CITI FIELD (New York) – In a bubbly Mets clubhouse, Luke Weaver finished speaking to the media, passed Clay Holmes at his locker and said, “I warmed it up for you.” Holmes chuckled. A beat later in his own scrum, Holmes told reporters: “Winning is fun.” Tyrone Taylor, who was walking to the showers, interrupted Holmes’ interview and shouted, “Yeah!” Sitting at their lockers nearby, Craig Kimbrel and Tobias Myers laughed at the exchange.
It’s no surprise the Mets were in good spirits after snapping their 12-game losing streak with a long-overdue 3-2 win against the Twins on Wednesday. But, itwas eyebrow-raising to witness the scenes of players smiling, tapping each other on the backs, and staying positivebefore the streak came to an end.
Hours before Wednesday’s game, Mets pitchers Nolan McLean and Brooks Raley were running around the clubhouse barefoot. They’d pulled some couches to the side to open up the space. They were jumping and laughing, shooting some shots on the basketball net that hangs above the door to an equipment room.
Right next to them was a much more serious vibe. Pitcher Sean Manaea sat down on a couch across from a teammate to continue their game of chess. Manaea was hunched forward, elbows on his thighs and hands on either side of his head, in deep concentration. All the while, Latin pop music blared from the speakers and Mets players who walked in and out of the clubhouse were genuinely upbeat.
The Mets (8-16), having fallen to the NL East basement after experiencing a dozen consecutive losses for the first time since 2002, were refusing to let their dreadful situation take control over them. Despite their humiliating downfall being dissected on national news, and the outside noise and pressure reaching all-time highs, the Mets seemed to really believe, in their heart of hearts, that they’re better than this.
So, too, did the hopeful souls who remained in the crowd on a chilly night at Citi Field on Wednesday. Weaver was preserving a tiny, one-run lead with two outs in the top of the ninth, and the elation from the stands was infectious. You could feel it building. Despite everything they’ve been through in the past two weeks, Mets fans let themselves believe a win was on the way. What else could they do?
“It’s tough, man,” said closer Devin Williams, who has coughed up seven earned runs in his last three outings. “I’ve never been a part of something like this.”
The power of ‘Bark at the Park’ may have helped the Mets finally win a game. (Getty)
Fans showed up with makeshift signs that declared Wednesday would be the night that the 12-game losing streak would end. It was “Bark in the Park” night again, and there were dogs in the building the last time the Mets won a game, too. Maybe the innocent, unconditional trust from hundreds of puppies in the stands helped quell the nightmare on the field.
After all, the Mets tried everything to notch their first win since April 7. Before Tuesday night’s loss, an SNY broadcaster burned sage outside Citi Field. The Mets booth lit candles and hung horseshoes from the ceiling. The pain would have to end eventually, Mets players maintained throughout the past two-plus weeks. The clubhouse boasted too much talent for this to go on much longer.
It finally worked on Wednesday. In the ninth, Weaver pounded the strike zone against Twins centerfielder Byron Buxton. Weaver got ahead in the count, 1-2, and the crowd got on its feet, imploring those who weren’t yet standing to get up and cheer. Weaver toed the rubber and hurled a changeup in the dirt. Buxton whiffed. It was over.
As players poured out of the dugout and onto the field, Weaver was frozen on the mound. He looked up to the sky and considered all it took to get to that moment.
“As a team, it’s not very often we have such a talented team where everything just doesn’t really click in the right way,” Weaver said. “It’s quite an impossible feat, but we made it possible.”
There’s adversity, and then there’s the sorcery that seems to afflict this Mets franchise. As much as the players felt a weight being lifted after securing the win, it was bittersweet. Trouble just keeps coming.
Wednesday’s win saw Juan Soto return from the injured list with a right calf strain, only to see Francisco Lindor exit the game withleft calf tightness. He grimaced in pain after rounding third base in the fourth inning and immediately left with a trainer. The day one superstar player returned, the other superstar player suffered an identical injury. For the Mets, truth is stranger than fiction.
