The Mets came home Sunday night with a 15-25 record and opened a three-game series against the Tigers, who arrived in New York at 19-22. The first game of Tigers Vs Mets began tonight, with the matchup landing at a time when both clubs badly need cleaner baseball.
For New York, the schedule has offered a brief reprieve and then another bump in the road. The Mets had won two series in a row from the Angels and Rockies before the Diamondbacks took two of three over the weekend, a reminder that the club has not yet found a steady run. Their starting pitching has more or less straightened itself out, and Clay Holmes and Nolan McLean have been excellent. Freddy Peralta has been exactly as advertised, Christian Scott was looking good, and David Peterson has operated better after an opener. But the offense has been inconsistent, and that has left a roster that is still searching for a dependable rhythm.
The numbers around the lineup help explain why. Juan Soto has been making poor contact on pitches he would have previously spit on or taken the other way, while Bo Bichette has only seven extra base hits in 175 plate appearances. Carson Benge is starting to look like a big league player at the plate, Marcus Semien has flashed moments of looking better than his 2025 stat line would indicate, and Mark Vientos has shown flashes of his 2024 power alongside his 2025 struggles. MJ Melendez has done well in limited playing time, and the Mets are still doing all in their power to see what sort of hitter Francisco Alvarez really is over a full season. A.J. Ewing is getting his shot as of tonight.
Injuries have also reshaped the roster, leaving the Mets without Francisco Lindor, Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. Austin Slater, Vidal Brujan and Andy Ibáñez were on the roster mentioned in the article, and two of the three games are full of TBD starters. Fangraphs listed the Mets starters as Christian Scott and Nolan McLean, while the Tigers were listed with Framber Valdez and Keider Montero.
That uncertainty is part of the story, but so is the opponent. Detroit entered with a losing record and had dropped six of its last ten games, leaving the Tigers 10 games under.500 and in little position to waste a series against a struggling Mets team. The next question is whether New York’s improved pitching can carry a lineup that still has too many empty at-bats, or whether the weekend setback was the more accurate version of who these Mets are right now.
