Yankees and Mets both struggling, but which losing streak is more concerning?

It was not even a week ago — last Tuesday — that the baseball vibes in New York were immaculate. The Mets and Yankees were both coming off wins and strong weekends, and sitting atop their division. The Yankees were thriving with suffocating run prevention. The Mets were getting contributions from most of their new additions. The plans were working.

One week later, it might be time to panic.

Since their wins last Tuesday, the Mets and Yankees are a combined 0-10, and they both come into Monday riding five-game losing streaks. The Mets were swept at home over the weekend by the Athletics, who took two of three in the Bronx last week. The Yankees were swept by the Rays at Tropicana Field, which is essentially their home away from home given the crowd noise.

 “It’s just a bad stretch,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters after Sunday’s loss (via MLB.com). “You have to continue to trust the players there. They are really good. We will continue to work with them.”

If nothing else, the vibe shift from last week to this week is a reminder that it is a long season — a very long season — and to never get too high or too low in April. Last week, the Mets and Yankees were atop their divisions. This week, they’re in the dumps. Who knows what next week will bring? Or next month? If anyone tells you they know, either they’re lying or they should buy a lotto ticket.

That said, there are cracks in the dam emerging for each team. Do the Mets or Yankees have more red flags right now? Which team is better poised to weather the storm and snap out of it soon? Let’s dig into the two New York clubs and see what’s what.

Offense

If it seems like offense is down across baseball, you’re right. The league as a whole is hitting .235/.318/.375 this season. A year ago, Jackson Holliday hit .242/.314/.375. The entire league is hitting like 2025 Jackson Holliday right now. Offense will pick up once the weather warms up — it always does — but right now, it’s really hard to hit.

The two New York teams are definitely going through it at the plate. The Mets have scored 2, 1, 0, 6, and 0 runs during their five-game losing streak. The Yankees put up a more representative 2, 0, 3, 4, and 4 runs during their five-game skid. The season numbers favor the Yankees ever so slightly:

The lack of power is most surprising, especially for the Yankees, who are built to hit home runs and play in home run-friendly Yankee Stadium. Come the end of the season, I reckon the Yankees will be top five in home runs, if not lead the league for the third straight season and the fourth time in the last five years. The Yankees hit home runs; it’s what they do. They just aren’t doing it right now.

Both teams have underperforming stars. Even the great Aaron Judge is moseying along at .218/.328/.455 at the moment. That’s a 128 OPS+, which is great for most players but well below Judge’s usual standard. The Yankees are getting terrific production from Ben Rice (.356/.500/.756) and good output from Giancarlo Stanton (.300/.364/.400). It’s the rest of the lineup that is an eyesore:

You can reasonably expect Jazz Chisholm Jr. (47 OPS+) and Trent Grisham (58 OPS+) to be better moving forward, given their track records. Grisham in particular has strong underlying numbers (top 2% in hard-hit rate) and has genuinely hit into some poor luck. Eventually, the tide will turn. It will for Chisholm too, even if he is unclear on the force out rules.

There are definitely real holes in the lineup though. José Caballero (13 OPS+), Ryan McMahon (14 OPS+), and Austin Wells (55 OPS+) are glove-first guys who’ve never hit much. They’re not actually this bad, but you can’t assume they’ll be even average hitters moving forward. You can’t expect Anthony Volpe to move the needle offensively when he returns from shoulder surgery either.

The Yankees have a top-heavy lineup and some of those guys at the top (Chisholm, Grisham, even Judge) aren’t pulling their weight yet. Rice is very good but probably not actually the best hitter in baseball. As he cools, the hope is Judge & Co. will heat up, and water will find its level. Bottom line, the Yankees’ offense will be fine once these guys start hitting the ball out of the park more often.

As for the Mets, they’ve scored 27 runs in eight games without Juan Soto, and nine of those 27 runs came in the first game after his injury. So that’s 18 runs in the last seven games, or 2.57 per game. That is bad. Francisco Alvarez (.300/.391/.625) is making good on the breakout predictions and Luis Robert Jr. (.319/.485/.447) has been terrific. But, like the Yankees, everyone else is the problem:

The problem starts on the left side of the infield. Bo Bichette (.235/.284/.309) and Francisco Lindor (.188/.307/.266) are supposed to lead the offense along with Soto, and neither has gotten going yet. Lindor is coming off hamate surgery, which typically saps power, so perhaps that explains his slow start. It has looked like Bichette was starting to click a few times, but it’s yet to last.

