But at least for one day, the injury gods smiled on the Mets. An MRI on Thor’s elbow revealed no structural damage. He popped some anti-inflammatories and is on track to make his next start. Cespedes’s sprain was deemed “minor.” He received a cortisone shot and was back on the field a few days later. And Wheeler had not re-torn his UCL. He was diagnosed with a structural nerve issue and will return to his throwing program when he’s up to it. Oh, and the Mets beat the Royals, 4-3. Not so bad!

In the end, June 22, 2016 was not close to the Worst Mets Day. What day is? Keep in mind that none of us BP – Mets staffers were alive in 1962 to see what is still the worst record in baseball since 1950. There were probably some Worst Days in there. So what if this list is #bias in favor of Worst Days that occurred in our lifetimes? Those bad memories have a tendency to stick. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

October 19, 2006

The Mets entered the 9th inning of Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series tied 1-1. Aaron Heilman, who pitched the 8th, had been the team’s least-effective reliever in the regular season. Manager Willie Randolph had more or less his full complement of relievers, short of Chad Bradford. That included Billy Wagner, one of the best — and highest-paid — relievers in baseball. Yet Heilman remained in the game to pitch the 9th. Scott Rolen singled. Heilman remained in. Heilman’s next pitch, to Yadier Molina, was the worst of his major league career, a change at the belt that didn’t move or drop. Molina’s home run gave the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

The Mets got John Valentin and Endy Chavez on as the tying runs to start the 9th. Willie Randolph, again with a full complement of bench players short Michael Tucker, chose former starting left fielder Cliff Floyd, who had been hanging around as a barely-used bench option because of an Achilles tendon injury. Floyd struck out. Three batters later, the Mets had advanced the tying run to second and had Anderson Hernandez on first as the go-ahead run. Carlos Beltran, probably the best player in the National League in 2006 and arguably the best hitter in the history of postseason baseball, came up against a young fill-in closer named Adam Wainwright. Beltran took a fastball for strike one, then fouled off a curve. Wainwright’s next pitch was the best of his major league career, a beautiful curve… – Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

September 30, 2007

Seven game lead in the division with 17 to play? What could possibly go wrong? Mets fans know the answer to this one. By September 30, 2007, the Mets had blown their lead and were tied with the Phillies entering the final game of the season. At least the Mets had Tom Glavine on the mound, a future Hall of Famer who’d won his 300th game earlier that year.

But in game 162, Glavine got one measly out. He allowed seven baserunners and they all scored. The Mets lost 8-1. Philadelphia won their game, completing the biggest collapse in baseball history at the time. Most players and fans said it was something they would never forget. Glavine infamously said afterwards “I’m not devastated. I’m disappointed, but devastation is for much greater things in life.” Then he went back home to Atlanta as a free agent. — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

September 28, 2008

September 28th, 2008 was supposed to be a celebration of the past 45 years: the final regular season home-game at Shea Stadium. The Mets had already collapsed for the second straight year and rain the day of the game was just an ominous sign of what was to come. The Mets needed a win to force a one-game playoff with the Brewers, meaning at least one more game at Shea, but it was not meant to be.  In the 7th inning with the score tied 2-2, Scott Schoeneweis and Luis Ayala allowed back-to-back home runs to Dan Uggla and Wes Helms, putting the nail in the coffin on the Mets season.

Meanwhile, fans in the stadium could see that in Milwaukee, CC Sabathia and the Brewers dominated the Cubs.  What was supposed to be a joyous occasion turned into a funeral for Shea. Fans were sad and speechless and the post-game “festivities” did nothing but put tears in fans’ eyes remembering happier times. — Seth Rubin (@sethrubin)

December 11, 2008

The Mets’ second-consecutive historic September choke job turned out to be puppies and rainbows compared to the repercussions from the FBI’s morning raid of a luxury Manhattan penthouse. Thousands of investors lost everything they had in one of the largest securities frauds in the nation’s history. It literally was the worst day of many peoples’ lives. But it was also a Worst Mets Day that continues to affect the team to this day.

The Madoff scandal shockwaves reached Citi Field almost immediately. It turned out that Mets owner Fred Wilpon was one of the winners in Madoff’s fraud: Although Wilpon lost $178 million he thought he’d wisely invested with Madoff, Wilpon had also withdrawn $162 million from his Madoff accounts in the past. It’s a basic legal principle that returns beyond one’s initial investment in a Ponzi scheme are fraudulent as to (and can be clawed back for the benefit of) investors who lost money. Stated differently, not only did Wilpon’s $178 million disappear, he also had to return millions out of his own pocket to the bankruptcy trustee.

