Count Steve Cohen among the New York Mets faithful who are discouraged by the team’s current free fall.
Cohen, the Mets’ first-year owner, called out the team’s “unproductive” offense in a tweet Wednesday morning, hours after New York fell further from postseason contention with a fifth consecutive loss.
The Mets (59-60) have lost 14 of their past 19 games and, after holding a four-game lead atop the NL East as recently as July 28, are 4½ games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves entering Wednesday.
New York has struggled offensively throughout the season, scoring just 450 runs (third lowest in MLB) despite a lineup that boasts multiple former All-Stars. The Mets enter Wednesday just 26th in the majors in home runs (125), 26th in slugging percentage (.380), 19th in on-base percentage (.313) and 24th in OPS (.693).
Those numbers clearly have not escaped Cohen, who cited a “more disciplined approach” from other teams and said “numbers don’t lie.”
It’s hard to understand how professional hitters can be this unproductive.The best teams have a more disciplined approach.The slugging and OPS numbers don’t lie.
— Steven Cohen (@StevenACohen2) August 18, 2021
Cohen, who has been active on social media since acquiring majority ownership of the Mets in November, tweeted his criticism less than 24 hours after New York struck out 10 times and walked only once in a 3-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants.
It marked the first time that the Mets fell below .500 since May 5.
“It’s just been a really difficult stretch,” first baseman Pete Alonso told reporters. “We want to win. We want to be the best. That’s why we’re all here.”
Alonso accounted for both of the Mets’ runs with a two-run homer Tuesday night and has been one of their only offensive bright spots this season with 26 homers and 69 RBIs.
“I think that it’s frustrating right now, but I think that we’re going to be in a very good place come the end of the year,” he said. “I know that’s going to be our goal, and because we’re not meeting that now doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be there at the end of the year.”