WASHINGTON — This very nothing New York Mets season has reached the 50-game mark with only the faintest chance of becoming something.
For now, that something is very ugly: The third team in major league history to miss the playoffs with a payroll north of $300 million – following in the footsteps of the 2023 and 2025 Mets.
At 22-28, this squad heads to Miami this weekend in a battle for last place in the National League East, though with 12 1/2 games and three teams separating them from the Atlanta Braves, it’s best not to even peek until a significant reversal of fortune has occurred.
Looking back is already painful enough.
“It’s all you can control: Playing better now,” Bo Bichette, their prized off-season acquisition, tells USA TODAY Sports. “You can’t control what’s already happened.”
What’s happened has been jarring: Devastating injuries mixed with heartwarming debuts. Underperforming superstars and soul-crushing blown leads. A sense of disbelief as division clubs like the Marlins and Washington Nationals – ranked 29th and 27th, respectively, in payroll – have outperformed their $357 million roster.
Behind the financial might of owner Steve Cohen and smarts of club president David Stearns, this was supposed to be a machine. Yet after an uneven winter’s worth of moves from Stearns, something resembling a worst-case scenario has emerged.
The Mets rank 29th in the majors in OPS, and while their pitching staff ranks fourth in strikeouts and 11th in ERA, a bullpen that until recently blew more saves than they nailed down made consistency elusive.
Is this season already a sunk cost? Probably, though 112 games are far too many to write off. The question is whether they can materially reverse all the factors that got them into this mess.
Get better
The Mets’ many health woes seem to sting even more given the grim cosmic timing of it all.
Such as All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor suffering a strained calf one day after $765 million slugger Juan Soto returned from a 15-game absence due to a right calf strain. Or the club seemingly righting itself by taking a series off the New York Yankees – only for Clay Holmes, arguably their best starting pitcher, suffering a fractured tibia May 15 that threatens to end his season.
And so this season has been truncated for so many: Lindor is likely out through mid-June and has played in just 24 of 50 games; Soto’s posted just 35 times in 50 games.
Yet some of the wounds are arguably self-inflicted.
Stearns signed Jorge Polanco, who turns 33 in July, to a two-year, $40 million contract to hold down part of first base; he has played in just 14 games due to left Achilles bursitis.
And Stearns traded for center fielder Luis Robert even as the former Chicago White Sox has played more than 110 games just once in his career. Robert has missed 24 games with a back injury and manager Carlos Mendoza said Thursday, May 21 that he’s not nearing baseball activities.
With all the injuries, the last thing the club needed was Bichette to struggle in his new environment.
Bo answers the bell
Bichette banged out 181 hits, posted an .840 OPS and capped his Toronto Blue Jays career by blasting a three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 of the World Series. The Blue Jays fell short and moved on, and Bichette accepted a $42 million annual salary – it’s his option to come back in 2027 and 2028 – with the Mets.
At 28, and the son of a big leaguer, you’d think Bichette would know enough about adjustments and new starts. Yet it’s almost impossible to feel out of sorts going through it the first time.
“It’s been a lot of things I don’t think I anticipated – getting used to a new locker room, staff, a new division,” says Bichette. “There’s a lot of things for sure you have to adjust to.”
His early production reflected that. Bichette needed 68 plate appearances to hit his first home run, and after an April in which he batted .230, added a 2-for-32 skid over nine games in May. He also moved to third base for the first time in his career and then shifted back to shortstop after Lindor got hurt.
He might be waking up: Bichette slammed three homers in three games against the Nationals this week and hit a go-ahead two-run single in the series finale that held up for a split-salvaging 2-1 victory.
“We know he’s one of the best hitters – he’s been that type of player. I think it’s just a matter of time,” says Mendoza. “You see a player that is confident, that is putting some A swings on pitches, that is pulling the ball and using the whole field.
“The guy we know. The type of hitter he is.”
Is he playing better because he’s more comfortable?
“I think playing better,” says Bichette, “brings more comfort.”
Fair enough. But can the Mets play better enough for it to matter?
Long past go time
It’s true: You’re never really out of it in this modern playoff format, with three wild cards and not much more than 80 wins required to earn an invitation.
Yet even by these lax standards, the Mets don’t match up to most modern success stories at the 50-game mark.
Bichette’s Blue Jays were just 25-25 in 2025, and in ninth place in the AL at that point. Seven games later, they topped .500 for good, won the AL East and were two outs from a championship.
The 2024 Tigers rode “pitching chaos” to rise up from waving a white flag at the trade deadline to the AL Division Series. Yet through 50 games they were in better shape than these Mets: 23-27, in 11th place in the AL.
After they fired Joe Girardi, the 2022 Phillies made a wild rise all the way to the World Series. They were 21-29 through 50, though they were in 10th place in the NL.
And no run was quite so improbable as the 2019 Nationals, who in a year with just two wild cards started 19-31, next-to-last in the NL, yet finished 74-38 and won the World Series.
These Mets? At 22-28, their record lines up with some of the recent great comebacks. They’ve won 12 of their last 19 games to crawl out of their darkest depths.
Yet the bigger issue is their record is 12th out of 15 NL teams. It is a good year for the senior circuit, with nine teams over .500, including the entire NL Central. Any miracle run will likely have to come from within.
A game like Thursday’s win over the Nationals will help. Closer Devin Williams survived a misplay by rookie center fielder A.J. Ewing to strand a leadoff double at second base in the ninth inning; Bichette’s two-run single held up thanks to a taut five-pitcher effort.
“We got a long road ahead of us,” says Williams, who saved his seventh game in eight opportunities. “We just gotta keep stacking good days.”
Put another way: The final two-thirds of this season has to be better than the first. Right?
“You just keep on going,” says Bichette. “Sometimes it takes longer to find your identity as a team, to find what you believe in.
“I think we’re on our way.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New York Mets ponder dismal start to 2026 season after 50 games
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