Friday night was different for the Mets. Pitchers were dominant, runs came from the offense, and most importantly, the Mets won the game against the Angels. However, that doesn’t mean everything went well for the team, as it went rough for the catcher Francisco Alvarez.
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He made an error in the defense and contributed nothing at the batter’s box. Still, former Mets third baseman Todd Zeile called out Alvarez for a reason that might look funny but portrays the sad state of affairs of the team.
“A fastball at the bottom zone, you see that big, big swing, and he’s a guy that takes an aggressive swing. But when he’s locked in, he waits a little. You see him trying to break that over his knee, that’s not going to feel too good. Can’t even break the bat correctly right now,” Zeile said from the Mets broadcasting booth.
Zeile was at the broadcasting booth on Friday as the Mets took on the Angels in the series opener. Alavarez came to bat at the top of the 4th inning with the Angels leading 3-0. No wonder he was aggressive from the first pitch and made a wild swing. However, in his third strike, a low fastball off the Angels’ Walbert Urena just missed his bat as Alvarez made a wild swing.
"Can't even break the bat correctly right now." Todd Zeile after Francisco Alvarez's failed attempt to break the bat over his leg. 😅
Alvarez was frustrated and tried to pull off a Rafael Devers-like stunt as he left the batter’s box. He tried to snap the bat in half, but botched the act. Zeile was quick to take a dig at Alvarez as the maple wood bat resisted the Mets catcher’s strength. “Not going to feel too good,” Zeile said, referring to how it might be painful as the bat refused to get snapped.
Alvarez’s failed act not only proved painful for Alvarez, but it also showed the current state of the Mets. Despite the first game, the Mets are still 11-21 and standing last in the division. Starters still proved vulnerable in the first 3 innings as the Angels scored 3 runs there. Defense errors were still there. At the third, Alvarez’s poor throw to the third causes Zach Neto to complete a run. And last but not least, manager Carlos Mendoza’s optimistic statement.
“We haven’t been able to win games like that when you get down 3-0, and the feeling is like, ‘All right,'” Mendoza said after the game. So, other than Ronny Mauricio’s late homer that won the game, very few things hinted at any turnaround. As per Zeile, the very last thing that remained was Alvarez failing to snap a bat.
The Mets are unlikely to make any radical move
The Red Sox fired Alex Cora after failing to offer a better show. The Mets are no different as they stand last with an 80 wRC+, meaning they’re 20 percent worse than the average offense. Still, it is unlikely that the Mets would pull off a Red Sox-like stunt with Carlos Mendoza.
“We don’t view this as a manager problem, and we don’t intend to make a change,” Mets president David Stearns said about Mendoza’s future.
So, despite all the chaos around, the Mets front office is still betting on their manager. Yes, indeed, Mendoza is not at all a failed project for the team. He has led the Mets to back-to-back winning seasons, despite the team missing the playoffs during the 2025 season. In his first year as the Mets manager, Mendoza led the team all the way to the NLCS.
The team is performing worse since last year, but Mendoza got his hands tied when a roster arguably among the top-3 teams in terms of payroll fails to perform. With names like Francisco Lindor, Bo Bichette, and Jorge Polanco batting a sub-.250, the manager could do nothing.
So, the fans waiting to see some radical moves from the front office will be disappointed for now. The roster will remain intact, and hopefully, their winning momentum will come back at the earliest.