Jorge Polanco (63 OPS+) has been nursing an Achilles injury and hasn’t hit. Rookie Carson Benge (25 OPS+) hit a home run on Opening Day and has looked overmatched since. Marcus Semien (52 OPS+) is showing his age. Utility man Jared Young (143 OPS+) has had a nice start, but the fact he’s hit third multiple times already is an indictment of the rest of the offense. 

Soto is expected to miss another two weeks or so with his calf strain. His return will obviously help. More than anything, though, the Mets need Bichette and Lindor to start meeting expectations. Those two are more foundational to the Mets’ offense than Chisholm and Grisham, the two most underperforming Yankees, are to the Yankees’ offense. Bichette and Lindor hitting will cure a lot of ills.

Verdict: I’m more concerned about the Yankees’ offense long-term because, again, there are some real black holes at the bottom of the lineup. The Mets should have a deeper one-through-nine at full strength. I could see Judge and Rice outperforming Soto and pick-a-Met this season, but the rest of the Mets outperforming the rest of the Yankees. 

Pitching

The Yankees are on a five-game losing streak, but they’ve been in every single one of them. Four of the five losses were by one run and the other was by two runs. Six of their seven losses this season are one-run losses. They’ve been one swing away in every game. That’s part of what makes this skid so frustrating, but it’s also a good sign. The Yankees aren’t getting run out of the building.

That’s because their pitching has been off-the-charts good. Coming into Monday, the Yankees are at or near the top of the league in just about every significant pitching category. The Mets aren’t that far behind, though there is a gap:

Expected ERA, or xERA, is a nifty little stat that incorporates contact quality allowed (exit velocity, etc.). The Yankees have been one of the game’s best teams at limiting hard contact in recent years. Their staff as a whole has the fifth-highest ground ball rate (47.5%) and the fifth-lowest hard-hit rate (36.6%) in the early going this year. Keep the hard contact to a minimum and you’ll thrive.

Max Fried and Cam Schlittler, even after the latter’s last two so-so starts, might be the best 1-2 punch in the American League. They’re at least in the conversation. Ryan Weathers is loaded with upside (eight innings, one run last time out) and the Yankees will get Carlos Rodón and Gerrit Cole back in the coming weeks. The rotation is strong with a chance to get even better.

Rookie Nolan McLean has been terrific for the Mets, ditto Clay Holmes before he left his last start with a minor hamstring issue. Offseason addition Freddy Peralta has been good more than great, and you can reasonably expect him to be better moving forward. David Peterson and Kodai Senga have combined to allow 22 runs in 28 ⅔ innings though. They’re liabilities.

The next wave of depth is Sean Manaea, who’s sitting 88-89 mph with his fastball in long relief, and Tobias Myers, who’s done his best work out of the bullpen the last two years. Prospect Jonah Tong is having a tough go of it in Triple-A to begin the year. Perhaps Christian Scott, in his first full year back from Tommy John surgery, becomes a factor at some point.

The two bullpens have been solid but present different issues. The Mets pushed the Craig Kimbrel button over the weekend, and with all due respect to Kimbrel and the career he’s had, that’s not a good sign these days. Setup man and former Yankee Luke Weaver had worrisome underlying numbers even before Saturday’s one-inning, four-run meltdown. There are depth concerns.

The Yankees have one of the league’s softest-tossing bullpens (28th in fastball velocity) and closer David Bednar is missing 2 mph in the early going. He’s 5 for 5 in save chances, though every outing has been a grind. Manager Aaron Boone is still trying to figure out who he can trust in setup situations other than lefty Tim Hill. Jake Bird? Camilo Doval? Brent Headrick? None of the above?

Verdict: The Mets are a larger concern. The Yankees have gotten incredible pitching to start 2026, and while I wouldn’t count on them to post a sub-3.00 ERA all season, I do expect them to have a top-five or so staff. These are two very smart teams, pitching-wise. I just like the talent the Yankees have on hand a bit more and trust them to figure things out with the bullpen along the way.

