The New York Mets have had to go through some growing pains during the month of May after getting off to a red-hot start to the season. The Mets went through some Juan Soto drama and a brief losing streak before steadying themselves, and they are still one of the best teams in baseball heading into June.

Unfortunately for the Mets, some of their struggles returned on Wednesday night. New York lost 9-4 to the Chicago White Sox, one of the worst teams in baseball, on Wednesday night in Chicago in a stunning result. The Mets still won the interleague series 2-1, but they will be disappointed that they didn't get the sweep over an inferior opponent.

All season, the Mets have struggled to take advantage when they have had runners in scoring position, and that remained the same in this game. After the loss, manager Carlos Mendoza talked about the issue and stressed improvement in that area, via Robert Sanchez of SNY.

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“We gotta get better with runners in scoring position. We are all aware,” Mendoza said. “Yes, the underlying numbers (are encouraging), but at the end of the day, we gotta get the job done, right? I thought yesterday we took some better at-bats, today not so much.”

The Mets went just 2-for-12 in those situations in this game, which was not good enough to keep pace with a hot White Sox offense that took advantage of its chances throughout the afternoon. For the season, New York was batting just .212 with runners in scoring position coming into this loss, so this issue is nothing new for Mendoza and company.

If the Mets can get their clutch hitting figured out, the rest of the league should watch out. Even with those struggles, the Mets still have one of the best records in baseball at 34-22 and are just two points back of the Phillies for the top spot in the division. It is clear at this point that the Mets are still a playoff team, even despite their struggles with runners on base.