​Welcome back to Monday Stat Party, a weekly series that shines a light on the most curious and nostalgia-tinged statistical developments from the latest Mets games. Each entry is built around a thread of intrigue and a deep appreciation for the game’s delightful anomalies, the kind that make baseball endlessly fascinating. Without further ado, let the stat party commence.
MONDAY
Juan Soto’s three-run homer stands out as the Mets’ second game-tying or go-ahead shot with two outs or later this season, joining Tyrone Taylor’s late-inning blast in the Subway Series on May 17. Since 2015, the Mets have had nine such dramatic homers, and three of them have come against the Braves: Daniel Murphy’s at Turner Field on September 13, 2015; Dominic Smith’s walk-off at Citi Field on September 29, 2019; and Soto’s on Monday. Soto’s homer produced an extraordinary Win Probability Added of +74.5%, the highest Mets plate-appearance WPA since Pete Alonso’s +78.4% walk-off on May 17, 2023, off Pete Fairbanks.
TUESDAY
Bo Bichette’s first-inning single marked his 1,000th career hit, achieved in 840 games. That milestone places him among a select group of debutants since 2008 who reached 1,000 hits in fewer than 850 games: Jose Altuve, Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, and Luis Arraez. Kodai Senga’s strikeout of Lane Thomas to open the top of the third inning marked the Mets bullpen’s 400th strikeout this season, making them the second-fastest bullpen to reach that milestone, trailing only the White Sox’ relievers.
A.J. Ewing became the youngest player in Mets history to record four hits, a home run, and a stolen base in a single game, and he is the first since Francisco Lindor did so on May 30, 2024, against the Diamondbacks. Ewing also joined a small club as the ninth Met to post a four-hit game at age 21 or younger, joining Ed Kranepool, Wayne Garrett, Wally Backman, Gregg Jefferies, Edgardo Alfonzo, José Reyes, David Wright, and Francisco Alvarez.
The Mets’ pitching and defense had a rough stretch, as they allowed 59 runs over a six-game span—the first time such a spike has occurred in franchise history. Despite scoring 12 or more runs in a game, the Mets lost, marking only the second time in franchise history they’ve dropped a game after tallying 12 or more runs (the other being a 13-12 loss on May 24, 2022, in San Francisco). As a result, the Mets currently own a 200-2 record in games in which they score 12 or more runs, a statistic that underscores the unpredictability of baseball and the strange ways scoring spikes can align with outcomes.
The Mets also allowed 14 or more runs for the fourth time this season, tying for the most in the majors with the Nationals and the A’s. In the franchise’s history, only the 1962 season (five games) and the 2020 season (four games) show similar marks through the first 92 games. Additionally, the Mets yielded 19 or more hits for the first time since a doubleheader opener on August 12, 2023, a 21-3 loss to the Braves, and that pair of games sits among Citi Field’s rare occurrences where the home team allowed 16 or more runs. In a separate note, the Mets conceded five or more runs in multiple innings for the first time since a 20-2 loss to Atlanta on June 30, 2010, a game that remains one of the tougher archives in franchise history. This stretch remains a reminder of the high variability in pitching and the challenge of keeping a game within a narrow margin during extended strike zones.
The ongoing narrative this week highlights how smaller-sample milestones can illuminate larger patterns—like a bullpen climbing into elite company in strikeouts, or a young hitter flashing a ceiling that hints at a sustained impact. It also underscores the Mets’ tendency for dramatic, sometimes counterintuitive outcomes: powerhouse offense colliding with volatile pitching, and the unpredictable way in which big-number performances translate to wins, losses, or chalked-up records. The takeaway remains that baseball thrives on these paradoxes, and Monday Stat Party is here to trace them, one stat at a time.