Carlos Mendoza has seen a lot of baseball. But nothing quite prepared him for what he walked into at Lincoln Financial Field last week.
The Mets manager took a night off from the grind to catch Brazil vs. Haiti in the World Cup group stage in Philadelphia. And even for a guy who spends his life around packed stadiums, the energy hit different.
“It was unreal,” Mendoza told reporters the next day. “Growing up in Venezuela, I always cheered for Brazil, to be honest with you. It was fun for the first time I got to watch a World Cup.”
Brazil rolled to a 3-0 win behind a brace from Matheus Cunha and a goal from Vinicius Jr. But the scoreline wasn’t really what stuck with Mendoza. It was the noise, the constant wave of sound, the way the crowd turned a June group-stage game into something that felt like a final.
Mendoza isn’t the first baseball guy to get swept up in World Cup fever. Players and coaches around the league have been sneaking off to matches. But coming from Venezuela, a country where soccer is religion, this meant a little more. He grew up watching Brazil on TV. Getting to stand in the middle of it, hearing the drums and the chants, was a bucket-list moment.
And then he had to go back to work.
The other reason to talk about Philadelphia
Twenty-four hours after Mendoza was soaking in one of the best atmospheres in sports, his team got absolutely cooked by the Phillies. Like, 15-3 cooked. The Mets gave up 11 runs in the first three innings, and the bullpen looked like it had never met a hitter it could get out.
New York scraped together a few runs in the fourth, but by then the game was basically over. Philadelphia cruised. The Mets fell to 34-42, dead last in the NL East. Even the Marlins and Nationals are ahead of them right now.
That’s a rough spot for a team that had playoff hopes when the season started. The pitching staff has been a mess, the bats have been inconsistent, and the division is starting to feel like it belongs to Atlanta and Philadelphia.
Mendoza didn’t blame the World Cup hangover. He didn’t make excuses. He just said they didn’t play well, which was the understatement of the week.
The Mets get one more shot at the Phillies on June 21. First pitch is at 7:20 p.m. ET. Whether they can bounce back or keep sinking is anybody’s guess. But at least Mendoza will have that night in Philadelphia to remember — even if the next one was a nightmare.
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