Credit: SNY
By Sam Neumann on

The New York Mets are historically, cosmically, almost impressively bad right now.

Tuesday night in Flushing, they lost their 12th consecutive game, a 5-3 defeat to the Minnesota Twins that felt less like a baseball game and more like a continuation of a curse nobody can identify, locate, or kill. With the loss, the Mets became the first team in MLB history to post a winning record the prior season and then lose 12 straight games in April the following year. They have achieved something genuinely new under the sun, and it is absolutely terrible.

The most remarkable part is that they tried to stop it.

Before Tuesday’s game, SNY stationed Steve Gelbs outside Citi Field with a gathering of the faithful. The faithful being, at this point, a collection of Mets fans who have somehow not yet driven themselves into the East River. Gelbs stood among them wearing a garlic necklace, flanked by burning sage, presiding over what he generously described as a ritual cleansing.

“We are out here trying to change the vibes,” Gelbs said. “We thought about calling up Grimace, but he was unavailable today. So, instead, we went the Pedro Cerrano route in the movie Major League, and we’re having some ritual cleansing. It’s going to start with this garlic necklace I’m wearing to get all the demons away from us at Citi Field. And then, of course, [the classic] burning of sage, which is to expel all the negative energy surrounding the 11-game losing streak… 140 games to go. The season starts now.”

It did not.

Up in the booth, Gary Cohen had horseshoes placed with the open end up, which is supposed to form a barrier against evil forces. Ron Darling revealed that his mother had come in on the off-day to feng shui the entire broadcast booth. They had candles. They had sage. They had everything they needed to finally rid themselves of whatever had been haunting this team. Or did they?

“Sounds like we’ve taken all the precautions we could,” Cohen said. “All the evil forces should be exorcised.”

They were not exorcised. They were, if anything, emboldened.

What made Tuesday particularly excruciating was that the Mets actually had something for a while. Nolan McLean, the second-year right-hander out of Oklahoma State, was nothing short of masterful through five innings. Five perfect innings, in fact, as he navigated through a Minnesota lineup with a quiet confidence that made you briefly, stupidly believe. Francisco Lindor crushed his second home run of the season, and the Mets took a 3-0 lead into the sixth, which felt, for a fleeting moment, like deliverance.

Then the Mets happened.

Devin Williams entered a tie game in the ninth inning and faced five batters without recording a single out. The bases loaded, the crowd teetering between disbelief, dark laughter, and thundering boos, while the SNY booth presumably checked whether the horseshoes were still properly oriented. And into this nightmare stepped journeyman reliever Austin Warren — unexpected savior of absolutely nothing — who proceeded to strike out the side with the bases loaded and nobody out.

The Mets then went down in order in the bottom half of the ninth. In fact, they went 12 up, 12 down against a beleaguered Twins bullpen that entered Tuesday with a 5.07 ERA. New York managed not a single baserunner.

If burning sage and channeling Pedro Cerrano couldn’t fix it, the question has to be asked: Is it possible the Mets never win again?

Don’t answer that. Not yet. There are 139 games to go.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann