Mets Red – Red Sox, Mets and Phillies are all struggling in the NL East and AL East after early-season collapses and injuries—yet there’s still a path back.
Big-market baseball is taking an early hit, but the race is still young enough for shocks to matter.
Alex Cora’s firing has sent a loud signal through the Boston Red Sox. and the knock-on effect is being felt across three headline franchises in two divisions.. Boston may have taken two of three from Baltimore, but the Red Sox sit in last place at 11-17.. The New York Mets have looked even more unsettled. getting swept in a home doubleheader against Colorado after scoring a single run. sliding to 9-19 after losing 15 of 17.. The Philadelphia Phillies aren’t faring much better—dropping 11 of 12 to match the same 9-19 record and share the NL East cellar.
The uncomfortable part isn’t just the losses; it’s the way they’ve been accumulating.. Each of these teams has suffered through an ugly stretch of run production and run prevention. and those two factors tend to be self-reinforcing early in a season.. The Mets and Phillies carry the worst run differentials in baseball. and New York’s lineup is further compromised by a calf injury to shortstop Francisco Lindor. projected to keep him out for at least a few weeks.. When a team already struggles to score. losing a central piece doesn’t simply reduce output—it forces deeper lineup adjustments and more pressure on the rest of the order.
In Philadelphia, the story has included both relief and frustration.. Philadelphia’s ace moment finally arrived when Zack Wheeler made his 2026 debut, and the Phillies snapped a 10-game skid.. The reversal didn’t last.. Another loss dropped them to 10½ games behind first-place Atlanta. reminding everyone that one strong starting pitcher performance can lift a team—without automatically fixing the underlying issues that led to the skid in the first place.
Boston. meanwhile. is dealing with a smaller distance from the top—but a larger question about whether the results match the process.. The Red Sox trail the Yankees by seven. and their run differential (minus-11) reads as less alarming than the Mets and Phillies.. Still. the season has already produced oddities that mask long-term trends—like a 17-1 win against Baltimore that included an Orioles position player pitching through a 10-run ninth inning.. Wins like that can energize a clubhouse. yet they can also distort how a team’s overall profile looks on paper.
This is why Misryoum sees the “not out yet” label as both accurate and fragile.. Fan-driven win-probability models still suggest there’s a credible chance for each franchise to catch fire. with playoff odds lingering in the low-to-mid 30% range for Boston. and roughly a one-in-three shot for New York and Philadelphia.. But those numbers come with a condition: the teams have to stop bleeding runs and start taking series—especially at home—before the standings widen beyond rescue.
Why April-into-May collapses are hard to reverse
For the Mets, the injury to Lindor is an immediate example of how fragile scoring can be.. For the Phillies. the combination of a skid followed by a Wheeler-fueled rebound shows how swingy their season has been—good nights happen. but consistency has been elusive.. And for the Red Sox, the decision to fire Alex Cora underlines the urgency Boston’s front office feels.. In big markets, patience can vanish quickly when games pile up without a clear identity.
That’s also where the “memorial day” warning matters. If the Red Sox, Mets and Phillies look like this through late May, the odds shift from realistic recovery to damage control. Baseball has room for comebacks, but the standings don’t reset because a manager changes or a star returns.
One fix is rarely enough: injuries. pitching. and offense have to sync
Misryoum expects the next month to reveal which of these teams has that alignment potential.. Boston can still move upward if it narrows games into winnable margins and keeps offensive production steadier than the early-season record suggests.. New York needs to prove that it can score without relying on every hit to be a spark event. especially with Lindor sidelined.. Philadelphia has to maintain the momentum of a snapped skid while ensuring the bullpen and overall run prevention don’t immediately drag them back into the hole.
The race won’t be decided only by who has the best ceiling on paper. It will be decided by who can string together results across several series—because that’s what changes run differential, and run differential is the most honest scoreboard of all.
The wider week: duels. slugfests. and late-game chaos
There were also comeback moments that feel like blueprints for what struggling teams eventually need.. Kansas City erased a late deficit against Los Angeles. forcing extras and then winning 11-9 in 10 innings after multiple big swings in a game that looked out of reach.. That kind of volatility is normal across baseball. but it’s also a reminder: when teams break through offensively and keep pitching under control. seasons can change faster than standings suggest.
What happens next for these three teams
Misryoum’s takeaway is simple: the Mets, Red Sox and Phillies are down—but they’re not out.. The difference between “not out” and “too late” will come down to how quickly they convert early opportunities into sustained scoring and reliable run prevention.. If they can do that, the odds models won’t just look optimistic—they’ll start to look right.