Mets fans are turning into Yankees fans quicker than gas prices have gone up.

Mets fans are now buying Yankees merch!

The Mets have now dropped eight straight, falling to 7-12 after Wednesday’s 8-2 loss to the Dodgers, and in Queens that kind of skid does not feel like a slump anymore. It feels like a metaphor. Ever since… “the hug.”

Fans online have jokingly connected the spiral to the moment Mr. and Mrs. Met were seen greeting and hugging Mayor Zohran Mamdani. No, the mascots did not curse the lineup. But the timing has become irresistible because it captures what Mets fans fear most: that this franchise is always ready for a photo op, a political handshake, or a branding moment, just not the daily grind of building a ruthless winner.

That anxiety is not coming from nowhere. Owner Steve Cohen is publicly tied to the massive Metropolitan Park project next to Citi Field, a proposed casino and entertainment complex backed with Hard Rock near the ballpark. It is one of the most ambitious real-estate plays in New York, and it has increasingly become part of the public identity around Mets ownership.

Meanwhile, the baseball product looks lifeless. The Mets entered Thursday with a minus-14 run differential and a 2-8 record over their last 10 games. Cohen told fans to “stay the course” after the streak hit seven, but that is exactly the kind of language that sounds better in a development presentation than in a clubhouse buried in the standings in mid-April.

That is why this losing streak feels bigger than eight games. It feeds the suspicion that the real priority is the buildout, the casino, the surrounding empire — not the bleeding, demanding, impossible-to-fake relationship with the fan base. Yankees fans buy certainty. Mets fans buy hope. Right now, even hope looks rezoned.