The New York Mets’ struggles are starting to be concerning, as the team lost its ninth straight Friday, falling 12-4 to the Chicago Cubs. The loss drops New York to 7-13 on the season.
It’s the Mets’ longest losing streak since 2004, when they dropped 11 straight on the way to a 71-91 finish. The Mets have the most expensive roster in baseball, with a $352 million payroll.
Chicago pulled ahead early on Friday, going up 4-0 in the first inning when designated hitter Moisés Ballesteros sent a three-run homer into the netting.
Although the Mets pulled back to within 4-3 in the second inning, the Cubs kept tacking on. Chicago then iced the win with an Ian Happ two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth for the final outcome.
As a cherry on top, the Cubs closed out the game with a double play in the top of the ninth.
The nine-game losing streak surpasses the team’s most recent skids: The Mets went on an eight-game losing streak in 2018 and another in September 2025. New York’s longest losing streak ever is 17 games, set in 1961.
The Mets came into this season with high expectations because of their expensive roster. After a series of trades and free-agency losses, New York picked up multiple high-level acquisitions to build a new-look roster.
The Mets’ season started relatively well but took a turn last week. Their streak began with two losses to the Arizona Diamondbacks before they were swept by the Athletics and Dodgers and lost the series opener to the Cubs.
Part of the team’s struggles stem from the absence of Juan Soto, who has missed 11 games due to a calf injury. Soto’s league-leading $61.9 million salary this season is a big contributor to the Mets’ hefty payroll.
In response, Mets owner Steve Cohen has taken to social media to try to reassure fans.
“Nobody likes to lose but I saw some ‘green shoots tonight,’” Cohen wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “Hang in there fans, we will turn this around!”
New York will have two more games against the Cubs before returning home for a series against the Minnesota Twins.
The funny thing about smartphone addiction is that it makes low-effort tasks feel totally productive. When I finally quit doomscrolling through Instagram and TikTok to watch an actual movie or TV show, I feel like I’ve just spent the afternoon studying physics. Platforms like Netflix, which could once be seen as time-wasting entertainment, now seem like antidotes to endless, useless scrolling.
But Netflix doesn’t seem to appreciate its new role. Instead, the company apparently sees short-form video apps—and smartphones themselves—as a direct threat to its business, and is jumping on the bandwagon. It’s not only that Netflix is reportedly now making content with phone scrollers in mind, encouraging creators to craft dialogue that makes their shows and movies easy to understand even if you’re not actually paying attention; Netflix also wants to position its mobile app as an actual competitor to TikTok and Instagram by introducing a short-form video feed directly within the app.
Unlike TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, you won’t hop on the Netflix app to find short-form videos from independent creators. Instead, Netflix will serve users clips from Netflix-distributed shows and movies in a scrollable TikTok-style feed. You might swipe through this feed and see clips from Stranger Things, Emily in Paris, or Bridgerton. Many of us already waste our time watching clips from shows and movies on other platforms—often cropped, slowed down or sped up, in low-quality, and besieged by artifacts meant to throw off copyright claims. Netflix obviously won’t need to do this, so I expect the experience will be filled with high-quality videos (depending on how you define “quality” of course).
It won’t just be TV shows and movies on the feed. Netflix also has big plans for its video podcasts, which are growing, following deals with Spotify and iHeartMedia to bring existing podcasts to its platform. Expect Netflix to sprinkle clips from these video podcasts into the short-form feed to create an experience that sounds not too far off from scrolling through other apps.
The thing is, we were really close to potentially seeing a lot of content on this vertical feed, and Netflix’s platform in general. Had Netflix acquired Warner Bros., I wouldn’t have been surprised to see clips from HBO shows like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The White Lotus, and Euphoria. Now that the company has backed off on its acquisition plans, the list of potential properties that could be turned into vertical videos has shrunk.
