00:00Is whatever's wrong or whatever's going on with the Mets just a face or it is as simple as they're
00:06just a bad baseball team? Here's our New York Post sports columnist Mike Vaccaro to talk about
00:11his recent column on how bad the Mets have been and how bad they are. Mike, thanks for hopping
00:17on with us. As a Mets fan, it's been a painful last two months. It's even been a painful last
00:2310 games. They dropped nine out of the last 10. Carlos Mendoza said they're going through a very
00:29tough stretch. So I ask you, sir, are you buying it that this is just a run of bad luck and a very
00:35tough stretch or are the Mets just a bad baseball team? Randy, we're talking about 52 games now that
00:43the Mets are in this funk and that's almost a third of a season and that's no longer a small
00:48sample size. That's a pretty representative reflection of who the Mets are and they're
00:5419 and 33 in those games. That's not a good, that's not a good baseball team. Good baseball
00:59teams do not have that record over the course of a third of a season. Now, is it irretrievable?
01:05It's not, obviously. I mean, there's still plenty of baseball season left and as you and I sit here,
01:10the Mets are still in playoff position. So yes, this can be rescued, but if that's going to happen,
01:15they have to look a lot different than they've looked the last third of a season
01:18and that includes everything. I mean, look, on games when they get good pitching, they can't hit.
01:24Games when they match the ball, they can't pitch. And the bullpen, which is supposed to be the
01:28real strength of the team now, especially after the deadline, has been shaking. So that's a pretty
01:33bad combination for any kind of sustained success. Do they have it in them? They certainly think so,
01:39but they have to prove it now. It's not just about saying we're a good team and we're better
01:44than we've been playing. You have to prove that at some point and it's on the Mets now to prove it.
01:49Yeah. Bill Parcells used to say, you are what your record says you are. And like you said, in the last 52
01:54games, the Mets record has been absolutely atrocious and they've underachieved. So they are
02:00what they are. A lot of people online are upset with David Stearns for not going after starting
02:07pitching at the deadline. So how bad has that come back and haunted this team?
02:11Oh, it couldn't have been worse. I mean, look, they got a nice start out of Senga on Thursday night,
02:15but until then it's been one calamity after another with the starting staff,
02:19which was a question mark coming in, got banged up, did admirable work for the first two months of
02:25the season, the first two and a half months of the season, really. But look, it was pretty clear
02:30beginning in the middle of June that this was a staff that was running out of gas, that was asking
02:34guys to do stuff that they weren't previously asked to do in terms of like Clay Holmes having to pitch
02:40more often than he has before. And they just haven't performed. And that was obvious before the
02:46training deadline when there were some intriguing names available. And David Stearns chose to keep
02:51it in house. So far, that's a decision that's bitten them. And we'll see how badly that launched the
02:56team over the course of the next, you know, six weeks. But, you know, right now, that's really
03:01been their bugaboo because, I mean, if you keep asking your bullpen day after day after day to give
03:06five, six innings, it's going to come back and it's going to bite you. And it's bitten them the last
03:10couple of weeks. All right, last six and a half weeks left in the season, around 52 games left,
03:17and they've got a smidge of a lead for the final wildcard spot in the NL. Who has a better shot of
03:24dragging themselves into the postseason, Mike? The Yankees or the Mets and why? Well, the Mets have
03:30the better odds because they're really only fighting against one team. Right now, the Reds are the only
03:35team that seems capable of sustaining any kind of good play. And nobody else in the National League
03:41has really kind of risen up to try and seize that third wildcard away. In the American League, you
03:46have, you know, you have kind of a little bit thicker pile of teams. I just think the Yankees
03:51schedule down the stretch, and look, it gets to be dangerous when you start identifying bad teams,
03:56especially when the Yankees, like the Mets, have been playing so poorly and could self-identify as a
04:01very bad team. But that schedule certainly seems to favor a nice lead season push that would at least
04:06get them in the playoffs. I think the Mets are going to have a little bit more of a struggle day
04:10to day to be able to get in. I still believe both teams are going to get in, but right now the Mets
04:15have to play a lot better baseball than they've shown, as do the Yankees. But what if both teams
04:20don't get in though, Mike? Like how big of a collapse and disappointment would that be? Not only for
04:25both of these teams that had so much hype surrounding them coming into the season, but just for the city
04:31as well. You know New York. Well, for one thing, we have to rely on football, and you know, good luck
04:37with that to occupy our attention in October. But kidding aside, look, I mean, we've never had a
04:44year where both teams have been so good and then so poor. It's unique. I mean, they've shared the
04:50city since 1962. We've never had a season like this with both teams having seasons almost identical
04:56to each other like this. Look, two years ago, they missed the playoffs and life went on.
05:00They both just had really bad, miserable seasons, though. It wasn't like there was a collapse you
05:04could identify. This year is different. This year, look, on two days before Flag Day, both teams
05:10looked like they were going to run away with their divisions, and we were really talking
05:14seriously about the possibility of a 25th anniversary renewal of the Subway Series in October. And
05:21now that certainly seems like a pipe dream, and you just wonder if both these teams could
05:26right their ships before it gets too far away from them.
05:29Always great talking with you, Mike. Thanks for hopping on with us.
05:32Good talking to you, Brandon, always.
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