“It sucks,” said Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, who seemed deeply distressed at the likelihood that his shortstop would miss significant time. “When you see a guy like Lindor, as tough as he is, I knew right away when he was rounding third base that something wasn’t right there.”
Lindor underwent an MRI on Thursday, and the Mets placed him on the IL. The severity of the strain was not announced, but Mendoza indicated Lindor’s situation was worse than his teammate’s. Soto’s right calf strain was considered good news, because it was mild, and it happened in early April rather than in a pennant race. But Soto still missed three weeks and 15 games, and the lineup completely forgot how to hit, let alone draw walks, without him.
Through Wednesday, New York’s .285 on-base percentage and .617 OPS are both ranked 30th (last) in MLB. The Mets’ .334 slugging percentage is better than only the Red Sox. Their 78 runs scored through 24 games are the fewest across all big-league teams. The Mets’ 17 home runs are tied with the Marlins for the third-lowest in MLB. Only the Royals, White Sox, and Phillies, who are riding an eight-game losing streak of their own, have a worse run differential than the Mets.
“We can’t hit the ball right now,” Soto said in the Mets clubhouse on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re struggling.”
During the Mets’ longest losing streak in nearly a quarter of a century, Soto remained in Flushing, recovering from the calf strain.
Asked if he spoke to the guys during that stretch, to check in and try to lift their spirits, Soto replied flippantly.
“Not at all,” Soto added. “They’ve been on the road most of the time, so I haven’t talked to them.”
The Mets were on the road for six of their 12 consecutive losses, but that’s neither here nor there. Even so, nobody ever said he couldn’t pick up his phone and talk to his teammates to check in on them while the losses piled up, and the urgency intensified.
There will be extra attention paid to the team’s clubhouse culture after president of baseball operations David Stearns dismantled the Mets core and fielded questions about the relationships in the locker room. That noise will only quiet after the team starts winning. While Soto’s honesty went viral online, what mattered most to the organization was that he was back in a Mets lineup that, while he was gone, represented the worst offense in MLB.
“It’s tough to see it,” Soto said of the team’s losing streak. “It’s a little uncomfortable to see it from the outside. But I definitely trust the talent that we have. It’s a tough time, but we’re going to get out of it.”
Juan Soto returned to action on Wednesday. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
Soto is back, but without Lindor, it’s going to be tougher.
We have already learned how ghastly the Mets offense is without two of their top hitters in the lineup every day. Not even Lindor, who was just starting to heat up at the plate, was able to reverse the offense’s disastrous output. It’s no secret that, since he became a Met in 2021, the team tends to go as Lindor goes. A notoriously slow starter at the beginning of the season, the Mets shortstop had just started to get into a groove in the past week. By the time he hobbled off the field in the fourth inning Wednesday, Lindor was hitting .360 (9-for-25) with five RBI and four runs scored in his last seven games.
“We’ve pushed so hard to simply try and give everything we can, and sometimes, that’s just not good enough,” Weaver said. “The harder you try, a lot of times, the more you fail.”
A 12-game losing streak broken. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
With the rest of the offense struggling, the Mets will turn to Soto for a spark. Perhaps now, with a win secured, the Mets can play less tight and more free. After all, the urgency and expectations haven’t changed. Even though it’s only April, things can feel late early around here. The Mets are coming off a disastrous 2025 collapse that saw them miss the playoffs for the third time since Steve Cohen took over as the richest owner in North American sports.
They went from opening this season as a top-five team in baseball, to seeing their playoff chances being cut in half. Entering Thursday, FanGraphs gives New York a 42.6% chance of qualifying for the postseason.
No team in the history of MLB has made the playoffs after undergoing a 12-game losing streak. The Mets and their $370-million payroll are now vying to become the first. If they don’t? They’d be the biggest failures in the history of baseball — topping the 2025 Mets, who topped the 2023 Mets.
There’s still a lot of baseball left, and the Mets will need to capitalize on every opportunity to prove they’re actually capable of pulling off the impossible and exorcising their demons.
Deesha Thosarcovers Major League Baseball as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at@DeeshaThosar.