Catering to the short attention span
I get the move from a business perspective: Netflix is likely losing subscribers’ attention due to the addictive nature of vertical video apps. But do any of us really need another app to scroll through, especially when we’re already paying for access to the full content to begin with? Maybe could be a helpful avenue to find new shows and movies to watch, but in all likelihood, it will just be be another addictive time-waster. I have too many of those in my life as it is.
AI is a divisive technology. Some of us can’t stand it, and avoid it at all costs. Others are AI-curious, and dabble with certain apps or features; still others still embrace it with enthusiasm, and use the tech for as many purposes as possible. Still, though I’m aware of this AI spectrum, I’m struggling to understand who exactly would want to connect their Starbucks account to ChatGPT—so, naturally, I connected mine.
Starbucks rolled out this collaboration on April 15 as a “natural, personal, and fun” way to discover new drinks to order. As someone who only ever orders a plain coffee with cream, or maybe an iced espresso, perhaps this would finally be my opportunity to branch out my taste buds, and have artificial intelligence recommend a new favorite? I’m far too shy to just, like, ask the barista for a recommendation, and I don’t trust my friends to have good taste. ChatGPT really is my only hope of finding a new coffee I might enjoy!
Integrating ChatGPT and the Starbucks app means giving up a lot of your privacy
To get started, you need the latest version of the Starbucks app, as well as the ChatGPT app. You first open ChatGPT, head to “Apps,” locate “Starbucks,” then hit “Connect.” ChatGPT then presents you with some information about what data you agree to share (boring!), including a “summary of your recent context and intent within ChatGPT.” That’s quite a bit of data just to ask for drink recommendations, and I’m not sure why it’s necessary. It does seem to be the standard data agreement with other ChatGPT apps, but, again, why is that much data needed here? I understand requiring access to ChatGPT in order for the app to function, as well as the data generated by your requests for drinks, but in my view, Starbucks really doesn’t need a summary of any past ChatGPT use to recommend me a coffee.
To that point, I also have the option to let ChatGPT reference chats and memories when sharing data with Starbucks. I’m looking for my next go-to Starbucks order; why wouldn’t I share my all of my intimate ChatGPT interactions with Starbucks? At least this one’s optional: If you leave the toggle disabled (the default setting), Starbucks won’t have access to memories and chats—just the aforementioned summaries. ChatGPT also warns that by connecting the Starbucks app here, attackers could target my Starbucks data, or use the Starbucks app to access my ChatGPT data. Exciting! This definitely seems worth it!
Again, it doesn’t seem like the Starbucks app integration is particularly special. You’re presented with the same splash screen when you do the same for other apps, like Photoshop. But I think it’s important to think through the privacy implications of any app integration with ChatGPT, especially as not all apps are created equal. Do you really want to be giving Starbucks access to your ChatGPT data, and vice versa? Do you want ChatGPT knowing where your nearest Starbucks location is? All for, and I can’t stress this enough, a generative AI’s recommendation for a Starbucks drink? And how are those recommendations, anyway? Let’s find out.
Putting the ChatGPT barista to the test
Once you agree to the terms, you’re in. You can now start up a ChatGPT conversation as usual, type @starbucks to pull up the Starbucks app, and fire away. My first query was for an afternoon pick me up. This generated a widget featuring six different menu items, including an “Iced Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino,” “Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew,” and “Nondairy Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew.” If I wanted, I could hit a “Customize” option to adjust the ingredients in the order, and an “Add to cart” button to add the drink to my cart. Underneath the widget was a breakdown of each drink recommendation, including things like flavor and caffeine count.
Upon seeing the caffeine count listed, I decided to ask ChatGPT for the drink option with the most possible caffeine. Again, I was given six recommendations, but the top choice was my go-to: a venti blonde roast, which the app said contained around 315mg of caffeine—despite Starbucks’ website claiming the drink has anywhere from 390 to 490 mg. That’s a big difference, seeing as the safe daily caffeine limit is generally listed at 400mg.
