What once looked like the worst season for the New York Mets in the last half-century continued morphing into something merely disappointing Wednesday night, when the Mets beat the Texas Rangers 7-2.
The win was the 73rd of the season or the Mets, ensuring they would avoid 90 losses for the ninth straight season and the 20th time in the last 22 seasons.
As we all learned around first grade, you can’t get to 73 wins without first getting to 63 wins. So Wednesday’s “milestone” win came exactly three weeks after the Mets ensured they would not record the franchise’s first 100-loss season since 1993 and just their second since 1967.
The Mets are two games behind the fourth-place Washington Nationals in the NL East with four games to play, so they might still finish last in the division for the first time since 2003.
But a last-place finish with 80-something losses sure beats the alternative for the Mets, who ended April with the worst record in the game and were on a 90-loss pace through May, June and July before dealing seven veterans at the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Or does it?
The victory Wednesday both continued the encouraging second-half surge for the Mets and served as another reminder it’s hard to know if the recent improvement — on and off the field — is a legitimate sign they can return to contention next year (whenever that happens).
The tie-breaking homer was delivered in the eighth inning by second baseman Marcus Semien, whose .625 OPS is the second-lowest in the majors amongst qualified batters.
The Mets have no shortage of potential replacements for the 36-year-old Semien — Mitch Voit, a 2025 first-round pick, was named the organization’s minor league player of the year while middle infielders Jefferson Rojas, Sammy Stafura and Emilien Petre were all acquired at the deadline. But development for prospects is anything but linear, so there’s no guarantee the keystone will be in younger hands at this time next year.
Speaking of non-linear progressions for prospects…utilityman Brett Baty put the game away in the ninth with a pinch-hit grand slam. Baty’s reached base in 16 straight games, a span in which he has an OPS of 1.284.
But the surge comes at the end of a season in which Baty’s OPS has climbed above .700 overall twice — on Mar. 26, Opening Day, and Mar. 29, following the Mets’ third game. This will be the third time in four full seasons he finishes with an OPS below the league average. Is that who he is as he nears his 27th birthday, or is the recent outburst evidence he can be a Ben Zobrist-type?
Fellow longtime prospect Francisco Alvarez, who is just 24 years old despite nearing the end of his fourth big league season, had his fourth straight two-hit game Wednesday. Yet he will once again fall short of the career-high 25 homers and 63 RBIs he posted in 2023, which is also the only season in which he graded out as a plus performer behind the plate. Is he ever going to be more than a co-no. 1 catcher?
Even the seemingly sure things are tinged with uncertainty for the Mets. Juan Soto hit a two-run homer in the third and has an outside chance at finishing with 30 round-trippers despite missing more than 50 games due to a pair of leg injuries.
But what do the Mets do if those ailments are the start of a Giancarlo Stanton-like run for Soto, who is signed through 2039? And how do they ensure Soto doesn’t get the Barry Bonds treatment he received Wednesday, when he was intentionally walked in his final three plate appearances, for most of the next 13 seasons?
This brings us to the Mets’ biggest question mark of all: President of baseball operations David Stearns, who is the genius who decided it wasn’t worth re-signing Pete Alonso, the perfect no. 3 hitter behind Soto, because Alonso might not be as good in 2030.
Alas, here in 2026, Alonso leads the American League with 41 homers and 110 RBIs and will single-handedly prevent Yordan Alvarez from winning the Triple Crown.
Mets owner Steve Cohen said last weekend he expected to “add certain voices” to the front office around Stearns. Interim manager Andy Green, the club’s former farm director, was signed to a three-year extension Tuesday, one day before news leaked that former Minnesota Twins POBO Derek Falvey is expected to join the organization.
Those moves are good starts. They are also reminders that adding around the highest-paid POBO in baseball history doesn’t change the fact Stearns will remain the head decision-maker even after constructing one of the most disappointing teams the mets have ever fielded — a squad that avoided 90 losses only by playing at a .578 clip over the largely meaningless last seven weeks.
Are the Mets going anywhere if Stearns isn’t going anywhere? That’s the existential crisis awaiting the Mets whenever baseball resumes following this season.
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