{"id":686542,"date":"2026-04-30T08:12:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/686542\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:12:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:12:37","slug":"mets-suffer-latest-ugly-disaster-to-nationals-as-nightmare-start-hits-new-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/686542\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets suffer latest ugly disaster to Nationals as nightmare start hits new low"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

Mets lose<\/p>\n

It\u2019s official: The Mets are the worst team in baseball.<\/p>\n

And on Wednesday, especially, they looked the part.<\/p>\n

Access the Mets beat like never before <\/p>\n

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mike Puma about the inside buzz on the Mets.<\/p>\n

Try it free <\/a><\/p>\n

Five weeks into the season and with a sky-high payroll, the mismatched disaster that is the Mets roster was overmatched again in a 14-2 loss to the lowly Nationals at Citi Field that wasn\u2019t as close as the score might indicate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be better,\u201d Carlos Mendoza said after his team\u2019s 16th loss in 19 games. \u201cThere\u2019s no excuses. It\u2019s been a long period of time here that we\u2019re not playing well. We\u2019ve got to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether that\u2019s even possible is a serious question.<\/p>\n

With their latest defeat, when they allowed a season high in runs, the Mets fell to 10-20.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Peterson reacts as he walks back to the dugout at the end of the first inning of the Mets\u2019 14-2 blowout loss to the Nationals on April 29, 2026 at Citi Field. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a half-game behind their NL East rivals, the Phillies, who were rained out and remained 10-19.<\/p>\n

The weather was not as kind to the Mets faithful, as a few thousand masochists stuck around on a miserable, wet night in Queens to watch \u2026 what, exactly?<\/p>\n

David Peterson delivered his latest awful start, as the lefty\u2019s ERA as a starter jumped to 8.10 after allowing seven runs in just 3 \u00b2\/\u2083 innings.<\/p>\n

Another rotation castoff, Sean Manaea, was called upon to replace Peterson and gave up a grand slam in the fourth.<\/p>\n

And the offense, which briefly awoke during a seven-run fourth inning in Tuesday\u2019s win, went back to its typical ineptness against Washington right-hander Cade Cavalli.<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/p>\n

Sean Manaea reacts after giving up a grand slam to Brady House during the Mets\u2019 blowout loss to the Nationals. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n

The lone exception to the collapse was Juan Soto, who looked to be in peak form.<\/p>\n

He homered in a second straight game and added a single and a double.<\/p>\n

But as everyone from Mendoza to David Stearns to Soto himself has said, even Soto can\u2019t carry the team by himself.<\/p>\n

The Mets, though, apparently wanted to test that theory against the Nationals, as Soto \u2014 serving as the DH again as he deals with left forearm discomfort \u2014 provided just about the only positives for a Mets team that\u2019s now dropped four of five.<\/p>\n

And there are five months to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge is coming back tomorrow with a good attitude, a good mindset, work hard and try to take care of tomorrow\u2019s game,\u2019\u2019 Peterson said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to let things compound. It\u2019s easy to get caught up in it, but the only way to get out of it is to take it one day at a time and attack and win tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Mendoza said before the game: \u201cWe\u2019ve got to play better baseball, period. Regardless of who we\u2019re playing, we\u2019ve got to start winning series. We haven\u2019t been able to do that for a long period of time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New York Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez reacts after he strikes out looking against the Washington Nationals in the first inning. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n

And they may have even made it harder on themselves Wednesday during their rare win Tuesday, when Mendoza went to Tobias Myers \u2014 who has pitched well out of the bullpen \u2014 for two innings with an eight-run lead.<\/p>\n

So the right-hander was unavailable to either open for Peterson \u2014 who started because Washington had two left-handers among their top four hitters \u2014 or take over for him in the fourth.<\/p>\n

Honestly, it\u2019s hard to fathom any combination of pitchers or position players \u2014 short of cloning Soto \u2014 would have helped the Mets on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

An announced crowd of 32,624 \u2014 and fortunately, not nearly that many actually showed up \u2014 made its displeasure known throughout the latest defeat.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza walks back to the dugout after making a pitching change against the Washington Nationals in the seventh inning. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n

As there has been with alarming frequency this season at Citi Field, the booing could be heard at some point during nearly every inning.<\/p>\n

With five months to go in what\u2019s already been an interminable season, the Mets surely have hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n

But as they\u2019ve proven consistently so far this year, there\u2019s apparently always lower to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mets lose It\u2019s official: The Mets are the worst team in baseball. And on Wednesday, especially, they looked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,20666,3573,1443,759,38057,134,101,4,415,40,1268,3624,2006,414,71,4222],"class_list":{"0":"post-686542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brady-house","10":"tag-cade-cavalli","11":"tag-carlos-mendoza","12":"tag-david-peterson","13":"tag-jason-szenes","14":"tag-juan-soto","15":"tag-mets","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-nationals","18":"tag-phillies","19":"tag-sean-manaea","20":"tag-the-nationals","21":"tag-tobias-myers","22":"tag-washington","23":"tag-washington-nationals","24":"tag-washingtonnationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116492655641405344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}