NEW YORK — Thursday brought the Mets’ last home game of their cursed 2021 season. That much is a guarantee. What’s not set in stone yet, but has been foreboding for weeks, is the looming dismissal of manager Luis Rojas. When asked before Thursday’s game about the possibility that it’d be his last at Citi Field, Rojas was careful not to treat it as a certainty.
“We don’t know yet,” Rojas hoped. “We have to get there first and find out what’s going to happen.”
Rojas had two seasons in the Mets’ dugout: one during the 60-game pandemic season and one where his team swindled a 90-day run at the top of their division. It’s a job that would make even the most patient person go gray in the temples, and Rojas has undoubtedly felt the adverse effects of being a baseball manager in New York City. Still, the perpetually level-headed 40-year-old said he’ll think of his time in Queens positively, no matter when it ends.
“I’ve enjoyed my time here, the last two years, being the manager,” he expressed. “It’s been fun, every day, working with the guys and connecting with them.”
“We haven’t achieved what we wanted to achieve. But, the atmosphere in the clubhouse has been one of the most important things I can think of these last two years, how everyone gets along in the clubhouse. Even though we haven’t gotten the results, that’s the one thing I want to single out. It’s been pretty special with both groups, last year’s and this one.”
Should Rojas get fired at the end of the season — a creeping inevitability — he’d join Joe Frazier, George Bamberger, Bud Harrelson, Jeff Torborg, Art Howe and Mickey Callaway as Mets’ skippers who only lasted two years on the job.
