Juan for the Money.

 

One has to wonder if, sometime during the Mets' rain-soaked bloodbath at the hands of the Washington Nationals last night, even Juan Soto didn't have some feeling that just maaaayyybeee he should have taken a few gazillion less to stay with your New York Yankees.

With the Yanks playing the best ball in the American League, the Mets went down to their 16th loss in 19 games, 14-2, before a gloomy, silent crowd in Flushing.  While the Yankees are 20-11, even after being shutout by the Babadook, Eovaldi, the Mets are now 10-20. 

They have lost 16 of their last 19 games, while being outscored by 101-49—a schneid the likes of which the Yanks last endured...well, almost never.  

After the Nationals got off to an early, 2-0 lead against another of the Mets' awful starters, you could see that Juan had his game face on. He had already smashed a double in the first inning and now, with one out in the third, he launched a deep drive to left for a solo home run (a Solo Soto, if you will). 

He raced around the bases with the determination showing in his face, pumping his fist—accepting the orange construction helmet that the Mets had adopted as their particular, silly dugout celebration of the long ball.

He was pulling the Mets back, all by himself, and those still remaining in spectral, rain-drenched stand sent up a hoarse cry of defiance.

Then, in the next inning, David Peterson and Sean Manaea went out and gave up 7 more runs, putting the Mets in a 9-1 hole.

It was one more disaster, in what has been a Mets season full of them. 

Soto, to his credit, didn't mail it in the rest of the way (unlike the Yankees on a getaway day). He hit a line-drive single in his next at-bat, creating a least a feeble excuse for the saturated Mets fans to care:

Would he hit for the cycle?

He actually came fairly close, hitting a couple of deep flyballs. Not enough. The Mets lost, 14-2.

The Queens team is playing .333 ball. The injuries are piling up, the pitchers are spitting the bit, and no one save Soto seems able to hit for power. 

It's impossible to say for sure in today's game, with 40 percent of all clubs making the playoffs. But it's difficult not to conclude that the Mets are toast for 2026—before the end of April. 

One could almost see what Soto was thinking at the end: (Almost) Fourteen more years of THIS? 

Well, Juan, it's what you wanted.  

When he was still on the Yankees, the guy hitting behind Juan Soto was Aaron Judge. Last night, out in Queens, it was someone named M.J. Melendez, a lifetime .216 hitter.  

So far the entire team overhaul by the Mets' front-office genius, David Stearns, is looking like an abject failure that is likely only to get worse.

When the last, best-laid plans of the Metsies scuppered, Steve Cohen used his money to launch a complete rebuild. Now that another such investment seems required, one wonders how much Cohen will shell out—having finally got his casino, which may have been the real reason for his acquiring the team in the first place.

It has now been 40 years since the Mets last won it all, and at this rate it looks like it could be another 40.

Dismayed as he must have been, sitting in the Yanks' dugout after that embarrassing, Game Five loss in the 2024 World Series, Soto must now be wondering if he will ever get that close to the brass ring again. 

The dugout of the New York Yankees, devoid of orange hardhats, tridents, or home-run jackets—just the place where Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Aaron Judge came back to after they hit home runs.

The Mets' starters look abysmal, their pen is led by Devin Williams (nuf ced), $47-mill free-agent signing Bo Bichette (who has an opt out clause) is already being booed, and Pete Alonso is in Baltimore.

Sure, this could all change tomorrow. Or next year. 

Or  will Juan Soto be facing 2039, the final year of his contract, with an array of David Wright, individual honors...and nothing else to show for his big money move?

(Live game update: Mets trail the Nationals, 3-0, in the bottom of the third. Soto was robbed of another home run by the Nats' 6-7 right fielder. D'oh!)