New York Mets ponder dismal begin to 2026 season after 50 video games

WASHINGTON — This very nothing New York Mets season has reached the 50-game mark with solely the faintest probability of turning into one thing.

For now, that one thing may be very ugly: The third workforce in main league historical past to overlook the playoffs with a payroll north of $300 million – following within the footsteps of the 2023 and 2025 Mets.

At 22-28, this squad heads to Miami this weekend in a battle for final place within the National League East, although with 12 1/2 video games and three groups separating them from the Atlanta Braves, it’s finest to not even peek till a big reversal of fortune has occurred.

Looking again is already painful sufficient.

“It’s all you can control: Playing better now,” Bo Bichette, their prized low season acquisition, tells USA TODAY Sports. “You can’t control what’s already happened.”

What’s occurred has been jarring: Devastating accidents blended with heartwarming debuts. Underperforming superstars and soul-crushing blown leads. A way of disbelief as division golf equipment just like the Marlins and Washington Nationals – ranked 29^th and 27^th, respectively, in payroll – have outperformed their $357 million roster.

Behind the monetary may of proprietor Steve Cohen and smarts of membership president David Stearns, this was purported to be a machine. Yet after an uneven winter’s value of strikes from Stearns, one thing resembling a worst-case state of affairs has emerged.

The Mets rank 29^th within the majors in OPS, and whereas their pitching workers ranks fourth in strikeouts and 11^th in ERA, a bullpen that till just lately blew extra saves than they nailed down made consistency elusive.

Is this season already a sunk price? Probably, although 112 video games are far too many to write down off. The query is whether or not they can materially reverse all of the elements that bought them into this mess.

Get higher

The Mets’ many well being woes appear to sting much more given the grim cosmic timing of all of it.

Such as All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor struggling a strained calf at some point after $765 million slugger Juan Soto returned from a 15-game absence attributable to a proper calf pressure. Or the membership seemingly righting itself by taking a sequence off the New York Yankees – just for Clay Holmes, arguably their finest beginning pitcher, struggling a fractured tibia May 15 that threatens to finish his season.

And so this season has been truncated for thus many: Lindor is probably going out by means of mid-June and has performed in simply 24 of fifty video games; Soto’s posted simply 35 occasions in 50 video games.

Yet a number of the wounds are arguably self-inflicted.

Stearns signed Jorge Polanco, who turns 33 in July, to a two-year, $40 million contract to carry down a part of first base; he has performed in simply 14 video games attributable to left Achilles bursitis.

And Stearns traded for middle fielder Luis Robert at the same time as the previous Chicago White Sox has performed greater than 110 video games simply as soon as in his profession. Robert has missed 24 video games with a again damage and supervisor Carlos Mendoza mentioned Thursday, May 21 that he’s not nearing baseball actions.

With all of the accidents, the very last thing the membership wanted was Bichette to battle in his new surroundings.

Bo solutions the bell

Bichette banged out 181 hits, posted an .840 OPS and capped his Toronto Blue Jays profession by blasting a three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 of the World Series. The Blue Jays fell brief and moved on, and Bichette accepted a $42 million annual wage – it’s his choice to come back again in 2027 and 2028 – with the Mets.

At 28, and the son of an enormous leaguer, you’d assume Bichette would know sufficient about changes and new begins. Yet it’s virtually unattainable to really feel out of types going by means of it the primary time.

“It’s been a lot of things I don’t think I anticipated – getting used to a new locker room, staff, a new division,” says Bichette. “There’s a lot of things for sure you have to adjust to.”

His early manufacturing mirrored that. Bichette wanted 68 plate appearances to hit his first residence run, and after an April through which he batted .230, added a 2-for-32 skid over 9 video games in May. He additionally moved to 3rd base for the primary time in his profession after which shifted again to shortstop after Lindor bought harm.

He is perhaps waking up: Bichette slammed three homers in three video games towards the Nationals this week and hit a go-ahead two-run single within the sequence finale that held up for a split-salvaging 2-1 victory.

“We know he’s one of the best hitters – he’s been that type of player. I think it’s just a matter of time,” says Mendoza. “You see a player that is confident, that is putting some A swings on pitches, that is pulling the ball and using the whole field.

“The guy we know. The type of hitter he is.”

Is he playing better because he’s more comfortable?

“I think playing better,” says Bichette, “brings more comfort.”

Fair enough. But can the Mets play better enough for it to matter?

Long past go time

It’s true: You’re never really out of it in this modern playoff format, with three wild cards and not much more than 80 wins required to earn an invitation.

Yet even by these lax standards, the Mets don’t match up to most modern success stories at the 50-game mark.

Bichette’s Blue Jays were just 25-25 in 2025, and in ninth place in the AL at that point. Seven games later, they topped .500 for good, won the AL East and were two outs from a championship.

The 2024 Tigers rode “pitching chaos” to rise up from waving a white flag at the trade deadline to the AL Division Series. Yet through 50 games they were in better shape than these Mets: 23-27, in 11^th place in the AL.

After they fired Joe Girardi, the 2022 Phillies made a wild rise all the way to the World Series. They were 21-29 through 50, though they were in 10^th place in the NL.

And no run was quite so improbable as the 2019 Nationals, who in a year with just two wild cards started 19-31, next-to-last in the NL, yet finished 74-38 and won the World Series.

These Mets? At 22-28, their record lines up with some of the recent great comebacks. They’ve won 12 of their last 19 games to crawl out of their darkest depths.

Yet the bigger issue is their record is 12^th out of 15 NL teams. It is a good year for the senior circuit, with nine teams over .500, including the entire NL Central. Any miracle run will likely have to come from within.

A game like Thursday’s win over the Nationals will help. Closer Devin Williams survived a misplay by rookie center fielder A.J. Ewing to strand a leadoff double at second base in the ninth inning; Bichette’s two-run single held up thanks to a taut five-pitcher effort.

“We got a long road ahead of us,” says Williams, who saved his seventh game in eight opportunities. “We just gotta keep stacking good days.”

Put another way: The final two-thirds of this season has to be better than the first. Right?

“You just keep on going,” says Bichette. “Sometimes it takes longer to find your identity as a team, to find what you believe in.

“I think we’re on our way.”