Mets season going down fast, and it’s taking 2025 with it

This season is sliding away from the Mets and it is beginning to feel like it is taking 2025 along for the plummet.

The convergence of ineptitudes that are dooming 2024 hardly bodes well for the Mets’ near future as well.

Edwin Diaz, who has forgotten how to save games, and Kodai Senga, who keeps getting further away from a return, are signed through 2027. Is Diaz, who blew his fourth save in his last five tries in a 7-2 10-inning loss to San Francisco, ever going to be elite again after his devastating knee injury? How about Senga after his shoulder woes?

Brett Baty, the third baseman of the future, cannot even beat out Mark Vientos in the present. Has anyone heard much good about the Mets’ farm system this year, particularly its best position players? Scouts who cover the system certainly are not offering much praise.

The Mets had plotted wild-card contention this year and to begin to take off in 2025. But it is hard not to feel worse about both propositions at present.

The Mets have lost five straight and at 21-30 are a season-high nine games under .500 and have the majors’ worst record (9-22) since April 21. They lost despite Luis Severino being perfect for four innings, having a no-hitter on just 51 pitches through five and delivering seven one-run, two-hit innings in what might just be the beginning of trade-deadline audition starts.

The Mets hit two more homers — by Baty and Starling Marte. They have 11 in their last four games, all losses. They were solo homers on Saturday when the Mets were hitless in 20 at-bats with runners on base, including 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

Again, what do you feel good about with this team right now? The whole pen, not just Diaz, seems to be on fumes after being called upon so much and doing well during the first two months. Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor combined on a 10th-inning error that ushered in five unearned runs. Alonso, Lindor and Brandon Nimmo are not carrying a team in need of being carried. And, again, what does it say for the near future? Do you like Lindor and Nimmo in their thirties? Alonso is in his walk year and might be on the trade block soon if the losing continues.

This is what happens at bad times — you begin to see and feel the worst. But aside from the emergence of Christian Scott, I am not sure anything has occurred this season for the Mets that is encouraging for the near future.

Which is why the biggest Mets positive Saturday happened before the game. For the first time since tearing a ligament in his left thumb on April 19, Francisco Alvarez took batting practice. He went through four rounds of five-to-seven swings and noted the 115 mph homer he hit as a sign he was swinging full force despite wearing a white plastic splint on the thumb held in place by orange tape.

Look, a lot will change over the next four months. And who knows what Steve Cohen will do financially to try to whitewash this season if it continues in this direction — that Mets vs. Yankees bidding war for Juan Soto might be something. But right now, the best internal hope the Mets have for a position player to be special over the next few years is Alvarez with his power bat, power arm, enthusiasm and energy.

Carlos Mendoza called him a “franchise player. He is that type of player and not just because of the bat. He has a big arm. He can help shut down a running game. He helps with the pitching staff. We miss him. One hundred percent we need him for the short term and the long term.”

Alvarez is still a few weeks away as he needs to graduate from batting practice to rehab games. He also is just 22 and plays a demanding position. But more and more it feels as if this season might become trying to find Met silver linings. What you can hang onto for the future like Scott and Alvarez.

Because the product on the field currently looks ill-equipped to make a playoff run even with the third wild card being fought for among mediocrities. On Saturday, for example, Mendoza returned to Diaz to close because, “We can’t hide him.” No, the Mets are in their pen far too much to just turn Diaz into a nonentity. But with the Mets ahead 2-1, Diaz allowed a single to Wilmer Flores on the first pitch of the ninth. Pinch-runner Ryan McKenna stole second and scored the tying run on Lamont Wade’s single.

“In order for us to win games and get where we need to get, [Diaz] has to pitch,” Mendoza said.

It is part of this 2024 Mets story now. They are trying to fix Diaz — and so much more … and not just for this year.