Mets reliever Luke Weaver looked up to the heavens as though his prayer was answered after striking out Twins star Byron Buxton.
The former Yankees closer picked up the save on Wednesday night in a 3-2 victory over Minnesota, clinching the Mets’ first win since April 7, and ending a 12-game losing streak that was the franchise’s longest in 24 years.
“I don’t want to say there was a lot of weight. We already carry a lot of weight,” Weaver said when describing that moment. “I think we pushed so hard to give everything we can, and sometimes it’s just not good enough. It’s a weird way to look at it, but the harder you try, a lot of times, the more you fail. It’s just relaxing, understanding what you do well, staying in yourself, and at the end of the day, just keep hoping and doing your thing.”
The Mets will now try to start building toward the seemingly insurmountable task of getting their season back on track. No team in MLB history has made the postseason after losing 12 or more consecutive games, and the fashion in which Carlos Mendoza’s men found ways to drop ballgames in no way suggests that it could even happen.
New York’s bats are still ice cold, scoring 25 runs in their last 13 games. There also seems to be a late-inning issue developing after Devin Williams blew a save on Sunday in Chicago against the Cubs and then walked three Twins on Tuesday night on his way to allowing two runs in the top of the ninth in a 5-3 loss.
“At the end of the day, this should be a reminder that this game humbles you in so many ways, individually and as a team,” Weaver said. “It’s not very often that you have such a talented team where everything just doesn’t really click in the right way. It’s quite an impossible feat, but we made it possible. We’re going to use this as a learning point and hopefully as a catalyst for the future.”
Their starting pitching has shown signs of providing elite stuff, though. Nolan McLean carried a perfect game into the sixth inning on Tuesday night, and Clay Holmes went seven solid innings in which he allowed two runs on five hits while lowering his 2026 ERA to 2.10.
Holmes, another former Yankee, has quickly become one of the Mets’ most reliable starters since transitioning from reliever to starter last season upon his arrival in Queens.
“When you feel like you’re doing the right things, you evaluate things, you look around, and people are doing what you should be doing,” Holmes said. “You kind of really wanna reach for something to do, and you’re already doing those things. Sometimes it can be a little harder, where you have to double down in the belief in yourself when you have a lot of people saying s—t. For the guys in here to feel that and look around and say it’s going to be us to do this, we have to lock arms and do it together. This adversity could be good for us… Hopefully, it brings us together, and we continue to fight.”
There is a conceivable path for the Mets to at least get back on track, thanks to a softer schedule. After their three-game set against the .500 Twins, they face two of the weaker clubs in the National League, the Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals, at home.
“This was a sigh of relief. We have a lot more games to play,” Weaver said. “Doesn’t mean that we now go on a 50-game winning streak. We still have to go do our business.”
But even the silver linings seem to have a few rusty spots nowadays. In the streak-busting win on Wednesday night, in which they got back slugger Juan Soto from a calf injury, star shortstop Francisco Lindor left the game in the fourth inning due to left calf tightness just as he showed signs of breaking out of his early-season slump. He is undergoing an MRI on Thursday morning.
“It’s what we’re dealing with right now,” Mendoza said. “Can’t sit here and make excuses. It’s all part of it. We lost Soto, and we had a hard time. Now we’re potentially dealing with losing another really good player, and we gotta figure out. We gotta find a way. But we have to wait and see.”
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