For the Mets, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong

Over the past week, it’s rained crap on the Mets. Crap of every variety. Player injuries. Bad playing. An actual fire! It’s been so bad it’s borderline unbelievable. The Mets were riding high not to long ago, so let’s take a look at the misery that’s befallen this hard luck team in just the past few days.

It all started Tuesday. Noah Syndergaard, who has been having a great bounce-back season, went on the disabled list with a strained ligament in his index finger. That night, Steven Matz left his start early due to a strained middle finger. On Friday, Jay Bruce left the game with back spasms, and they were serious enough that he was scratched from Saturday’s start. While Matz will avoid the disabled list, it’s unknown if Bruce will. If he doesn’t, he won’t be lonely. Already there are Juan Lagares, Travis d’Arnaud, Anthony Swarzak, AJ Ramos, Todd Frazier, and Yoenis Cespedes.

Off the field, things weren’t much better. A literal fire broke out at Citi Field on Wednesday. A witness heard an explosion, and then smoke and flames started pouring out of one of the entrances. What an apt metaphor for the Mets’ sudden change in fortune from April to May. No one was hurt and the fire was contained by the time the fire department got there.

It wouldn’t be a run of bad Mets luck if someone in the organization didn’t cram their own foot in their mouth. And on Thursday, Sandy Alderson was hungry for some foot. While talking to the media about the Mets’ litany of injuries, he expressed buyer’s remorse over the Yoenis Cespedes because he’s been so injured. He said that Cespedes’s susceptibility to injury should have been taken into account when they signed him to a contract. Openly regretting the signing of an impact player because he keeps getting injured? That’s so Mets.

The torment continued Saturday, when a scheduled giveaway just didn’t happen. The Mets were supposed to give out a Todd Frazier pullover, but just four hours before the game at Citi Field, the team announced that due to a ”quality control issue,” the giveaway wouldn’t be happening. The giveaway for a player on the disabled list was itself on the disabled list. The Mets didn’t specify what the issue was, but it’s not hard to imagine Frazier’s last name misspelled, or 15,000 pullovers showing up without an arm or a head hole.

But Saturday wasn’t over yet. The Mets played the Cubs for 14 innings, tied 1-1 most of the way. Until the top of the 14th, that is, when the Mets gave up six runs and the win. And that loss just added to a pile of losses that has been growing since May. On Friday, the Mets dropped under .500 for the first time this season.

It feels like a million years ago, but Mets were on fire to start the season. The team won 11 of their first 12 games, and were feeling so confident that they even came up with a fun “salt and pepper” motion they did anytime they got on base. That team still technically exists, but they’re struggling. With everything. Even their stadium is injured and malfunctioning!

But we have to ask: would baseball be baseball if bad things weren’t happening to the Mets? We may never have to know.