Next, I decided to see if Starbucks would recommend something with as much sugar as possible. It came back with another list, this time with the “Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino” taking the crown, packing 60g of sugar. (Starbucks’ website confirms this for the grande size; the venti has 78g.)
That’s a lot of sugar, sure, but was it really as much sugar as Starbucks could give me? ChatGPT seemed to sense my disappointment, and said, “If you want, I can build you a custom order that maxes out both caffeine and sugar at the same time.” Now we’re talking! ChatGPT returned with a step-by-step list to turn a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino “into a monster:”
Add two to three shots of espresso (affogato-style if you want it poured on top)
Add extra caramel syrup pumps
Add mocha sauce (for even more sugar + flavor)
Add extra caramel drizzle
Keep whipped cream + crunch topping
The bot said that the modifications would increase the sugar from 70 to 90g, depending on how “aggressive” I got, while the caffeine would shoot from from 85mg to a range of 200 to 300mg.
I asked ChatGPT to make me the worst drink possible
When ChatGPT asked if I’d like to optimize my custom drink so it would still taste good, rather than like “liquid candy sludge,” I said “actually, could you make it worse?” And it did, giving me instructions on how to “break” the drink, offering a list of changes, including tons of syrups, sauces, more chocolate chips, and light ice to make it “less refreshing, more dense and overwhelming.” It gave me the choice to make it even worse, and I agreed. ChatGPT took another opportunity to “ruin it on purpose.” Its new concoction, it said, was designed to taste like “burnt coffee trying to escape a caramel milkshake,” with “chocolate chips suspended in syrup cement.” Perfection.
You can’t actually order your drink with ChatGPT
I asked the bot how I could order it, and, to my surprise, it only recommended how to order it in person or on the Starbucks app—not through ChatGPT itself. At this point, I realized ChatGPT had stopped offering me ordering options, and instead opted for text-based recommendations only. When I asked why, it told me I couldn’t ask it order in the app. When I told it that it had previously given me the option (and noted that an ad for the feature indicated I could order in the app), ChatGPT said “That ad is a bit misleading.” Okay. Even after I went back to the previous chats that still had the ordering widget, either the widget would “expire,” or I’d be taken to the store locator but not allowed to choose a location. I chalk this up to ChatGPT dropping me down to a weaker model with less angentic capabilities.
But it doesn’t matter, because there’s no way I’m ordering this monstrosity, on the app or in person. The whole point was to avoid human interaction, after all. Now I’m left with no new coffee orders, a chatbot that’s gaslighting me, and a severe caffeine withdrawal. Maybe ChatGPT has some advice for how to deal with that.
The news for Chicago Cubs pitcher Cade Horton wasn’t likely to be good after he left his second start of the season with elbow discomfort. Four days later, the team announced that Horton would need season-ending elbow surgery.
Horton, 24, underwent that procedure Thursday. The work performed on his right elbow will require a recovery timetable of 15-to-16 months, Cubs manager Craig Counsell told reporters Friday.
The right-hander received a “revision repair” of the ulnar collateral ligament, a repair of the flexor muscle and an internal brace procedure. The surgery was performed by renowned orthopedist Dr. Keith Meister, who is also the head team physician for the Texas Rangers.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell reveals that right-hander Cade Horton underwent a UCL revision procedure, which will require a recovery lasting 15-16 months. pic.twitter.com/APHiuIjl8N
“When something like this happens, the only thing you can do is kind of worry about what’s next,” Counsell told reporters. “If you put your head on some big time frame, that’s not very helpful. With Cade, we talked about just worrying about today and make today the best you can, and just keep doing that.”
This is the second major surgery Horton has undergone on his pitching elbow. He had Tommy John surgery during his freshman season at Oklahoma and returned to make 14 appearances for the Sooners in 2022. The Cubs drafted him in the first round (No. 7 overall) that year.
