Mets Owner Steve Cohen 'Frustrated' by Losing Streak, Tells Fans to 'Keep the Faith'

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen said he's "as frustrated as everybody else" on the heels of a sweep at the hands of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Mets have now dropped 13 of their last 16 games. Cohen told fans on X to "keep the faith" amid the barren spell:

There's no getting around how tough the last month has been. It's not just that the Mets lost three straight to the last-place Pirates; they were outscored 30-4 in the series.

It's important to point out some of the positives.

New York is still 48-37 on the season and is only trailing the Philadelphia Phillies for first in the NL East by 1.5 games, which is hardly insurmountable.

Juan Soto is also hitting like Juan Soto again. He had a .322/.474/.722 slash line with 11 home runs in June. Maybe all of that handwringing about his sluggish start was premature.

The Mets rank sixth in wOBA (.324) and seventh in wRC+ (110), per FanGraphs.

And to Cohen's point, the roster is too good to think a stretch this bad will continue indefinitely.

However, the last few weeks point to some of the concerns people expressed with New York coming into the year.

The starting rotation was a clear question mark. There isn't a bona fide ace within the unit, and creating that in the aggregate can be difficult.

Beyond the quartet of Soto, Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo, the success of the offense hinged on improvement from younger players who aren't progressing as expected. Third baseman Mark Vientos and catcher Francisco Alvarez are slugging below .400, which earned the latter a demotion to Triple-A.

There's obviously plenty of time for New York to turn things around. Matchups with the Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees this week present the team with a great opportunity to make a firm, positive statement.

But the 2023 season is a reminder of how quickly things can spiral. Cohen spent more than $400 million to lose 87 games.

While it's too early to panic, it would also be counterproductive to assume the Mets will benefit solely from regression to the mean.