Mets limp into break as blown save thwarts Thornton's bid for 1st career win

NEW YORK -- The ball kicked up toward the heel of Francisco Lindor’s glove, and as the shortstop turned to retrieve it -- to salvage something from this play, this inning, this game, this month, this first half of the season -- he tripped and fell.

Splayed out on the dirt, Lindor provided a fitting image for the 2026 Mets: talented but flawed.

Before Lindor mishandled a potential game-ending double play ball in the ninth inning Sunday, the Mets seemed primed to head into the All-Star break on an uplifting note. Rookie Zach Thornton had given them seven shutout innings, contributing arguably the team’s finest start all season. Luke Weaver had added his 25th consecutive appearance without an earned run, extending the second-longest single-season streak in franchise history. Even Lindor had produced in significant ways, homering and doubling to drive in both Mets runs.

Then he landed on the dirt, and the rest of the afternoon unfolded as so many others have. Rather than pick up Lindor, closer Devin Williams walked the next two batters to force in a run, before coughing up a bloop, game-tying single to Jarren Duran. An inning later, the Red Sox received a go-ahead sacrifice fly from Anthony Seigler, and the Mets couldn’t match it in a 3-2, 10-inning loss.

Walking off the field, the Mets entered the All-Star break with a 40-57 record, better than only the Rockies, Royals and Angels. Their odds to make the postseason stood at less than 1 percent, according to FanGraphs calculations. They remained likely to sell off anything with value prior to the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline.

“It hasn’t been fun,” Williams said. “Not a lot of celebrating going on in this clubhouse right now.”

While the Mets’ troubles extend far beyond Lindor, he has been the face of this team for the past six seasons and is emblematic of all that’s gone wrong. Injured for much of the early season, Lindor entered the break with a career-worst .671 OPS. His defense has lapsed at least as much as his offense, thrusting his $341 million contract underwater.

“It’s unacceptable,” Lindor said. “I’m not playing to the standards that I have. I’m not playing to the organization’s standards. I’ve just got to get better.”

Adding insult to Sunday’s loss was the fact that Thornton threw as well as any Mets pitcher had all season. His Game Score of 76 rated just one point behind Nolan McLean’s 77 in a June 17 win over the Reds. If not for an Eric Wagaman missed catch error in the seventh, Thornton would have completed seven innings on fewer than 80 pitches. Had the left-hander not been an untested rookie in just his third career outing, the Mets might have pushed their No. 12 prospect further.

“We’ve been needing that from someone,” interim manager Andy Green said. “You can see he’s unafraid, and you can see he’s on the attack. So as painful as this moment is, those are good signs for our future to see a young guy step on the mound and pitch like that.”

Green, of course, is only here because the Mets played such woeful baseball from March through June that they had little choice but to fire manager Carlos Mendoza. They’ve gone 6-10 since that time, falling further out of a playoff race that they weren’t really in at the time.

As their closer noted, it hasn’t been fun. When asked what he plans to do over the All-Star break to reset, Williams replied: “Anything but this.”

With that, the Mets limped into the season’s symbolic halfway point with their only remaining relevance tied tightly to the Trade Deadline. Several Mets pitchers are likely to be throwing elsewhere in August, including potentially Brooks Raley, A.J. Minter, Weaver, Freddy Peralta and Clay Holmes. Rumors figure to dog several other players, such as Lindor and Francisco Alvarez. Once the Deadline passes, August and September will be about continued development from rookies A.J. Ewing, Carson Benge, McLean and Thornton, the latter of whom will remain in the rotation after the break.

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This was not how things were supposed to go for the Mets. But it is their reality entering an All-Star break that will largely be about celebrating other players around baseball -- not them.

“This was a tough first half in many respects,” Green said. “We have to take a level of ownership over ourselves, and every single person on that team has a level of responsibility to flip the script going into the second half.”