As a rookie, Horton compiled a 2.67 ERA and 11-4 record in 23 appearances (22 starts) last season, striking out 97 in 118 innings. He was particularly impressive in the second half of the season, registering a 1.03 ERA in 12 starts. With that performance, Horton finished second in National League Rookie of the Year voting.
This is the second consecutive season in which the Cubs suffered a season-ending injury to one of their starting pitchers. Last April, Justin Steele required elbow surgery after four starts. Like Horton, he underwent a revision repair to the UCL in his left elbow. He began playing catch in October and was able to face batters during spring training. The Cubs hope Steele will return in late May or June.
The Cubs did get some good pitching news Friday. Top starter Matthew Boyd is expected to be activated Wednesday after making a rehab start for Triple-A Iowa on Thursday. Boyd, 35, went on the injured list April 3 due to a strained left biceps. Last season, he finished with a 3.21 ERA and 14-8 record, walking just 2.1 batters per nine innings in 31 starts. That earned him a berth on the NL All-Star team.
Daniel Palencia latest Cubs reliever to IL
The Cubs’ bullpen also suffered an injury this week, though not a season-ending one. Closer Daniel Palencia was placed on the 15-day injured list due to a left oblique strain. He joins relievers Phil Maton (right knee tendinitis), Hunter Harvey (right triceps strain) and Ethan Roberts (lacerated right finger) on the IL.
Daniel Palencia has one of the biggest arms in baseball.
Palencia, 26, had not allowed a run in five appearances this season, giving up three hits with five strikeouts and two walks. During the World Baseball Classic, he threw five hitless innings with nine strikeouts for champion Venezuela.
Last season, Palencia seized the Cubs’ closer role with a 2.91 ERA in 54 appearances. He earned 22 saves in 25 opportunities while striking out 61 in 52 2/3 innings.
Tom Haberstroh: Boston’s magical run will continue to the Finals. In training camp, if Boston envisioned a best-case scenario for the regular season, the actual 2025-26 season would be it. It’s one thing for Jayson Tatum to come back healthy. It’s another thing for him to look like the Jayson Tatum of old. And he has. Bad news for the East.
Ben Rohrbach: The Celtics are the only team in the East capable of contending with the West. The Pistons lack a secondary creator. The Knicks have defensive holes. The Cavaliers rely on James Harden to get them over the hump in the second round. Not to say any of them cannot beat the Celtics. I just think none of them has a shot in the Finals. Only Boston, with a healthy Tatum, can challenge the depth of whoever emerges from a gauntlet in the other conference.
Kelly Iko: I’m not saying there’ll be an upset, but I’m not saying there won’t be one. Over the final two months of the regular season, the Spurs and Thunder are first and second in net rating. The next two on the list? Hawks and Hornets. I say this with the assumption that red-hot Charlotte gets past Orlando (this may be a jinx), but even with how the Hornets and Hawks are set up — opposite ends of the pace spectrum — the mandates are clear: spread the floor, move the ball and have different pressure points of attack. Both look like very, very tough outs.
Dan Devine: I think all of the favorites will make it out of Round 1, but all of them will have to sweat to do it. The Pistons have been the most buttoned-up team in the East all season, and might wind up staring down a perpetual chaos machine out of Charlotte. The Celtics look like a war machine, but there’s nothing fun about having to try to corral Tyrese Maxey for 48 minutes (or more, if Nick Nurse can bend space/time to play him even longer than that). Knicks-Hawks and Cavs-Raptors are both pace-of-play style clashes, and the favorites are going to have to work to maintain control of the wheel. Nothing in the East feels like an obvious walkover, which makes everything more compelling. Styles make fights. Weaknesses force innovation. Perfection is boring; let’s embrace being fractured and have fun getting weird.
