An offense covered in his fingerprints is more punchless than imaginable without Juan Soto, who is in the thick of his rehab from a strained calf that has shelved him for the last week and a half.
In their three-game set against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Mets scored just three runs on 12 hits. It’s one thing to get shut down by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, who were brilliant on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It’s something entirely different to be two-hit across eight shutout innings by Justin Wrobeski, who entered the 2026 season with a career 4.81 ERA.
The Mets have lost eight games in a row, which is their longest skid since losing nine straight in 2004, and have scored just 12 runs during that stretch. They have not scored this few runs over an eight-game stretch since they mustered nine runs between June 3 and June 13, 2018.
They’ve already been shut out four times in 19 games, already half of last year’s total in 162.
Stearns’ offseason acquisitions, which make up roughly half of the lineup now, have mostly been invisible. Third baseman Bo Bichette, who batted .311 last season, is batting .228 with a .574 OPS.
“I don’t really wrap my mind around it,” Bichette said. “It’s tough right now. If we knew the answer, we’d do it. But we’ll keep working to try and figure it out.”
Center fielder Luis Robert Jr. has cooled off significantly after a hot start, and his batting .143 (4-for-his-last-28) in his last eight games.
First baseman/designated hitter Jorge Polanco, currently battling Achilles tendinitis, is batting .179 with one home run and two RBI in 14 games. At least Pete Alonso has encountered a difficult start of his own to life with the Baltimore Orioles, as he’s batting just .197 with two home runs and six RBI in 18 games.
Second baseman Marcus Semien is batting .194 with a .525 OPS. The man he replaced, Jeff McNeil, came into Citi Field last week with the Athletics and went 6-for-11. That’s nearly half the 13 hits Semien has in 19 games this season.
Brandon Nimmo, who was traded to the Texas Rangers for Semien, is batting .319 with a .915 OPS, three home runs, and nine RBI.
It can’t possibly get worse than this, right? Technically, it still can, which is a concept that is likely nagging at the back of every generation of Mets fans’ minds.
“We’re not playing good baseball right now,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Everybody’s frustrated. We gotta use the off day [Thursday] to regroup and get back at it because we gotta get going here. It’s not a good showing right now.”
Unfair or not, Mendoza is the immediate scapegoat for the Mets’ struggles. That is, unfortunately, how things work in the business of baseball. While he is not blameless in all of this, the focus of this nightmarish start ultimately has to fall on the shoulders of Stearns — and the weight of that should only increase the longer this malaise goes.
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