By: @OOSSports
Talk about a brutal way to make baseball history.
New York Mets rookie A.J. Ewing delivered one of the most complete offensive games a player can have Tuesday night, but the final score turned his breakout performance into something far more painful. The Mets lost 16-12 to the Kansas City Royals at Citi Field, wasting a night that placed Ewing beside a Hall of Fame legend.
OptaSTATS shared on X, formerly Twitter, noting the Mets rookie outfielder and Joe Morgan are the only modern-era MLB players to produce the combination of offense in a loss.
“Only two MLB players in the modern era (since 1900) have done the following in a loss: 4-for-4 or better 4+ runs scored 1+ HR 1+ SB Those players are Joe Morgan for the Astros on July 8, 1965, and AJ Ewing for the Mets last night.”
That is an incredible individual achievement. It is also a perfect snapshot of how frustrating New York’s 2026 season has become.
Ewing did everything possible to push the Mets across the finish line. He went 4-for-4, reached base safely in every plate appearance, scored four runs, homered, stole a base, and gave New York the kind of dynamic offensive performance that should almost always lead to a win.
Instead, the Mets found another way to lose.
The Royals erased a 9-4 deficit, scored 12 unanswered runs at one point, and turned a wild night into another disaster for a New York pitching staff that has repeatedly failed to protect leads. Juan Soto also went deep for the Mets, but even that was not enough to overcome the bullpen collapse.
That is what makes Ewing’s history so bitter.
The stat line itself belongs in a museum. The team result belongs in a season-long autopsy.
Morgan’s historic game in 1965 came in a 9-8 Astros loss to the Milwaukee Braves in 12 innings. Ewing’s came 61 years later in a 16-12 Mets loss that felt like a full summary of New York’s year. Big offense. Young talent. Star power. Then pitching problems that erased all of it.
The Mets are now 38-54, buried at the bottom of the NL East, and facing a season that has already included a managerial change. Carlos Mendoza was fired in late June, Andy Green took over as interim manager, and the club still has not found a way to stabilize.
Tuesday’s loss only added another layer.
The Mets had never lost a home game when scoring 12 or more runs before this collapse. That kind of mark says plenty about how rare this game was. It also says plenty about how badly New York’s pitching staff let down an offense that produced enough to win most nights.
Ewing should still be the story, though.
For a rookie, this kind of game matters. It showed contact ability, power, speed, confidence, and a knack for impacting the game in different ways. Even in a loss, Ewing gave Mets fans a reason to look beyond the standings and see part of a future worth building around.
That does not make the loss easier. It may actually make it more frustrating.
When a 21-year-old rookie joins Joe Morgan in modern-era MLB history, that should feel like a franchise moment. Instead, it became another example of how the Mets have wasted individual brilliance during a disappointing season.
Ewing made history.
The Mets turned it into heartbreak.
And for New York, that might be the most 2026 Mets sentence possible.