Mets Notebook: Carlos Mendoza receives job assurance from David Stearns

ANAHEIM — Carlos Mendoza can rest assured that he isn’t getting fired anytime soon, but the assurance he received from the Mets on Friday ultimately means little with the way the team is playing. There’s no rest for the weary, and Mendoza and the rest of the Mets are very, very weary.

A disastrous month has the Mets looking like more of an expensive mess than a World Series contender. Owners Steve and Alex Cohen aren’t footing the $369 million payroll bill to watch their baseball team play at a 52-110 pace. They were expecting the 1986 Mets, not the 1962 Mets.

Still, Stearns told Mendoza that he has no plans to replace him in the dugout in a phone conversation Friday morning. The Mets, for now, are staying the course.

“I understand the situation; we all understand the situation, so it’s good to have that conversation with him, but at the end of the day, we have a job and we have a responsibility,” Mendoza said Friday at Angel Stadium. “Since I’ve been in this job, I’ve felt the support from Steve, and Alex and David. I love working for them, we have a really good working relationship here, but it’s about the results on the field as well…

“Steve is not happy, Alex is not happy, David is not happy, I’m not happy — all of us are frustrated. Together, we’ve got to find a way to get these guys out of this fight.”

Mendoza is in the third and potentially final year of his contract. There is a club option for next season that has not been exercised, so it’s possible he’s already managing as a lame duck. But the Mets aren’t ready to punt on this season. The Cohens are spending too much money to give up in April.

This tells the coaching staff and the clubhouse that the front office and ownership still believe in their abilities, and that they have the tools and the talent to start winning enough games to move up in the standings.

“We are all in this together,” Mendoza said. “There is not one specific area, it’s all of us. We lose together; we win together. That’s how we will continue to do this. But I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Well, this is the reason why.’ No, I mean, we’re all responsible. And it starts with me.”

Mendoza rebuked the notion that this decision takes pressure off the players. After Thursday’s loss to the Washington Nationals, Luke Weaver said it felt as though the team hasn’t been able to play free, or to have fun. Winning is fun, but even the few wins the Mets have had recently have been more stressful than fun.