Mets’ Bo Bichette Admits What Everyone’s Thinking After Carlos Mendoza’s Firing

The New York Mets fired Carlos Mendoza on Thursday, and the apologies started rolling in almost immediately. But Bo Bichette cut through the typical corporate PR speak and said the quiet part out loud.

Mendoza was well-liked around the clubhouse. The team keeps emphasizing that. General manager David Stearns called him a great guy and praised how he handled the dugout. But the Mets are sitting in last place in the NL East at 34-47. They just got swept at home in a four-game series by the Chicago Cubs and have lost six straight. Something had to give, and the manager is almost always the one who pays.

“Mendy was good to me. I guess sometimes the manager has to take the fall for the team underperforming,” Bichette told reporters after the news broke. The shortstop, in his first season with the Mets, didn’t sugarcoat it. He knows Mendoza didn’t lose those games. The players did.

It’s a familiar story in New York. The Mets have underachieved in almost every way this season. The pitching staff has been inconsistent. The offense has gone cold at the worst times. And the defense has looked sloppy more nights than not. Mendoza, who was hired last offseason, couldn’t fix it. But Bichette’s point is hard to argue with: you can fire the manager, but the same guys are still playing shortstop, still standing in the outfield, still stepping into the batter’s box.

Francisco Lindor echoed his teammate’s sentiment, expressing support for Mendoza and acknowledging the awkward reality of the situation. Nobody in the clubhouse seems happy about it. But nobody’s pretending it was a surprise either.

The Mets have named Andy Green as interim manager, and the team has been clear that he isn’t a candidate for the full-time job. That means this is a tryout for someone else entirely, or maybe the start of a longer search. Either way, Green inherits a mess.

New York opens a three-game homestand against the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday. The Mets dropped two of three to the Phillies in Philadelphia last weekend. That series feels like a lifetime ago now. But it’s the same team. Same players. Same problems. The only difference is the guy sitting in the big chair.