Nekias Duncan: There’s a heightened level of the “unknown.” Take Cavs-Raptors; their regular-season matchups happened before Thanksgiving. We are getting a fresh look at these two in a high-stakes setting. We only got one “real” look at Hawks-Knicks back on April 6, and even that lacked positional cross-matching from the Hawks’ side — they didn’t stash a wing on Karl-Anthony Towns with their center (Onyeka Okongwu) roaming off Josh Hart, a popular gambit — which I’m sure we’ll see this time around. Health permitting, you can build a reasonable case to any of these teams winning multiple playoff rounds; that feels rare.
Playoff Preview
What’s your take on the West?
Rohrbach: The Spurs are every bit as good as the Thunder, and the Nuggets are as good as both of them. Every metric imaginable suggests that San Antonio, with Victor Wembanyama, is on par with OKC, the defending NBA champions. Denver would have exceeded 60 wins, too, if it had been healthy all season. With apologies to the Timberwolves, who could beat the Nuggets in the first round, one of three teams is winning the West — and all might have an equal chance.
Iko: Outside of another Nuggets-Wolves rerun, this might be the most ho-hum first round seen in quite some time. I don’t expect either Oklahoma City or San Antonio to bat an eye at the Warriors/Suns or Blazers, and outside of a few Kevin Durant/LeBron James moments, I’m not losing sleep over Rockets-Lakers. Seems like everyone is just waiting on the Spurs and Thunder to meet once again.
Duncan: I love the tests the top three teams will get to start their postseason runs. Most would agree the Thunder, Spurs and Nuggets — in whichever order — are the likeliest teams to represent the West in the Finals this year, but they also have to face some demons before we get there. The Thunder will either see the Stephen Curry-Draymond Green combo, or a Suns team with an annoying defense that’s had them in a headlock in different points of their regular-season matchups. The Spurs have to face a Blazers group with defensive personnel that can tap into all sorts of pressure and cross-matching looks. The Nuggets have to face the Timberwolves. Again. Bring me all of it.
Devine: I think the Thunder are going to waltz to the conference finals, and I think that whoever they face coming out of the other side of the bracket will have had to basically go through “The Raid” to greet them there. That doesn’t mean they can’t get got, but they were already the favorites for a reason, and the way the seeding fell seems pretty ideal for them.
Haberstroh: Spurs-Thunder in the West Finals, please and thank you. This is The Next Great NBA Rivalry, and I really hope we see these two behemoths face off against each other. There’s lots of bad blood here between Wemby and OKC, and I pray to my lucky stars everyone stays healthy enough to make it a reality.
What’s the biggest question in these playoffs?
Devine: How are those hammies feeling, Aaron Gordon? The answer could be the difference between Denver climbing back to the top of the mountain or bowing out in Round 1.
Haberstroh: Does playoff experience matter anymore? I argued it doesn’t. Or at least not as much as it used to. More than ever, player health matters way more than playoff pedigree. For Detroit and San Antonio, two 60-win teams whose cores have never made it out of the first round, I really hope they can bust the playoff experience myth.
Rohrbach: I’m with Tom. The Spurs lack the requisiteplayoff scars to compete for a title, at least historically speaking, but will it matter? It didn’t for OKC last season. But a bigger question may be: Can Jayson Tatum be Jayson Tatum? Few players have more playoff scars than Tatum and Jaylen Brown. If Tatum can perform at an All-NBA level, and he has been close, the Celtics could absolutely win the East, and they might even have a chance against the West’s winner.
Iko: Two defensive trends have been on my mind throughout the regular season: pressure rates and putting two on the ball, forcing teams to beat you in 4-on-3 scenarios. What does that look like in the playoffs when everything allegedly slows down, rotations are shorter and every possession is the most important one? Is the NBA truly an individualistic league or is the copycat syndrome here to stay?
Duncan: Like Kelly, my mind also shifts to defense. We’ve seen an uptick in full-court pressure, more audacious cross-matching — KAT will see wings, and I’m sure Stephon Castle will see centers at some point — and a wide variety of zone looks this season. How much of those gambits will carry over, when will they be deployed, and how quickly offenses can find answers to them loom pretty large to me.
