Cubs couldn't fall apart like these miserable Mets … or could they?
One really bad week.
That’s all it would take to put the Cubs into the same uncomfortable shoes the miserable Mets — the National League’s most disappointing team — have been staggering around in.
It probably won’t happen. The Cubs are too talented. The fans are too positive. Nico Hoerner is too hot at the plate. Clark the pantsless Cubs mascot is too cuddly. Sixteen-dollar craft beers are too delicious. As the Cubs were pummeling the Mets 12-4 Friday in the opener of a three-game series at Wrigley Field, the sunshine and warmth were too perfect.
Nah, everything’s fine.
Then again …
If early-season disaster and despair can befall the Mets of Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, Bo Bichette, Luis Robert Jr., Freddy Peralta and the second-highest projected 2026 payroll in the sport — $370 million — it could happen to anybody.
And though the Cubs (10-9) are swinging some hot bats and now have their first three-game winning streak of the season, they’re still in a position of heightened vulnerability.
For one thing, they came into this seven-game homestand in last place in the NL Central. The Mets (7-13) aren’t the only preseason division favorite getting familiar with the whole caboose thing.
More pressingly, Cubs pitchers can’t seem to stop getting hurt. Already, outstanding young starter Cade Horton and reliever Porter Hodge have been lost for the season. Opening Day starter Matthew Boyd is still working his way back from the injured list. The bullpen is in tatters, which was true even before closer Daniel Palencia went on the 15-day injured list Friday with a left oblique strain.
How unlucky must a pitching staff be when one of its members, reliever Ethan Roberts, manages to slice up one of his pitching fingers on a loose, metal vent cover? Clearly, the Cubs can’t even count on Roberts for spot HVAC technician duty.
Not by design, the Cubs bullpen is operating with a frightening dearth of right-handers these days. When your relief corps has more lefties than Greenpeace, you know you have issues to contend with.
And who’s supposed to close games in Palencia’s absence? Will the task fall to one live arm, perhaps the ever-up-and-down Ben Brown? Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown? Charlie Brown?
The Cubs have piled up 33 runs and pounded out 44 hits over their last three games, the first two of them in Philadelphia. Against the Mets, Moises Ballesteros belted a three-run homer in the first inning, and Hoerner and Ian Happ later tacked on two-run shots. The Mets, who can’t get out of their own way, came through with enough errors and wild pitches to make the game a laugher.
Except the Mets are suffering, not laughing. Certainly, they are a cautionary tale for all aspiring contenders, including the Cubs.
Right fielder Soto, he of the 15-year, $765 million contract, missed his 12th game of the season Friday. Shortstop Lindor, the purported leader of this team, came into the weekend batting .184. Before doubling to left off Jacob Webb in the eighth inning, Robert, the former White Sox disappointment, was hitless in his last 17 at-bats. Kodai Senga, whom the Cubs lit up for seven runs (six earned) in 3⅓ innings, ballooning his ERA to 8.83, is a shell of the starting pitcher he was supposed to be.
It’s barely mid-April, and already the Mets have managed to get sucked into an almost unimaginably brutal nine-game losing streak during which they’ve scored a grand total of 16 runs.
Infielder Bichette, a hero of the Blue Jays’ run to last year’s World Series, has had an eye-opening experience already, and not in a good way. When he signed with the Mets for an average of $42 million a year, it probably didn’t occur to him that fans at Citi Field would pelt him with boos during the very first series of the season.
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns is getting ripped by Mets fans morning, noon and night. Didn’t Stearns build some pretty darn impressive Brewers rosters in a past life? Speaking of which, wasn’t he supposed to lure then-Brewers manager Craig Counsell to New York? Counsell must be mighty relieved he didn’t make that move.
“We need to play better, and I think we will,” Stearns said before the opener at Wrigley, not a month into his third season with the Mets and already fumbling with another grenade. “I’m very confident we will. And it could start today.”
OK, fine, maybe tomorrow.
“We believe in our players,” Stearns said, adding there’s “plenty of urgency” and “plenty of want.”
Frankly, it all sounds plenty bleak.
As much grief as Stearns is catching, the hottest seat in baseball must belong to third-year skipper Carlos Mendoza.
“I think ‘Mendy’ is doing a very good job,” Stearns said. “I think Mendy is putting players in positions to succeed, and we need to go out and play better.”
Last year’s Mets were obscenely un-clutch. They were the only team in baseball not to have a single ninth-inning comeback win. Far worse, they choked over the last two months of the season with a 21-32 record and missed the playoffs — eliminated on the final day.
They’re swimming in the stink again.
Call them a cautionary tale.
For the Cubs, it could get so much worse.
Ah, well, we’re sure it won’t.
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