BACKFIRING

BY MIKE RIFKIN

If I told you on May 11th that the worst record in baseball would belong to the New York Mets, would you believe me? If, you answered yes, then good for you, but if you said no, you’re response would be what has gone wrong in Queens. The answer to that is simple the offense, it is simply offensive to watch and Steve Cohen should be paying the fans to watch this. 

But, Sunday was a big straw for me, playing in a rubber game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, on a road trip where a win gives you a 6-3 road trip vs 5-4 and the lineup that was put out was inexcusable. Austin Slater and Andy Ibanez, two guys just CLAIMED OFF WAIVERS were hitting third and sixth, I repeat Austin Slater and Andy Ibanez hit third and sixth. The Mets offense had a run on four hits, they also made three errors. They almost had as many errors as hits, and at 15-25 where is rock bottom? 

The Mets offense has a slash line of .224/.288/.345, the only team they have a better average than is the Cincinnati Reds. I know there’s a lot of fans who have gotten on Mendoza, myself included, but the guy who should be front and center on this is David Stearns. He wanted a more contact oriented lineup, well guess what, the results aren’t there. Yes, there are injuries, Francisco Lindor and Luis Robert are currently out of the lineup, but we don’t have a clue when they’re coming back. And yes Juan Soto missed some time earlier in the season, but what the Mets are putting out there, with their payroll is disgusting. The scored five runs in the three games against the D-Backs, two of them scored in the tenth inning Friday night (one was the ghost runner). And how many times have we heard the other team’s pitching has retired 7 plus Mets in a row? Too often, and this is on Stearns.

Now, I am not here to say fire Stearns, mainly because I am unsure who you replace him with. But I was with him on a lot of the moves last offseason, except letting Pete Alonso walk. You can say a lot of things about Alonso, but the Mets miss his presence in the lineup, especially Juan Soto. Jon Heyman had the report of tension between Alonso and Stearns during the first Alonso negotiations and one would wonder if that had an impact on the second one. 

Yes, there’s a lot of baseball to be played, but with not having an idea of when reinforcements are coming and the way it looks, I might get some at-bats at Citi Field this summer. A lot of what Stearns has done has blown up in his face, and Cohen shouldn’t fire him, let him try to erase the wrongs with some rights. But as a fanbase, to see Austin Slater hit third in a rubber game in May is just disrespectful. David Stearns needs to check his ego, because let’s be honest since the trade deadline everything has gone wrong.