QUEENS, NY — Bobby Valentine has a pretty good idea what Carlos Mendoza and the 2025 Mets are going through.
The former Mets skipper, who manned the helm in Queens from 1996-2002, was stuck in the mud 26 years ago when his 1999 squad was 27-28 on June 5, 1999. Shortly after three of his coaches were fired, he brashly predicted that his club would go 40-15 in the next 55 games or he’d quit.
It was close enough. Those 1999 Mets went 40-18 in their next 58 games, won 97 games, and advanced to the NLCS.
“I was going to text Carlos a month ago and tell him to predict 40-15, or I’ll quit,” Valentine, who is in town for the Mets’ alumni classic on Saturday, joked prior to Friday night’s series opener against the Texas Rangers.
Mendoza doesn’t have nearly as much runway to turn things around for these Mets, but things are looking dire heading into a pivotal weekend series. After starting the 2025 campaign 45-24, the Mets have gone 31-47 — the fourth-worst record in the majors during that span.
It has left them on the postseason bubble. They entered Friday night with a slim 1.5-game advantage over the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants for the No. 3 NL Wild Card spot, which is the final playoff berth up for grabs.
Valentine is convinced that these Mets are stuck in their own heads.
“When things go wrong, it’s because distractions have entered the room, and sometimes it’s the room of the group and sometimes it’s just the room, the bedroom of the player,” he said. “When that distraction is there, somehow you gotta eliminate it. And the biggest distraction you have in this town is winning, which happens after the game. It’s when it’s all over that the winning occurs, and somehow, you gotta get them back to playing.”
He cited Thursday night’s 6-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies — their sixth-straight defeat — as the perfect example. New York scored four runs in the first inning, then saw each of the remaining 25 at-bats result in an out.
“The first inning… boom, boom, things are happening, they were just playing all of a sudden,” Valentine said. “And then they started thinking about winning again after four runs, it seemed. That distraction of winning has to be combatted, and in this town, it has to be dealt with more strongly. This is a tough place to play unless you just go play. Then it’s just the same game.”
There does not seem to be a resolution, though, as the Mets have been plagued by the same issues for much of the last three months. When they hit, they can’t pitch. When they pitch well, they can’t hit.
“It sucks when everything’s going bad and you try to do your best and nothing’s come out of it,” Mets legend and 1999 team member, Edgardo Alfonzo, said. “But at the same time, you have to be positive. You have to believe. That’s what I was talking to [Mendoza] about. It’s bad that you’re going through this stretch right now getting to the end of the season, but you have to believe that those guys can do the job.”
Mendoza’s message has generally met those guidelines. He has often transmitted his overwhelming trust in the guys he has. That struck a chord with Valentine.
“You gotta believe as you’re going through it that you got the right roadmap,” he said. “And I really liked what I heard up here, giving answers to unanswerable questions.”
