This was shaping up to be a classic day of hell for the Mets: injuries to two key players. A complete loss at home. A continued downward spiral toward irrelevance.
It was all familiar for a series dedicated to the history of suffering.
But then Jorge Lopez decided to have a firecracker, bleach moment. Not only did he pitch poorly, he also had a terrible attitude on the field, getting into a bizarre fight with reporters after the game, in which Lopez yelled profanities multiple times and showed no remorse for behavior that manager Carlos Mendoza had no hesitation in describing as unprofessional. None of his teammates came close to defending him.
Ultimately, Lopez lost his job.
The Mets have been bad for a third of this season. Increasingly, it seems like they’re just bad. But they still have to stick to how they play and behave. So they did the right thing by designating Lopez for waiver after the game and, among other things, after Lopez told reporters he’d met with David Stearns and Mendoza but not yet.
Mendoza was in his first year as manager and had conducted himself well and built strong relationships with his superiors, the clubhouse and the press, but the team was playing poorly. At some point, that becomes the manager’s responsibility. And, of course, so does the unprofessional behavior of the players. Mendoza needed his superiors’ support because it was clear how upset he was by Lopez’s actions. It was clear that Mendoza felt the actions raised concerns that the manager had lost control.
We all want to live in a world where everyone is treated the same, but a player with a great track record and a big salary can tolerate situations that a $2 million middle-infield relief pitcher with an emotional history can’t.
So this will go down in increasingly troubled Mets history as the day they lost Edwin Diaz, Pete Alonso, one more game in 2024 and civility. What could the Mets have gained from a lone postgame meeting convened by the manager and Francisco Lindor in which many of the players spoke and pleaded for them to find a good process, a good attitude and the ability to hold each other to high standards in order to get away from the third-worst record in the National League (22-33)?
“It was a time for us to come together as a group and sit down, look at each other and hold each other accountable,” Lindor said.
Lindor said Lopez’s actions did not lead to the meeting; players involved said the topic did not come up. Most players probably knew at that point that it would be Lopez’s last time in the clubhouse, that his actions did not contribute to the Dodgers’ three-game winning streak-clinching 10-3 loss, and that they would not affect his future performance on or off the field.
Adam Ottavino said the meeting was “necessary to give everybody a voice. People who normally don’t speak spoke up and a lot of wisdom came out of that. And at the end of the day, you know, we have 110 games scheduled. [actually 107] We were able to play. And we were able to play to our full potential.”
In the short term, they’ll be without Diaz, who is on the disabled list with a shoulder impingement. The struggling reliever insisted it was purely injury-related and not a mental reset, but he said he hasn’t had an MRI and is expected to return within 15 days.
Alonso was replaced in the top of the first inning after being hit on the right hand by a fastball from James Paxton. The Mets said X-rays were negative but the first baseman would undergo further testing.
After scoring two runs in the first 22 innings of the series, the Mets tied it by scoring three on Wednesday in the fifth. But their setup core, their only area of excellence in the first half of the season, has fallen apart over the past two weeks due to short starts, close games and overuse as Diaz collapsed.
Ottavino and Lopez combined to allow six runs in the eighth inning. Lopez was then ejected after an altercation with third base umpire Ramon DeJesus over a check swing that was clearly not a swing. His final pitch with the Mets was throwing his glove into the stands. After the game, it was unclear in English, his second language, whether Lopez meant he was on the “worst team” in MLB or his “worst teammates.” Given a chance to clarify, he said “team.” Whether he understood remains to be seen, but perhaps the most telling thing about what was really going on was that three Mets media relations representatives, including a Spanish translator, called the interview without intervention. By then, it was clear internally that Lopez was a former Met making his final act in this clubhouse.
The Mets needed to do that to support their first-year manager — as players do when they’re down — but what matters most to the Mets is playing better, and that, like Lopez’s roster spot, may already be gone.
