The Mercy Shot

The final score wasn’t the biggest story surrounding the Mets on Wednesday.

Thursday: July 2

The Mets were embarrassed once again on Wednesday afternoon.

A day after finally putting together one of their cleanest victories of the season, New York immediately reverted back to the version of themselves fans have unfortunately become far too familiar with.

The Mets were blasted 9-3 by the Blue Jays in the rubber game of the three-game series at Rogers Centre.

Freddy Peralta delivered another outing the Mets simply could not afford.

The veteran right-hander surrendered five runs over just four innings, throwing 91 pitches to record only 12 outs while watching his ERA climb to 4.81, the fifth-highest among qualified Major League starters.

With the trade deadline now just over a month away, outings like these aren’t just hurting the Mets in the standings.

Canada Day. The Toronto Blue Jays clobbered the New York Mets

They’re hurting Peralta’s trade value, too.

New York has now dropped five consecutive series, lost 10 of its last 12 games and fallen back to 15 games under .500 at 36-51.

As ugly as Wednesday’s game was, though, it wasn’t the biggest story surrounding the organization.

That came hours before first pitch.

Steve Cohen finally explained something Mets fans have been wondering ever since Carlos Mendoza was fired last week.

Why now?

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The answer, according to the owner, wasn’t nearly as complicated as many expected.

It came down to one question.

Were the Mets going to extend Carlos Mendoza beyond this season?

If the answer was no, Cohen said, there was no reason to continue putting him through what had become an impossible situation.

“Were we gonna extend Carlos or not?” Cohen said on The Show podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman.

“If the answer was no… give him a break. The guy is sitting in front of cameras every day. If you’re not gonna extend him…I describe it as a mercy shot.”

Whether fans agree with firing Mendoza is one debate.

Understanding why ownership believed it was necessary is another.

For the first time, Cohen acknowledged what many suspected.

The organization had already decided Mendoza wasn’t going to be its manager in 2027.

At that point, asking him to continue answering the same questions after every loss, every defensive meltdown and every frustrating night had become unfair in their eyes.

It wasn’t about one game.

It wasn’t about six errors.

It wasn’t even about one losing streak.

The decision had become bigger than that.

The irony, however, is that Mendoza may have been the easiest person in the organization to replace.

❎ He didn’t construct this roster.

❎ He didn’t decide which veterans would leave over the winter.

❎ He didn’t overhaul nearly an entire coaching staff.

He inherited one of the biggest organizational resets this franchise has attempted in years.

The Mets entered this season with an almost entirely different clubhouse, a different coaching staff, enormous expectations, the second-highest payroll in baseball and a fanbase already questioning whether the organization had moved on from too many familiar faces.

If that experiment failed, someone was always going to wear it.

Mendoza became that person.

Even Francisco Lindor admitted as much after the firing.

“He apologized for not helping us win as much,” Lindor said. “But at the end of the day, this is not on him. It’s more on us, the players, that we didn’t perform to our capabilities.”

That quote may be the most important one spoken throughout this entire process.

Because it shifts the conversation back where it belongs. Onto the players.

It also shifts it onto the people who assembled this roster.

Cohen made one thing abundantly clear Wednesday.

David Stearns isn’t going anywhere.

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The Mets owner said the president of baseball operations will fulfill the remainder of his five-year contract, praising Stearns as reflective, adaptable and someone he still believes can lead the organization back to sustained success.

Cohen also admitted something fans have desperately wanted to hear.

📉 He said he’s failing.

📉 He said he feels the same frustration Mets fans feel.

📉 He said he’s getting criticized around his own dinner table.

He said he plans to ask tougher questions moving forward and become more involved in understanding how this season went so dramatically off the rails.

Those comments matter.

Because accountability doesn’t stop with firing a manager.

If anything, it becomes even greater afterward.

Now Andy Green inherits the impossible assignment.

Not to rescue this season.

That ship has already sailed.

Mets Interim Manager. Andy Green

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Green himself has acknowledged he’s serving as the interim manager before returning to the front office after the season.

His job over these next three months isn’t simply to win baseball games.

It’s to evaluate.

To identify which players deserve to be part of the next competitive Mets team.

To help Stearns determine who belongs beyond 2026 and who doesn’t.

That process has already begun.

Cohen called firing Mendoza a “mercy shot.”

Perhaps it was.

Perhaps, from the organization’s perspective, it was the fairest thing they could do for a manager they no longer envisioned leading the club beyond this season.

But mercy doesn’t eliminate accountability.

It simply transfers it.

Mendoza is gone.

Green is only here temporarily.

Stearns has the owner’s full support.

Cohen has promised to ask harder questions than ever before.

The manager is no longer the story.

Now, the spotlight shifts to everyone still left standing.

🏟️ Around The League 🏟️

🐻 It was a historic day at Wrigley Field as the Cubs melted the Padres 23-3. Dansby Swanson sizzling last two weeks kept rolling. He blasted three home runs and had eight RBIs. Chicago won their fifth straight game and scored 23 runs for the first time since 1995.

🫣 Paul Skenes rough slide continued. He allowed a career-high seven earned runs over four innings in a loss to the Phillies.

Since May 17 (9 starts), six of those starts have been three or more earned runs.

🚀 Rays’ Junior Caminero homered for the sixth consecutive game and surpassed Ken Griffey Jr. as the youngest player in the Modern Era (since 1900) to homer in 6 straight contests.

📈 Athletics Brent Rooker will undergo season-ending surgery to address a cartilage issue in his left knee. A big blow for the contending A’s in the AL West.

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⚾️ Today the Mets (36-51) have an off day. They begin a four-game series against the Atlanta Braves (50-34) from Truist Park on Friday night. Christian Scott (2-0, 3.20) makes the start for New York against Braves right-hander Grant Holmes (4-4, 3.96). First pitch is scheduled for 7:15pm. The game can be seen on WPIX.

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