LOS ANGELES — Man, do the New York Mets miss Juan Soto.
But as prolific a hitter as Soto is, how much of a difference can one player make when production is so nonexistent?
Yes, the Mets’ lineup looks that bad lately. For the second straight game, the Mets failed to score. They lost, 4-0, to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night and extended two dubious streaks.
Their losing streak reached six games. Their scoreless streak reached 20 innings.
Already this season, the Mets (7-10) have been shut out four times. That is half as many as last year’s total. There are 145 games left. This marks their third scoreless streak of at least 17 innings.
“It’s frustrating for everyone in here,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “You just gotta understand that it’s a long season here and you just gotta keep going.”
People within the Mets are stressing how early it is, and for good reason. They’re barely 10 percent into the season. Perhaps more than most teams, the Mets should understand this, given their bad start during a good year in 2024 and their good start during a bad year in 2025. Veterans in the Mets clubhouse also point to the newness of the group and say that it may take a little time, and that they still have a lot of time.
In the meantime, however, the Mets aren’t showing signs of quickly turning things around. Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski, an average swingman, needed just 90 pitches over eight innings to hold the Mets to two hits.
“I’m good with the effort, obviously,” Mendoza said, “but it’s hard to say here that we’re having good at-bats when we’re not.”
The Mets’ struggles on Monday represented so much of what has gone wrong for their lineup. Beyond not scoring many runs, the Mets don’t walk much (they ranked 22nd in walk rate heading into Monday), don’t rack up barrels (23rd) and don’t slug much (24th). On Monday night, all three of the Mets’ hits (one came off Tanner Scott in the ninth inning) were singles. They didn’t put anyone else on base.
“I think we’re trying to control the strike zone and swing at the right ones, and that’s only half the battle,” Mets second baseman Marcus Semien said. “Quality of contact is something we’re all striving for.”
To Semien’s point, the Mets put the ball in play. They struck out just twice on Monday. Generally, they don’t strike out much (20.8 percent strikeout rate, good for eighth in MLB entering Monday). But contact alone only goes so far. Eleven times, a Dodgers pitcher recorded an out needing to throw just two pitches. The Mets made 15 outs on grounders.
“Even the balls that we’re hitting hard, they’re on the ground,” Mendoza said. “We’re just having a hard time squaring up fastballs or anything.”
Bo Bichette had two of three hardest-hit balls for the Mets but they were both grounders. One carried an exit velocity of 106.2 mph, but Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas snagged the one-hopper for an out. So, there’s some element of poor luck in play, too. The Mets’ expected stats suggest that things will improve over time. But it’s not as if they’re collectively hitting balls especially hard (they ranked 16th in hard-hit rate, which is fine, not great) and the catch-all offensive numbers like wRC+ place the Mets in the bottom third of MLB.
After major changes in the offseason, the Mets’ lineup was always set to face scrutiny. They swapped some power for some contact. Half the lineup is different.
Lately, it hasn’t mattered much who starts or what the batting order looks like. In Soto’s place in left field, veteran Tommy Pham played his first game of the season. He went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. Outside of mainly Luis Robert Jr. and Francisco Alvarez, the Mets lineup is cold. To absorb Soto’s absence, they need more from Francisco Lindor, Bichette and Jorge Polanco.
“He’s the best left-handed hitter in the game — we miss him, but we need to get him right and we need to make sure he comes back healthy,” Semien said. “Definitely don’t want to see a situation where he comes back too soon and something worse happens.”
Soto’s return from a calf strain doesn’t appear imminent. He did not travel with the team and is doing his rehab work at Citi Field. At the time of the injury on April 3, the Mets suggested a timetable of two to three weeks. Soto, however, hasn’t yet started a running program, though Mendoza said that could “hopefully” change “in the next couple of days.” During the same pregame news conference Monday, Mendoza also said the Mets remain in the early stages of Soto’s situation and he could even undergo another MRI if the club deems it necessary.
Just over a week ago, against the San Francisco Giants, the Mets scored 25 runs over three games despite getting just one at-bat from Soto. Though his absence is obviously a huge part of the malaise, the reasons for the Mets’ struggles over the last week stretch beyond Soto’s injury.
“It sucks going through it,” Mendoza said. “Whether it’s early, in the middle of the season, late, you know that at some point during the regular season of 162, you’re going to face adversity, and here we are. You just gotta find a way to get through it. And we will.”
