New York, New York

By John Jastremski

sports@queensledger.com

A week ago on Sports Nite on SNY, I was asked if the 12 game losing streak was going to be rock bottom for the 2026 Mets. I hesitated and wondered, because with the way the team was playing and performing, in theory of course it could get worse. 

This past weekend, my feelings were affirmed. The Mets were swept 3 straight by the Colorado Rockies, not exactly the 98 Yankees or 2025 Dodgers. 

The Mets in a doubleheader on Sunday scored 1 run in 18 innings of baseball to fall double digit games under the .500 mark. 

Yes, after Sunday’s game. All bets were off when it comes to the job security of Mets manager Carlos Mendoza especially with the shocking firing of Red Sox manager Alex Cora on Saturday night. 

As of Tuesday morning, the Mets have not made a managerial change and the pipe dream of Alex Cora in the Mets dugout in 2026 seems exactly that. 

After all, if you were paid 7.5 million dollars to do nothing the rest of the year, you’d probably prefer that as opposed to coming in and taking over a baseball team midseason. 

So, history is without a doubt not on the side of the 2026 Mets. No team in the history of baseball has lost 12 consecutive games and has made the postseason. 

The start for the 2026 Mets rivals some of the worst teams in the history of the franchise including the infamous 1962 Inaugural Mets. 

I won’t sugar coat, on April 28th, the season does not exactly look promising. So, let’s be glass half full for a second. There is a lot of baseball left to be played. How do the Mets turn their season around? I’ll give you three keys. 

1. Can the team remember how to hit the ball out of the ballpark? 

If you want to score runs, you have to hit some home runs. The long ball has been non existent for this group, that has to change. 

2. Can the 2 best starters on the team go deeper into games? 

On a team that has been dreadful, I know it’s tough to nitpick Freddy Peralta and Nolan McLean. I think both guys are tremendous pitchers, but they have to take their game to another level to help out the rest of the group. Both starters need to give the team more length. 5 inning starts are simply not enough. 

3. Can the team be more fundamentally sound? 

The entire offseason all I heard about was run prevention, run prevention, run prevention! The Mets made massive changes to the roster because they wanted to become more athletic, better defensively and more fundamentally sound. 

A month in. The defense has been suspect, the mental mistakes have been off the charts and the brand of baseball has been atrocious. 

Carlos Mendoza is fighting to save his job, he must tighten up the ship on so many different levels or he will be working somewhere else in 2027. 

OK 2026 Mets. Nowhere to go, but up right? 

You can listen to my podcast New York, New York on Spotify/Apple Podcasts every Sunday/Thursday & following every Knicks playoff game. You can watch me on Sports Nite nightly following Mets Postgame on SNY.