Steven Cohen Rips Mets Offense, Says 'It's Hard to Understand' NY's Struggles

New York Mets owner Steven Cohen expressed frustration about the team's lack of offense Wednesday after the club suffered its fifth straight defeat, a 3-2 road loss to the San Francisco Giants, on Tuesday night.

The Mets, who've spent much of the 2021 season atop the NL East standings, are now 4.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the division race.

New York's offense has lagged behind the other MLB playoff contenders for much of the year, ranking 24th in OPS (.693), but the pitching staff was able to overcome the lack of run support during the first few months. Jacob deGrom led the way with a microscopic 1.08 ERA through 15 starts.

But with DeGrom now sidelined by a forearm injury with no timetable to return and the offense still stuck in neutral (.639 OPS in August), the losses have started to pile up quickly for the Mets.

Cohen finalized his purchase of the Mets for $2.4 billion in November. He then authorized an offseason spending spree that included the free-agent signings of James McCann, Taijuan Walker, Trevor May, Kevin Pillar and Jonathan Villar.

New York also made a blockbuster trade for Francisco Lindor from Cleveland and then signed him to a massive 10-year, $341 million contract extension.

Those additions, combined with one of the league's best starting rotations on paper, were expected to push the Mets toward championship contention. While they were on pace for a while, and there's still enough time to turn things around, they've hit a lull since the All-Star break.

It doesn't help that deGrom, Lindor, Noah Syndergaard, David Peterson, Joey Lucchesi and trade-deadline acquisition Javier Baez are all on the injured list.

Yet, neither Lindor (.702 OPS) nor Baez (.559 OPS in 10 games after the trade) had lived up to expectations when healthy, and the offense as a whole has lacked consistent punch outside of Pete Alonso (.828 OPS with 26 home runs).

As Cohen pointed out, the Mets could benefit from a more "disciplined approach." They rank 26th in slugging percentage (.380), which means they usually have to generate runs the old-fashioned way, but that's tough for a club that ranks 16th in walk rate (8.8 percent) and 24th in batting average (.235).

One other factor working against New York is the schedule. It's in the midst of a stretch of 13 consecutive games against either the San Francisco Giants or Los Angeles Dodgers, two elite teams that are already virtual locks for the postseason.

The slate does get far more favorable beginning Aug. 27, when the Mets play 14 straight against the rebuilding Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins, so they'll have an opportunity to make up lost ground quickly.

They don't want to fall too far behind the Braves or Philadelphia Phillies, who are two games ahead of the Mets and 2.5 behind Atlanta, before that point, though.