Who has the most at stake this postseason?
Iko: Anthony Edwards might be too harsh of an answer, but certainly the Wolves as a whole. After two straight exits at the conference final stage, both defeats coming in just five games, my eyes are glued to Edwards and Minnesota. A difficult matchup with a familiar foe could send them packing early, which would undoubtedly put pressure on the organization. Have they done enough to build a contending roster, having tried various approaches? We all saw the Edwards/Jalen Johnson interaction from All-Star weekend — do those seeds of doubt start to creep in?
Haberstroh: James Harden. He has 17 postseason runs in his NBA career, and yet he’s still looking for his first championship. With Chris Paul retiring, the focus turns to Harden as the no-doubt Hall of Famer who is still trying to bring home the elusive Larry O’B. The Cavs certainly have a shot, but so have all of Harden’s 17 teams.
Duncan: I think it’s the Cavs by default. When you trade away a young star talent in Darius Garland — hampered with a toe injury, but a star talent nonetheless — for a better but much older option in James Harden, you’re signaling two things: 1) what we have isn’t enough to where we want to go, and 2) we need to get this done right now. I wouldn’t rule out a Finals run for the Cavs, but they kinda need to make it there in a way the others, sans New York maybe, don’t. We’re probably having Harden, Evan Mobley and, to a lesser extent, Donovan Mitchell conversations if this team bows out in the second round, and we’re definitely having them if they lose to the Raptors.
Rohrbach: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. What’s at stake for SGA over the next two months? Back-to-back championships, back-to-back regular-season MVPs, back-to-back Finals MVPs. Here’s who has done that before: LeBron James (2012-13) and Michael Jordan (1991-92). Bill Russell would have done it three times from 1961-63 if the Finals MVP existed at the time. (The award is named for him now.) Point is: SGA could be in some GOAT conversations soon.
Devine: Well, the Knicks’ owner — after firing the head coach that brought the franchise to its first conference finals in 25 years — went on the radio and said the team should not only make the NBA Finals, but win it all … and then the Celtics beat them out for the No. 2 seed, got their best player back and seem to be raring to go for a second-round rematch. That seems like a pretty good reason to think that everyone in New York is feeling an immense amount of pressure right about now.
What’s your Finals prediction?
Duncan: Thunder over Celtics. There have been worthy challengers this year, notably the Spurs with their regular-season dominance in their matchups, but nothing has really shaken me off my belief the Thunder are the best team in basketball. Having the Spurs and Nuggets on the other side of the bracket makes their pathway even more favorable. Ultimately, I think SGA is going to cap off one of the greatest seasons of all time with another championship.
Haberstroh: Spurs over Celtics. I’ve long believed Victor Wembanyama is on the GOAT path, and he has a golden chance to solidify that here. OKC barely got past Denver and Indiana last year, and these Spurs are better than those squads. With a little injury luck breaking San Antonio’s way, I think Wemby and the Spurs win it.
Devine: Thunder over Knicks. I went with that before the season, and I am not a completely spineless coward devoid of morals or self-respect, so I’ll stick with it now.
Iko: Spurs over Cavs. San Antonio has the schemes, personnel and most importantly, the mental edge necessary to delay a dynasty and get past Oklahoma City. And I might be the only person in America who thinks Cleveland has a Finals-ready roster in the Eastern Conference, but if James Harden and Donovan Mitchell can’t make a deep run now, I doubt they ever will. In any case, this would be a fresh switch-up.
Rohrbach: Thunder over Celtics. I picked Nuggets over Cavaliers at the start of the season, and I haven’t seen nearly enough from either team to trust them to win four rounds. OKC, on the other hand, will be favored in every series it plays in these playoffs, even against the Spurs, Nuggets or Celtics, all of whom could beat the Thunder. This is going to be fun.
