lineup. But it looks like the Mets will be doing this for the next two months minimum.

This is a BIG GAME.

just saw the Baty play. I guess home plate blue was just getting started

Why is Soto out of the game?

Bichette is fucking garbage.

I don’t understand why he’s not going

Home plate blue kinda all over the place. Nice job by Brazo.

Someone told me Bichette was good at situational hitting.

6-8 weeks is the estimate. Per Mendy. Not bad if true. He says they’ll know more once they get in there. Tauchman has been out 7 weeks. Jared Young is set to start his rehab after 4. Fingers crossed.

Timeline will depend on the severity. Mike Tauchman (who should be ramping up anytime now) had surgery and the timeline was 6 weeks to return to baseball activities. If it's a full tear, it can be 3-6 months.

I also heard the Lindor MRI will be today. Big day for HSS.

2026 has had very few great wins. And to make things worse, a handful of them have been marred by injuries. MRI for Alvarez tomorrow. No update from Mendy. Says we have to wait and see. Doesn’t sound good.

First time I can remember having fun watching the game in a while. Needed that one!

What’s going on. Are we playing the Mets?

Right? Swing looks nice. A lot better than Benge.

Happy birthday Pail! Crazy. Weren't they just playing each other in little league

I thought LRJ had upside and was worth a roll of the dice. If nothing else he was an upgrade over Taylor. It’s the type of move you make with the intention of batting him ninth. If you get offense, great. If he gets hurt again, you’re only down your 9 hitter. The problem was the other moves resulted in him being our 3rd or 4th best hitter.

Short Center will be there with a buddy. Enjoy the Ewing debut!

Feels desperate but it beats the alternative. this suggests Luis Robert Jr is not close to returning.

I don't know. Like I said, this part is purely speculation. It's been widely reported that the Mets have the lowest OPS in the major leagues against fastballs. I saw it reported in one outlet (though I can't remember who, and can't find it now) that they were above the MLB average on off-speed pitches. This suggests that perhaps the Mets are not going up with the mindset to attack fastballs. We know that striking out less was a stated goal of this organization in the off-season. And to that end, they've been incredibly successful. They are fourth in MLB in fewest strikeouts (MIL is 3rd). The problem is that in addition to not striking out, they're also not walking (27th in MLB)(MIL is 4th). The Mets are also among the league's worst in pitches per AB, which is partly why all these scrub pitchers not only throw their best game against us, but also go deeper than they otherwise do. My guess is that there is such an emphasis on not striking out, that we are getting beat by fastballs, and making contact early in counts against the pitches that pitchers want us to be swinging at.

To be clear about my issues with Stearns, it's not just the poor results. Any GM/POBO will have their share of them. It's that after 3 years of watching him, I think he works with the presumption that he's smarter than anyone else, and that the product he's created is better than it is. It's an unwillingness to bend or adjust on his principles. With JD Martinez, he didn't think his team needed more offense. It did. And he didn't consider that the protracted negotiations would prevent a veteran hitter from getting a regular spring training and missing a month of the season. The additional money is, as you call it, a rounding error. The 2024 Mets had no room for error, as we all saw. They were one Lindor HR from missing the playoffs. Stearns thought his team had more room for error than it did. Similarly, as the season was falling apart in 2025, he didn't call up McLean or Sproat, and chose instead to run Blackburn, and Hagenmen and all the other scrubs out there because he never really thought missing the playoffs was a possibility. Even after nearly missing the playoffs in 2024. He plays with a self-imagined safety net that he doesn't have. And this year, despite everyone in the world knowing that Carlos Mendoza isn't the answer, he continues to stick with him. We all know it was a mistake to bring him back. Stearns refuses to admit it. And I don't think that this 2026 team is close enough to competing that keeping Mendoza or firing him will make a difference. But if Stearns really believes this team can bounce back, it certainly doesn't have the luxury of overcoming Mendoza. You lose absolutely nothing by changing the manager. Why wouldn't you try something else? As for changing out the coaches, this is less concrete so I didn't cite it in my initial post. I believe, without any real evidence, that Stearns has instilled a hitting philosophy into this organization that is detrimental for major league hitters. In my mind, this is the only explanation for the prolonged underperformance, that seems to have plagued everyone. Literally every Met is underperforming. You can cite injury all you want, when the injured guys were playing, they were terrible too. I know Eric Chavez was at odds with the Stearns approach, and as much of an asshole he has proven to be, I'm starting to think he may have been the only one keeping the offense at the level it was. How else can you explain these putrid numbers. I think Stearns never thought to himself "Hey maybe my approach sucks". I think he thought "let me bring in new coaches who will teach my approach better". And I think what we're seeing is the result. Again, I can't prove any of this. But I'm at a loss to come up with another reason why an entire roster of players suddenly can't hit. I was ecstatic when Stearns was hired. A rich owner with a smart executive has been all I've been asking for since I can remember. It's incredibly frustrating to see this team plunge to where it is now. I think David Stearns lacks the self reflection necessary to succeed in this failure-based business. I know it's dysfunctional to fire a POBO mid-season, but I just can't imagine letting him handle another trade deadline.