As soon as Wilpon could clear Mets salary off his books to stem the bleeding, he did so. Team payroll dropped from third-highest in baseball in 2008 to 21st (!) in the league by 2015. One can certainly question whether Wilpon doth protest too much when he spends so little. The miserly Mets may now be authentically destitute. They may be playing penniless possum. Either way, no off-the-field event has ever hit the Mets harder. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

June 12, 2009

Sure, there have been bigger foibles on grander stages with more at stake, but Luis Castillo dropping the ball — even its mere description sounds like little more than an Arrested Development gag come to life: Well, Luis dropped the ball. Oh really, how? No, he literally dropped the ball, it was terrible — was some kind of perfect awful storm for the Mets, who were up 8-7 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Alex Rodriguez pops it up toward the deep infield to the right of second with runners on first and second racing for home. After A-Rod slams his bat on home plate in disgust, Castillo eyes the ball, calls for the play, starts drifting to his left, and then … the ball … just … pops out of his glove. The game is all but over by the time he can recover, Francisco Rodriguez puts his hands on his head in stunned amazement, and A-Rod is mobbed at first base for his role in this enduring moment of #LOLMets incompetence, a 15-second sequence that was both simple to comprehend but unbelievable to process.

The Yankees were a juggernaut that year, winning 103 games and the World Series, while the Mets were a season-long joke. For 26 outs that day, those roles were oh-so-slightly reversed, but sometimes that final out never does come. — Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

August 15, 2009

2009 is when I started watching every Mets game. As a dumb 15-year-old kid, I thought for sure the Mets were going to win it all. Unfortunately, the season was marred by countless injuries  (Beltran, Reyes, Delgado, etc.) and embarrassment (see above), an unassisted triple play, and Ryan Church missing third).

The awful season came to a terrifying halt when David Wright – the last man standing – got drilled in the head by a Matt Cain fastball. I didn’t see the beaning live but when I heard the  news I was devastated. It seemed everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and it put someone’s livelihood at stake. Luckily, Wright was alright. And luckily, the Mets problems as a whole lasted only another five years. — Tyler Plofker (@TylerPlofker)

August 26, 2013

2013 was a rebuilding year for the Mets, the fourth in a row. But unlike the previous three, there was light at the end of the tunnel — a growing collection of aces headed by Matt Harvey, whose sophomore season ranked alongside years put up by Seaver and Gooden. Wheeler’s debut was a great success and Syndergaard waited in the wings. With dead payroll about to clear, 2014 was the year it would all come together.

But on August 26th, a morose Harvey sat next to Sandy Alderson as he announced that the seemingly indestructible ace — he of the superlative build and mechanics — had torn his UCL, with Tommy John surgery a likely outcome. In an instant, the goodwill built up over the course of the season vanished and Mets fans once again were left to wonder when, if ever, they would break free of the #LOLMets curse. — Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162)

May 23, 2015

In the middle of April 2015, Met fans groaned as David Wright came out of the game after a simple slide into second base. Thankfully, the injury was just a mild hamstring strain, and Wright was going to be back in two weeks. Two weeks became five, and the hamstring issue became lower back pain. Then, on May 23rd, 2015, David Wright was finally diagnosed with spinal stenosis. Major league players just don’t suffer this kind of injury (the disease usually becomes symptomatic at age 50, not 32), so it was particularly Metsian that the greatest position player in franchise history would be hit with a chronic back condition just as the team was emerging from a long rebuild.

Wright missed the majority of 2015, then came back and contributed down the stretch and in the playoffs. It looked like he might get the ring he so clearly deserved, but the Mets fell short. Now, with Wright out for all of 2016 with a neck injury, it’s fair to wonder if Captain America will ever get another chance to play in a World Series. — Lukas Vlahos (@lvlahos343)

On Wednesday night, Colón had his worst start of 2016, and it was all downhill from there—the Mets pitchers walked 11 batters across nine innings, and Mets’ hitters were stayed by the Nationals’ Gio González for a 7-1 loss. In the rain.

But Thursday was the darkest night, when Harvey gave up eight hits and walked two with six earned runs, all in the span of 2.7 innings. By the end of the third inning the Nationals led 9-1, at which point the Jumbotron promptly blacked out and had to be rebooted. Perhaps the tears of its operator shorted the circuit board.

Watching those games was unpleasant. But as I got back on the 7 train Thursday night, I found in me a certain nostalgia attached to taking such a beating. I came to consciousness in the early 90s—I was in first grade in 1993 when the Mets went 59-103. The Mets of my childhood were terrible. I remember once asking my Dad what did a team have to do to get into the playoffs. “You have to win more games than you lose,” he said. It seemed simple when he put it like that. And yet.

