The Mets had a 61-54 record going into this same spot on the baseball calendar a year ago, and they were eight games behind the Phillies in the National League East. The Mets were 2.5 games behind the Phillies going into their current series against the Brewers in Milwaukee, although their win-loss record was two games higher than it was the previous season (63-52). As a result, their standings improved. Their recent appearance and the emotions they have evoked in their followers simply don’t feel that way.
At the same stage in the season last year, the Yankees were tied with the Orioles for first place in the AL East and 20 games over.500. They were in third place going into this weekend, 61-54, and were more likely to finish outside of the top three in the wild card standings than the Blue Jays. They don’t simply appear to be in worse shape than they were in August 2024. They appear to be in even worse shape.
The baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint, as we are constantly told. I take it you’ve heard that? Not right now. Seven weeks after Sunday, both the Yankees and the Mets have 44 games left in the regular season, and they are both racing to the end. We will shortly learn whether there is sufficient time for them to return to resembling the teams they were at the beginning of the season and alter the gloomy, dog-day storyline that has taken over the month of August.
Francisco Lindor said, “This is not good.” This is really not good. However, everyone must experience adversity at some point during the year.
So you know? The Mets have lost five of six games since the trade deadline, and Lindor, the team’s leader, didn’t mention anything after the Guardianson almost got no hit on Wednesday afternoon. After they had lost seven straight games in June, he claimed that.
It’s simple to blame Juan Soto, whose first season as a Met has been a letdown that occasionally feels as large as his pay, for all of this. Count me among those who believed he would dominate the second half of the season. It hasn’t happened yet. The other day, I brought up the fact that Soto had three more RBIs for the season through Wednesday’s games than Anthony Volpe. Compared to his performance on the opposite side of town, Soto has not hit as hard. He hasn’t delivered a clutch hit. When he was still hitting in front of Aaron Judge, the Yankees were better. Even though Soto is now hitting between Lindor and Pete Alonso, the Mets are essentially the same club as they were a year ago.
Is Soto alone? Hurry up. In the same manner that the Yankees don’t throw well enough, neither do the Mets. The starting pitchers for the Mets don’t stay on the field long enough. Yankee starters don’t either. A lot of attention has been paid to Clay Holmes’ brief starts this season as he switched from being a reliever to a starting pitcher. Holmes had tossed 122.1 innings and had 23 starts going into the weekend. It doesn’t appear to be much. However, one of the Yankees’ high-profile starters, Carlos Rodon, has started one more game and pitched 17 more innings overall than Holmes. When Aaron Boone came to fetch him in the sixth inning of the Yankee-Rangers game, not a Yankee fan on the globe was shocked.
Do you know why David Stearns and Brian Cashman were rushing to seek bullpen help at the last minute? due to their beginnings. Without a doubt, that is the same way throughout baseball. However, local baseball fans have already seen this film, particularly in relation to the Yankees, who never seem to grow much and never have enough pitchers. Andy Pettitte was, in many respects, the final pitcher the Yankee farm system constructed to survive.
It hasn’t been long since Stearns arrived in town. Cashman has existed for ages. His biggest-ticket starter, Gerrit Cole, was out for the season due to Tommy John surgery, which was a terrible blow to him. It took place in March. However, the Yankees have yet to fully bounce back from that setback in a number of ways. But are you serious? Everyone gets pitching injuries. Together, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, and Roki Sasaki have made 21 starts so far this season out in Los Angeles. Three more have been created by Rodon alone.
In the end, these bullpens and these rotations didn’t come together on their own. the manner in which the more than $600 million Yankees and Mets squads failed to come together. It’s not simply a vote on the players for the remainder of this regular season, on both sides of town. It is a referendum on the two men who believed they could win it all with them in addition to putting them on the field.
Should the Mets and Yankees both qualify for the postseason? They ought should. Before reaching a position in their schedule at the end of September that appears softer than soft ice cream—the Twins, Orioles, White Sox, Orioles—the Yankees in particular simply need to find a way to get hot over the course of the upcoming month. Is it possible for the Yankees and Mets to finish first on September 28? Yes.
However, does Soto need to start picking it up now? You wager. Lindor does the same. They both had the same batting average (.249) when they got to Milwaukee. Alonso’s average during the 30 games prior to the Mets-Brewers was.185, and despite his impressive run totals, he entered the weekend just three runs behind Kyle Schwarber for the major league lead. He had a.193 average over the previous 15 days. Only over the last week or so, even with the Mets in a free fall, has the Polar Bear looked as if he might be coming out of a slumber that saw his own batting average drop to .264.
For both New York clubs to turn things around, a lot needs to happen. The guys at the top of Carlos Mendoza s batting order can t fix everything all by themselves. But it would be nice, starting right now, if the Big 3 could start Big 3-ing again, before the Mets are closer to the Reds in the wild card race than they are to the Phillies in the race that matters in the East.
The Mets came into Milwaukee 10 games under .500 since the middle of June. The Yankees came home for Old Timers Weekend 10 games under .500 since the middle of June. Two teams that thought they were headed for the World Series this season have played slob ball like that. Hard to watch and even harder to fathom sometimes.
There is still this obsession around here with George Steinbrenner: What would George do? A better question come October might be this: What will Steve Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner do if their baseball teams don t make it to October?
OK, it s starting to look as if this is more than a slow start with Devin Williams.
Maybe Cashman can get more closers at the next trade deadline.
Oh, wait.
Men who throw sex toys on the court during WNBA games aren t being clever or funny.
They re acting like bottom-feeders.
And punks.
And people who think they re being clever or funny, even encouraging them to keep doing it, aren t any better.
They all just seem like they ve crossed over the bridge from Stupidville.
But then there s a lot of that going on these days, isn t there?
It was terrific last Sunday watching the Sleepy Hollow kid, Cameron Young, not only win his first tournament on the PGA Tour, but win it going away.
He has a world of talent, only just turned 28, already has contended twice in majors (PGA, British Open).
Look out for him the rest of the way.
I hope he ends up on the Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black next month, the same course where he won the Met PGA s New York State Open when he was 17.
Again: Mets record starting the weekend was 63-52.
Payroll of $339 million.
Brewers record was 70-44.
Payroll? $113 million.
I mean, only if you re keeping score at home.
Don Mattingly, great Yankee, played 14 seasons in the big leagues and never made it to the World Series.
Aaron Judge, even greater Yankee, is in his 10th season in the big leagues.
Judge has made it to the Series once.
Ben Shelton is going to be the first American man since Andy Roddick to win a major, wait and see.
I happened on Game 5 of the Knicks-Heat series from 1999, the day at old Miami Arena when the No. 8 Knicks knocked off Coach Riley s No. 1 Heat.
It was the day when Allan Houston went past Dan Majerle and made the runner that made it 78-77 Knicks with .8 left.
And, man, that shot was something to see, all this time later.
So was Terry Porter doing everything but bake a cake in .8 before getting off a shot for the Heat that would have won the game and the series.
I texted Jeff Van Gundy about that after watching the ending, and got this response:
I had a near aneurysm! [Referee] Ed Rush trying to tell me Porter got it off in time.
You know what else was really cool about watching it again?
Listening to my late friend Bill Walton on the call for NBC.
I can apparently call off the prayer vigil now that NFL players are allowed to keep using smelling salts.
But only if they provide the stuff themselves.
Party at Goodell s house!
Bring your own ammonium carbonate!
James Patterson and Mike Lupica s new Jane Smith thriller, The Hamptons Lawyer, remains a New York Times Best Seller in its second week and No. 5 at Publishers Weekly.