I think there's plenty to back the arrogance claim. I'm not sure what others may say, and maybe their takes are lazy, but I don't throw around that word without backup. JD Martinez. Let's go back to the JD negotiations in winter of 2024. JD held out until March 23 after hitting an impasse. Stearns likely felt he had the upper hand with Martinez having no other suitors. The stalled negotiations cost JD and the Mets all of spring training. JD didn't debut until the end of April. How much was at controversy? A million? 2 million? Stearns obviously felt he didn't need to give in. He was only taking JD at his price. History tells us we don't make the playoffs if JD signs elsewhere. And how much did that month cost us? In the end, the 2024 team was a $350M team that earned the third WC through a tiebreaker. They never contended for the division. My takeaway would have been "damn, we got fucking lucky. I better not make this type of mistake again". Stearns did not. Paul Blackburn. Stearns traded for him at the deadline in 2024. He started 5 games and pitched to an ERA over 5 and a WHIP over 1.5. Many of us at the time said we had no idea what Stearns saw in this guy. After he got here, he did nothing to change our minds. Then he got hurt when his spine started leaking fluid. He was an obvious non-tender candidate. But Stearns doubled down. Not only did he tender him a contract, he ran him out there 7 times in 2025, while pitching to a 6.85 ERA and a WHIP of 1.648. He was a walking white flag. The only reason he kept getting the ball was Stearns refusing to acknowledge what the rest of us knew. In 2025, we missed the playoffs via tiebreaker. Nolan McLean. And while he was running Blackburn and the Retreads out there start after start, he kept McLean in the minors. At one point it was silly. Everyone was calling for it. But Stearns kept him down there. And yes, there were developmental reasons to keep him at Syracuse, but the main reason was Stearns never really felt a playoff spot was in danger. He believed the team he put together was better than it was, and he didn't realize it until it was too late. That's why he panicked in September, and called up a clearly not ready Jonah Tong. You don't think that hurt his development? Stearns didn't realize until it was too late. Jeff McNeil. The most obvious example of his hubris was dumping McNeil. Whatever you may think of the clubhouse, there was no reason to dump Jeff McNeil and pay for him to play elsewhere. He is a good quality major league hitter, and he would be the second best hitter on this 2026 team. Stearns felt so good about the roster he put together he decided he didn't need Jeff McNeil. And let's say hypothetically, that Jeff was reviled in the clubhouse. Everyone hated him. That still wouldn't be enough reason to dump him. Not with this team. By this time, Stearns should have realized that the teams he puts together don't have any margin for error. They don't have the luxury of dumping a good quality hitter with positional versatility. But he decided he didn't need Jeff. Carlos Mendoza. But all this aside, the biggest, most glaring example of Stearns ego is Carlos Mendoza. I agree Mendoza is not the biggest problem ailing the Mets, but by now, we can see he's not part of the solution. In game missteps aside, a manager that gets this little out of the talent in the dugout is not the right fit. The Red Sox cut bait. So did the Phillies. There's no reason not to fire Mendoza. You're in last place. The offense is the worst in baseball. At worst, a new manager will result in just more of the same. You can't fall into laster place. The only reason we are keeping Mendoza is Stearns doesn't want to admit he's the wrong fit. He doesn't want to admit it was a mistake to bring him back in 2026, and it's a mistake to bring him back now. By this point, the proudest man in the world should be falling on his sword. Firing Mendoza. Admitting we have to try something else. Taking a look at all of the organizational philosophy. Acknowledging that if every single player is falling below expectations, it's time to re-examine what they might be doing as a club that leads to this. Nothing. Stick to the line. Things will get better. Same bullshit we've been hearing since June 2025. Once 2026 concludes, it will have been three years, over a billion dollars in payroll, and in none of those seasons will the Mets have even contended for the division. And the team president refuses to do anything different.