The New York Mets just played their worst defensive game in 12 years. And it came against a Cubs team that didn’t hit a single home run in the nightcap of Wednesday’s doubleheader. That’s how bad it’s gotten.
New York committed six errors in Game 2 at Citi Field, handing Chicago five unearned runs in a 10-5 loss that completed a sweep and dropped the Mets to a season-worst 12 games under .500 at 34-46. Mark Vientos and Marcus Semien each made two errors. Francisco Lindor and Bo Bichette added one apiece. The box score looked less like a major league game and more like a Little League mercy-rule situation.
ESPN’s Jesse Rogers pointed out on X that the six errors were the most by the franchise in a single game since 2014. Then Jeff Passan dropped his own read on the situation, and it hit hard. This whole season is an error, he wrote. No qualifiers. No context needed.
That line is going to stick because it’s not just about one night. The Mets have been unraveling for weeks. Their pitching staff is inconsistent. Their lineup keeps showing flashes of power that get erased by sloppy defense and base running misadventures. The same group that homered four times in Game 2 — Francisco Alvarez, Vientos, Bichette, and AJ Ewing all went deep — still managed to lose by five.
Errors keep piling up in every direction
The six errors in one game is alarming, but it’s part of a bigger pattern. The defense has been leaky all season. Routine ground balls turn into rally starters. Double plays don’t get turned. The Mets keep giving extra outs, and opposing teams keep cashing them in. The Cubs didn’t need to hit a single homer in the nightcap to score double digits. They just waited for the Mets to hand them chances, and the Mets obliged.
The losing streak is at five now. This is a franchise that spent big in the offseason, a team that was supposed to contend in a wide-open NL East. Instead, they’re 12 games under .500 in late June and the season’s only halfway done.
What comes next for a team that can’t stop beating itself
The Mets have time on the calendar but not much margin for error — pun absolutely intended. The trade deadline is coming. If the front office believes this is just a bad stretch, they could hold and hope. But 12 games under .500 with a defense that just set a decade-plus low is not the kind of sample a smart front office ignores.
Passan’s four words aren’t going to dictate what Steve Cohen and David Stearns do next. But they captured how a lot of people feel watching this team: Every night brings a new way to lose. Some nights it’s the bullpen. Some nights it’s a lineup that goes quiet. Wednesday night it was a defense that made every routine play feel like a high-risk stunt.
The Mets have 82 games left. That’s plenty of games to turn it around. It’s also plenty of games to keep proving Passan right.
Leave a Comment