Defense

On any given night, the Mets are playing three players out of position. That’s Bichette at third base, Polanco at first base, and Brett Baty at somewhere other than third base (most often right field this year). It shows at times. Bichette’s settled in and cut down on the errant throws, but Baty’s had some balls go over his head in right, and Polanco’s been iffy at first.

Also, Lindor had been oddly shaky at shortstop. Not so much with physical errors (bobbles, off-line throws, etc.), but mental errors. It’s been noticeable enough that Mendoza was asked about it over the weekend. “It’s weird because that’s not him. It’s hard to explain … Never seen some of those plays where he’s just out of position sometimes,” the manager said.

Physical mistakes happen. Even the best defenders will boot a ball or make a poor throw now and then. Mental errors are a different story though, especially when it’s your de facto captain. The early season statistics say the Mets are a solid defensive team (fifth in defensive runs saved and sixth in outs above average). The eye test says differently. It’s a goof-prone defensive unit.

The Yankees, well, they’ll never be known for being a strong defensive team even though they have several individually excellent defenders (Judge, McMahon, Wells, Cody Bellinger). There was Chisholm’s miscue Saturday, which came after the Yankees twice failed to turn a bunt into an out earlier in the inning. The Yankees are, at best, a mediocre defensive team.

Verdict: The Yankees have more concerns defensively even though the Mets are the team making mental errors and playing guys out of position. This is who the Yankees are, defensively. You hope the screw-ups come when they don’t really hurt you. Bichette’s settling in and I assume Lindor will snap out of his mental funk. I don’t love either defense, but the Yankees concern me more.

Manager

To be clear, the five-game losing streaks are on the players. The manager can’t swing the bat or throw the ball. Neither Boone nor Mendoza stands out as an on-field tactician. They’re from the “the most important work is managing the clubhouse behind closed doors” school of modern managers, and I guess managing the clubhouse is most important during down periods like these.

Verdict: Push. I’m not putting the losing streaks on either manager. It’s on the players. Either Judge and Lindor and Fried and McLean perform and their teams win, or they don’t and they don’t. Force me to pick one, and I’ll say I have more concerns about Mendoza, just because we’ve seen Boone’s teams snap out of these funks for nine years now.

Upcoming schedules

This past week is a good reminder that any team can beat any other team on any given night in this game, or in any given series. The A’s came to New York last week with a team 5.51 ERA and left with a 4.20 ERA after taking five of six from the Yankees and Mets. The schedule may look favorable, but no wins are a given in this sport. Even the awful teams win 50-plus times a year.

On paper, the Yankees have a more favorable upcoming schedule than the Mets. The Mets are heading into a potential “kick them while they’re down” road trip. Here is each team’s upcoming week:

The Yankees come home to play four games against a mediocre Angels team and three games against a Kansas City club that is one of the few teams struggling more offensively than they are. The Mets, meanwhile, have to go on the road to play the two-time defending World Series champions, who are 11-4 and have both Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani lined up to pitch.

Verdict: Give me home series with the Angels and Royals over road series against the Dodgers and Cubs eight days a week and twice on Sundays. This week’s schedule is more favorable to the Yankees, which in theory gives them a better chance to snap out of their funk. That said, would anything be more Mets than getting swept by the A’s at home, then winning a series in Los Angeles?

It’s funny, I said I have more concerns about the Yankees in two of the three important categories (offense, defense), but I also have more faith in them righting the ship. I guess that’s because they have the better record (8-7 vs. 7-9) and run differential (plus-21 vs. minus-3), and have had a chance to win every single game they’ve played. The Mets, meanwhile, have had some real stinkers.

Also, the Mets are coming off that horrible collapse last year and haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt in situations like this. The Yankees seem to have a two-month skid every summer, but they always snap out of it and qualify for the postseason with room to spare. They’ve demonstrated year after year that they can handle these bumps and not let them snowball. The Mets haven’t.

It is very early in the season and this past week shows how quickly things can change. A week ago, the Mets and Yankees were both dominating and atop their divisions. Now they’re in five-game losing streaks and we’re all wondering what’s wrong. It’s very early in the season. You have to give the game a chance to breathe. It’s April 13. Very little of what you’ve seen to date will last all season.