Yankees’ Aaron Judge puzzled by Mets’ struggles: ‘I really don’t understand it’

Watching from afar, Aaron Judge is stunned that the Mets have been one of baseball’s worst teams this season.

“I really don’t understand it,” the Yankees’ superstar said Wednesday ahead of the season’s first Subway Series, which begins Friday at Citi Field. “They got a great manager with Mendy over there. He spent a lot of great times over here with us, and they have a great lineup, a great pitching staff.”

Judge was referring to Carlos Mendoza, who served as the Yankees’ bench coach under Aaron Boone from 2020-2023 and held other roles in the organization prior to that. The Mets’ skipper has come under heavy fire with his team playing well below the expectations that were set for a club with a projected competitive balance tax payroll of $378.3 million, but owner Steve Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns have shown support for the third-year manager.

The Mets beat the Tigers on Thursday, securing their first series sweep of the season, but they’re still taking a last-place, 18-25 record into the Subway Series.

“Obviously, they’re going through a tough time, but I think Mendy is great at what he does, and as much as you could be equipped to handle everything that’s going on with them, he certainly is,” Boone said of his friend at the start of May. “So I know he’ll be fine.”

Boone’s comment came at the end of a horrid stretch in which the Mets lost 17-of-20 games from April 8-30. The Queens club has been better since then, winning eight of their last 12 games prior to Friday, but the Mets remain in a deep hole in the National League East.

“It’s obviously been a tough start to the season for them,” Boone said Wednesday. “It seems like they’re playing better of late.

“Hopefully, we go play well and put ourselves in position to win a series.”

The Yankees, meanwhile, are 27-17 and in second place in the American League East. They are coming off consecutive series losses after getting swept in Milwaukee over three games and dropping 2-of-3 in Baltimore.

A quiet offense is largely responsible for that stretch, as the Bombers scored just 14 runs over those six games and were shut out twice.