Mets reportedly fire Carlos Mendoza after six straight losses

What happened

The New York Mets have reportedly fired manager Carlos Mendoza, per Yahoo Sports, following a stretch in which the club lost six consecutive games. The move ends Mendoza's tenure with the organization after he was hired by the Mets in late 2023.

The news reached across town quickly. Yankees manager Aaron Boone — who had Mendoza as his bench coach for four seasons before the Mets brought him aboard — was asked about the firing ahead of New York's second game of a four-game set with the Red Sox. Boone did not hide that the news landed with some weight.

"Surprised, I guess, but not surprised," Boone said, per Yahoo Sports, describing his reaction upon learning of Mendoza's dismissal. He added that he had spoken with Mendoza directly, and that the situation in New York had been difficult both this year and going back to last year.

Why it matters

Boone's framing — "not surprised" — suggests the broader context had been accumulating for some time. What makes this particular dismissal notable is the standing Mendoza had built in the industry, including, by Boone's account, through the difficulties themselves.

Boone was direct in his assessment, per Yahoo Sports: Mendoza is someone who has earned a strong reputation across the industry, and in Boone's view that reputation was only reinforced by how he carried himself through a trying stretch. "He's a really good manager that will get another opportunity," Boone said, per Yahoo Sports — a sentence that tends to age into a headline when the next vacancy opens.

That is a meaningful endorsement from a peer who watched Mendoza work at close range for four seasons as his bench coach. Boone's read — that Mendoza's standing in the industry emerged from this period intact — is the kind of signal that tends to matter when clubs begin their next search. Boone also noted that Mendoza is, in his words, "in a good place," which at minimum suggests the two spoke substantively rather than in passing.

It is worth holding that endorsement at arm's length as a transaction signal, however. Boone's expectation that Mendoza will find another opportunity is exactly that — a colleague's expectation, not a report of specific interest from another organization. The industry reputation Boone describes is a qualitative assessment, not a transaction detail.

Where the club stands

The Mets carry a record of 74-88 (.457), sit fifth in the NL East, and are 20 games back in the division. They have been eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, with a Wild Card rank of 10 and a position 14.0 relative to the cut line. The club enters Friday on a one-game losing streak, though the six-game skid that preceded the reported firing is what drove the decision, per Yahoo Sports.

### What does the schedule ahead look like?

The Mets host the Philadelphia Phillies for three games at Citi Field — Friday with Zac Thornton expected to face Zack Wheeler, Saturday with Christian Scott lined up against Tim Mayza, and Sunday with Cionel Pérez projected to start opposite Jesús Luzardo. The Phillies are not a team that tends to make a dugout transition feel ceremonial.

What the remaining schedule asks of whoever runs the Mets' dugout now is essentially a question of organizational evaluation: which arms and position players are worth watching, and what does the roster look like heading into the offseason? That is a different job description than running a contender, and it is the one the next person in the dugout inherits. A 74-88 record with postseason elimination already on the books reframes every remaining game as an audition rather than a campaign.

What we don't know yet

Yahoo Sports' report does not name an interim replacement or indicate who will run the club going forward. The circumstances of the departure — whether it was a unilateral club decision, a mutual resolution, or something negotiated — are not detailed in the reporting. Boone's comments confirm he spoke with Mendoza and that Mendoza is doing well by his account, but the specifics of any transition plan remain unreported.

The six-game losing streak is identified by Yahoo Sports as the proximate cause of the move. Whether the club has a longer-term plan in place, or whether an interim arrangement carries through the end of the season, is an open question as of this report.

What to watch

The immediate question for Mets observers is who takes over the dugout and what the club's stated goals are for the remainder of a season in which the standings have already rendered a verdict. With the Phillies arriving at Citi Field for a three-game series beginning Friday, whoever is in the dugout will be doing so against one of the NL's better clubs, with Thornton, Scott, and Pérez lined up in succession.

Longer term, Mendoza's next move is worth tracking. He spent four seasons as Boone's bench coach before getting his first opportunity with the Mets, and Boone's public comments — offered unprompted, in a competitive context, ahead of a game — carry the kind of specificity that suggests genuine regard rather than diplomatic boilerplate. When a manager of Boone's tenure says a former colleague has "earned a strong reputation in the industry, even through all this," that is the sort of thing front offices tend to file away.

For now, the Mets are a club at 74-88, eliminated from postseason contention, preparing to host the Phillies, and reportedly without the manager who guided them through the last year and a half. The six-game losing streak was the proximate cause, per Yahoo Sports. The broader season is the context that made it feel, to at least one close observer across town, like something less than a complete surprise.