"Bobby Valentine has a pretty good idea what Carlos Mendoza and the 2025 Mets are going through. The former Mets skipper, who manned the helm in Queens from 1996-2002, was stuck in the mud 26 years ago when his 1999 squad was 27-28 on June 5, 1999. Shortly after three of his coaches were fired, he brashly predicted that his club would go 40-15 in the next 55 games or he'd quit."
"When things go wrong, it's because distractions have entered the room, and sometimes it's the room of the group and sometimes it's just the room, the bedroom of the player, he said. When that distraction is there, somehow you gotta eliminate it. And the biggest distraction you have in this town is winning, which happens after the game. It's when it's all over that the winning occurs, and somehow, you gotta get them back to playing."
After a 45-24 start, the 2025 Mets have gone 31-47, producing the fourth-worst record in MLB during that span and placing the team on the postseason bubble. The Mets entered Friday with a 1.5-game lead for the No. 3 NL Wild Card spot. Mental distractions have been identified as a core issue affecting performance. A recent 6-4 loss to the Phillies illustrated the problem: New York scored four runs in the first inning, then managed 25 consecutive outs. A historical parallel occurred in 1999 when the Mets reversed a midseason slump, going 40-18 over a stretch and reaching the NLCS.
Read at www.amny.com
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