Monday, October 12

Welcome back to the Mets Beat newsletter! Anthony DiComo has covered the Mets for MLB.com since 2007, including the past 17 seasons full-time on the beat.

NEW YORK -- The Mets have a credibility problem.

Ten percent of the way through the season, they are 7-9, losers of five straight and employers of an offense that’s proven lifeless over significant stretches.

It’s barely mid-April, yet on Sunday morning the New York Post back page headline blared: “GETTING LATE EARLY.” And that was before the Mets created almost no offensive pressure in a 1-0 loss to the A’s -- their fifth in a row at Citi Field, in advance of a long cross-country flight and a series against the two-time defending champion Dodgers.

The good news is the Mets still have 146 games left to play, they still possess one of the most talented rosters in the sport, and no one else in their division looks all that formidable. But that’s where the credibility problem comes in. Last year, all those things rang true as well, as the Mets bled their early NL East lead down to nothing, then gave away their Wild Card berth on the last day of the season. At every stop along the way, president of baseball operations David Stearns, manager Carlos Mendoza and various Mets leaders preached patience, insisting that the team would be fine.

They weren’t fine. So this time around, it’s hard to trust their words without seeing some sort of proof.

Asked about that concept after Saturday’s loss, shortstop Francisco Lindor replied, “It’s a different year. You’ve got to see it from a whole different lens. This is not the same team, and even if it was, it’s a new year. We have new opportunities.”

“I’ve got to be better,” Lindor added, phrasing those words in exactly the same way he did countless times in 2025.

Lindor has become the face of the Mets’ current crisis, especially with superstar teammate Juan Soto on the injured list. In addition to his usual early-season slump, Lindor has looked out of sorts on defense, making several uncharacteristic mental mistakes. Mendoza, to his credit, didn’t defend the shortstop in his usual way this weekend, instead calling Lindor’s miscues “weird” and “hard to explain.” So is a lot of what’s happened in Flushing over the past 10 months.

Lindor also represents one of the only remaining through lines from the disappointing Mets teams of the early 2020s. Over the offseason, the Mets replaced the bulk of their longtime offensive core, moving on from Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil in an effort to spark change. As one of the incumbents, Lindor does have to be better. So do the newcomers brought on to refresh this roster. Very few Mets are immune from blame.

“I don’t know if we’ve hit our stride in any particular area of our team,” Stearns said over the weekend.

At this point, trust between the team and its fan base has eroded. That’s fair. After games, with microphones pointed at them, Mets types can say any number of things about the length of the season and the talent on the roster and the certainty that everything will be just fine.

Their players do have the capacity to change all this. They do have the ability to fix it. But until something actually does change, their words -- this time around -- will continue to face skepticism at every turn.

Francisco Alvarez hit his fourth home run Saturday against the A’s. Which Mets catcher hit the most over the first 15 games of a season?

A) John Buck
B) Gary Carter
C) Todd Hundley
D) Mike Piazza

When the Mets designated Richard Lovelady for assignment on Saturday, the move was met by many on social media with a sense of vindication.

“Can this be the last time we see that dude please!” read one reply on X.

“Lovelady has never belonged on an MLB roster,” opined another.

Allow me to submit a contrary opinion. As the last man on the roster over the first 14 games of the season, Lovelady proved invaluable, pitching in spots that Mendoza preferred not to use other relievers. If the Mets needed to cover innings in a game they were likely to lose, Mendoza tended to call on Lovelady. If other relievers needed a day off, there was Lovelady, often going more than one inning, immune to the usage rules that governed his teammates.

Every pitching staff needs someone like that. And here’s the thing -- through it all, Lovelady didn’t pitch half bad, producing a 3.68 ERA over 7 1/3 innings. He did it despite frequently appearing in undesirable spots with little notice. He did it on back-to-back days on multiple occasions, at a time of year when no other Mets reliever took on that challenge more than once.

It’s entirely possible that in the coming days, Lovelady will clear waivers and choose to remain in the organization, ready to help out again when called. If he doesn’t, the Mets will be worse off without a pitcher who wasn’t fully appreciated in his time.

• In addition to moving on from Lovelady, the Mets on Sunday designated Luis García for assignment. It was an interesting move for a team that had signed García to a $1.75 million contract less than three months earlier. They remain on the hook for all that money.

• In another notable bullpen move, the Mets promoted Craig Kimbrel to their active roster, guaranteeing him $2.5 million in the process. They’re hoping for a spark from the likely future Hall of Famer.

• In another effort to spark some change, a source said the Mets will call up veteran outfielder Tommy Pham prior to Monday's series opener in Los Angeles. The Mets had recently signed Pham to a Minor League deal.

C) Hundley

Hundley hit seven homers over the first 15 games of the 1996 season, the most to start a year by any Mets catcher.

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