The Cubs are back in a series with the Mets after sweeping them at Wrigley Field in April, and this one begins with Chicago still carrying that edge. The Cubs outscored New York 18-7 in the three games, a result that now hangs over a four-game set built around another pitching matchup and another chance for the Mets to reset a season that has gone badly off script.
That is why Cubs vs Mets is drawing attention now: the schedule has put the teams together again right after Chicago handled them so cleanly in April. On Monday, Shōta Imanaga is scheduled to start for the Cubs against Kodai Senga. On Tuesday, Edward Cabrera is set to face Nolan McLean. On Wednesday, Javier Assad is lined up against Sean Manaea. On Thursday, the Cubs’ starter is listed as TBD against Freddy Peralta, leaving one piece of the series still unresolved.
The April sweep was more than a clean result. The Mets were in the middle of a twelve-game losing streak when they faced the Cubs earlier this season, and the gap between expectation and performance has only widened since then. The Mets’ roster for the 2026 season cost well over $300 million, yet injuries to Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Clay Holmes have helped drag the club into a stretch defined less by star power than by absence. Chris McShane called the team “an unmitigated disaster,” a blunt judgment that fits the mismatch between the payroll and the results.
There is also a longer rivalry line running through this series. The Cubs are two losses away from 200 against the Mets at New York, where they have won 186, tied one and lost the rest for a.484 winning percentage. They are 29-25 at Citi Field and 4-6 there since 2023. Chicago last swept the Mets in New York in three games in 2022, and the Cubs were swept in four games in 2016, proof that this has rarely been a simple road trip for either side.
For the Mets, the uncomfortable part is that the names still look imposing on paper. Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor remain the kind of players who should change a series, and Pete Alonso had 17 home runs and a 119 wRC+ at the time of this matchup, but the season has kept finding ways to undercut the profile of the roster. The Cubs, meanwhile, have another chance to turn one good April result into something that means more than a brief flash of form. With four games on the board and the last starter still not named, they do not need a perfect series to deepen the pressure on New York. They just need another one that leaves the Mets searching for answers.
