“You are always a possible you.”
— “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler,” Italo Calvino
It is frequently tempting and often unwise to label anything in baseball that happens in April “rock bottom.” But Sunday’s doubleheader sweep by the Colorado Rockies at home, in which the New York Mets scored a total of one run, sure better be the worst it feels at Citi Field in 2026.
How did the Mets fail thee? With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, let us count the ways.
• The Mets were swept at home by the Rockies for the first time since 2018. That was Colorado’s last winning season.
• The Mets were swept at home by a Rockies team that had lost 119 games the previous season. The Mets had never before been swept at home by a team that had lost that many games the year prior, though that’s in part because they had only ever had two prior tries. (They swept the 2004 Detroit Tigers and took two of three from the 2025 Chicago White Sox.)
• As far as I can tell, this was just the second time in franchise history the Mets were swept at home in a series of at least three games by a team that had lost 100 or more games the prior season. The last time was in 1962, when the Philadelphia Phillies swept the expansion Mets at the Polo Grounds. (The ’67 Mets did lose a three-game “home” series to the Chicago Cubs, but two of the games were rained out and eventually played at Wrigley Field.)
• The Mets were held to four runs in three games by a pitching staff that entered the series with a 4.40 ERA. The Rockies hadn’t held an opponent to four or fewer runs in a series of at least three games since the final set of 2022, when they did it to a 110-win Los Angeles Dodgers squad with an eye on the postseason.
• The Mets had scored at least four runs in 15 of their past 16 individual games against Colorado.
• The Mets’ 9-19 record is tied for the worst in baseball. That’s despite playing 22 of their 28 games against teams that finished last season under .500. (They are 0-6 against teams that had winning records in 2025. Their next chance is against the Tigers on May 11.)
• That 9-19 start is tied for the second worst in franchise history through 28 games. Worse yet, one of the teams it’s tied with is the 1962 Mets. You never want to be on pace with the 1962 New York Mets — something the team that just swept the Mets at home could tell you all about.
• The Mets scored one run in the opener Sunday — the fifth time they’d posted only one in a game this season. Then they were shut out in the nightcap — the fifth time they’d been shut out this season. They are thus on pace to be shut out 29 times this year and to score one run an additional 29 times. Last season, the Mets scored three or fewer runs 68 times in 162 games. This year, they’ve done that 18 times in 28 games — a pace for 104 over the full 162.
• On the first Saturday of the season, the Mets were shut out through nine innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates before scoring four in extras — half of them bonus runners — in a 4-2 walk-off win. Just five times in the subsequent 26 games have the Mets scored more runs in a game than in one where they were shut out through nine.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this.
The first is that this was always a possible outcome for this team. In raising the ceiling for this roster, president of baseball operations David Stearns lowered the floor. He did that by bringing in players who had experienced much larger ranges in production as of late and who were not as durable as the players they replaced. That floor has fallen out on the Mets to this point. Jorge Polanco has barely played. Luis Robert Jr. needs routine days off. Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor, two players they expected to be everyday centerpieces, have missed significant time. Carrying Carson Benge through the ups and downs of a debut season would be a lot easier if the bats around him were hitting and, say, he didn’t get moved to the leadoff spot while hitting well below .200.
The second is that Lindor’s injury must alter the pace of Stearns’ in-season evaluation. Stearns has said he waits at least 45 games to get a sense of the team he has. He doesn’t have the luxury of 17 more games. That doesn’t necessarily mean changing the manager, but it does mean thinking about that more deeply than one would otherwise. The Mets are at a crisis now, and though the supply of season-saving moves in April is, of course, low, it still might be higher than usual.
Consider the other teams that, like the Mets, have high expectations and have swiftly reached a crossroads. The Boston Red Sox fired Alex Cora over the weekend. The Houston Astros are last in the AL West. The Phillies have the same 9-19 record as the Mets. Those teams have areas of surplus and change-of-scenery candidates. (Boston has too many outfielders and Houston too many infielders, for instance.) This is a time to be creative and urgent, the way Stearns was when he traded for Willy Adames with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2021 and the way he was by late May with the Mets in 2024.
The exposition
The Mets were swept by the Rockies. Their 9-19 record is tied for the worst in baseball.
The Washington Nationals won two of three on the South Side of Chicago to improve to 13-16 on the season, which is just a half-game out of second in the National League East.
The Los Angeles Angels were swept in Kansas City to fall to 12-17, just a game ahead of those Astros for last in the AL West. The Halos now travel to Chicago for three against the White Sox, starting Monday night.
The pitching possibles
vs. Washington
RHP Clay Holmes (2-2, 2.10 ERA) vs. RHP Zack Littell (0-3, 7.56 ERA)
LHP David Peterson (0-3, 5.06) vs. RHP Cade Cavalli (0-1, 4.01)
RHP Freddy Peralta (1-3, 3.90) vs. RHP Miles Mikolas (0-3, 8.49)
at Los Angeles (AL)
RHP Nolan McLean (1-2, 2.55) vs. RHP Walbert Ureña (0-3, 4.76)
TBA vs. LHP Reid Detmers (1-2, 4.28)
RHP Clay Holmes vs. RHP Jack Kochanowicz (2-0, 3.10)
Injury updates
Mets’ injured list
Player
Injury
Elig.
ETA
Left lat surgery
Now
May
Right wrist contusion
Now
May
Blister on right finger
April 29
May
Left meniscus tear
Now
June
Rib fracture
May 24
June
Left calf strain
May 2
July
Tommy John surgery
May 24
2027
Tommy John surgery
May 24
2027
Tommy John surgery
May 24
2027
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
• Lindor will be in a boot for close to three more weeks before getting another MRI on his strained left calf. That MRI will determine the timetable for Lindor, which the Mets have only suggested will be significant. Stearns conceded Lindor is unlikely to be back by Memorial Day, and though June is a possibility, I’m putting July as the ETA here.
• Polanco is attempting to heal his wrist and heel injuries while on the IL. He has started baseball activities but is “week to week” according to Stearns. The May ETA here is a suggestion, but not necessarily a conservative one.
• Minter is still on track to return in the first seven to 10 days of May. Minter pitched twice in three days late last week. The next and final steps in his rehab are to make back-to-back appearances and to come in during the middle of an inning.
Minor-league schedule
Triple A: Syracuse vs. Lehigh Valley (Philadelphia)
Double A: Binghamton at New Hampshire (Toronto)
High A: Brooklyn vs. Frederick (Baltimore)
Low A: St. Lucie at Tampa (New York, AL)
Trivia time
It’s hard not to think of managerial dismissals whenever the Mets go to Anaheim. Who hit two home runs off Jered Weaver to propel the Mets to a 9-6 win over the Angels on June 16, 2008 — the night Willie Randolph was fired?
Hint: Neither of those home runs was his most memorable as a Met against a member of the Weaver family.
(I’ll reply to the correct answer in the comments.)