Of course, the 2016 Mets are heads and shoulders above those teams of the early 90s, but the history is ours nonetheless, so here are five sad Mets moments and their corresponding bright sides from within my lifetime to remind us where we came from, and that it could be worse.

Anthony Young Breaks a (Bad) Record (1992-1993)

So Colón was liberal with his walks on Wednesday; so Harvey imploded on the mound in a matter of minutes the following night—they’ve still got nothing on Anthony Young, who managed 27 consecutive losses in 1992-93, going 0-14 as a starter and 0-13 as a reliever. Young broke the previous record of 23 straight losses, which had been recorded by Cliff Curtis in 1910-11. The bright side? He’s a record-holder now! And, interestingly, Young didn’t pitch as badly as one might expect from such a streak, with his ERA for that period at 4.36, and a career average of 3.89. Plus, after he beat the Marlins in July 1993, Young—who had become nationwide comedic fodder over the course of the streak—appeared on “The Tonight Show,” where Jay Leno offered him the chance to make fun of his chin as payback.

Timo Perez and the 2000 World Series

2000 was a nice, round number, the perfect year, it seemed, to make some history. It was the first Mets-Yankees World Series meetup, with the last postseason Subway Series occurring 1956, between the Yankees and the Dodgers. But when Todd Zeile’s almost-home-run bounced back into play, Timo Perez didn’t seem to notice, slowing down to a light jog only to be thrown out at home. It wasn’t a series-losing blunder in itself—it was only Game 1, after all—but it was a stupid way to lose a run in a close game, and for me reminiscent of the Mets’ wild throws, ball drops, and other silly mistakes that paved the way to Royals’ victory in 2015. Back in Game 1 of the 2000 series, the Yankees ended up winning in extra innings, and won the World Series in five games. The good news for those early aughts Mets is that after a brief stint in the minors in 2001, Perez returned to bat .276 with 114 RBI until he was traded to the White Sox before the 2004 season.

Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron Break Each Other’s Faces (2005)

In August 2005, Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron, both center fielders at heart, made one of the nastiest collisions in modern day baseball when they both went after a ball in right center. Cameron took the brunt of the damage—he was removed from the game on a stretcher, and later had surgery on his nose and cheekbone fractures—while Beltran was concussed with a more minor fracture to the face.

If an optimistic thread can be gleaned from such serious injuries, it’s that neither suffered long-term damage to their fielding stardom—Cameron won a Gold Glove in 2006, was fifth and then third in fielding percentage for National League center fielders in 2007 and 2008, with the second and third-most double plays turned in the National League in 2006 and 2007. Beltran won three-straight Gold Glove Awards from 2006-2008, and was an All-Star in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013. And the collision makes a lot of top ten lists of worst sports injuries, a baseball rarity.

Luis Castillo Drops the Ball (2009)

Or, Luis Castillo being a Met in general. The team signed Castillo, by then past his prime and prone to injury, for a too-big, four-year, 25-million-dollar contract that, (surprise!) he couldn’t play through. He played well in his first 50 games as a Met in 2007, rode the bench for a good part of 2008, then started off 2009 with an offensive bang, until …

Bottom of the ninth; the Mets led the Yankees 8-7. With two outs and runners on first and second, the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez hit what should’ve been—what was—an easy out pop-up, which Castillo just…dropped. Jeter scored, and by the time Castillo decided to pick up the ball, he was so removed earth’s reality that he threw to second base to out Rodriguez, apparently forgetting about Teixeira, who was homeward bound. Final score: 9-8 Yankees.

If you type “Luis Castillo” into an internet search bar, Google auto-completes “drop.” Because there is no silver lining to this one, except maybe that post-Madoff the Mets don’t have the money to make a stupid deal like this again.

Scott Kazmir (2004)

I wasn’t alive when the Mets traded Nolan Ryan (and more!?) to the Angels for Jim Fregosi, or when they gave away Tom Seaver for four random Reds. But I was around for another sad pitcher trade—Scott Kazmir to the Rays for Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato, both of whom were pretty lackluster, and then injured, during their time as Mets, while Kazmir went on to achieve pitching stardom. Kazmir was an All-Star in 2006, 2008, and 2014, led the AL in strikeouts in 2007, and is currently first in the NL in fielding percentage as a pitcher. One can only hope that the Mets have learned their lesson as far as trading star pitching prospects goes, especially after seeing how far a good rotation can take the team.

So, the next time I sit through a nasty defeat this year, I’ll remember that it could be worse, a lot worse. It’s a long season; we can’t win them all, and so on. And, however heartbreaking they were at the time, thinking back on how good the team looks in comparison now does make me feel better—though not quite as good as that sweet, Bartolo-flavored revenge of the Mets’ own 7-1 victory in DC on Monday night.

Photo Credit: Sara Novic (double threat!)