Alexander Wilson
The New York Mets already had a Bo Bichette problem at the plate. Tuesday added another layer, and for a player on that kind of contract, layers are exactly what you do not want.
Bichette committed his sixth error of the season in the Mets’ 7-2 loss to Cincinnati, with the box score charging him for a throwing error at shortstop. One mistake does not define a season, but the larger picture is getting harder to ignore.
The bat has not given him much room for forgiveness. When the offense is light and the defense starts leaking too, the conversation changes fast.
The bat still is not carrying its weight
Bichette entered this stretch with a line sitting around .227/.274/.323 with a 72 wRC+ and 0.3 WAR, a brutal return for a hitter the Mets signed to anchor the lineup, especially with the club already scraping for reliable offense.
The Mets did not hand him a three-year, $126 million contract to be a survival bat. They paid for impact, stability, and the kind of professional offensive floor that keeps cold stretches from swallowing an entire lineup.
Right now, they are getting flashes instead of comfort. The two-homer game against Washington showed the old damage is still in there, but one loud night cannot carry weeks of empty at-bats.
The defense makes it even messier
The defensive piece matters because Bichette does not have a lot of offensive cushion. If he were raking, the Mets could live with some unevenness at shortstop. When the production is below average, every extra base allowed feels heavier.
Tuesday’s error did not lose the game by itself. Cincinnati had 15 hits, New York managed only five, and the Mets were outplayed in too many areas to hang the whole thing on one throw. Still, mistakes like that feed the broader concern.
The Mets have been dealing with too many lineup issues already, from Mark Vientos becoming another difficult bat to trust to the constant injury churn around the roster. Bichette was supposed to be one of the stabilizers, not another daily question.
I still think the talent is too real to bury him in May. The hands, bat speed, and track record are not fake. But the Mets did not buy a maybe, they bought certainty, and certainty has been missing.
The longer this drags, the more uncomfortable it gets. Bichette does not need one monster week to quiet everything. He needs a month that reminds everyone why the Mets were willing to spend like that in the first place.
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