Luis Rojas was thrust into the New York Mets’ manager’s office in a whirlwind offseason prior to the 2020 season. Originally the team’s quality control coach at the Triple-A level, Rojas was elevated to Mets manager after Mickey Callaway’s firing at the end of the 2019 season, and after Carlos Beltran became implicated in the Houston Astros’ sign stealing scandal.

The bar was low for Rojas coming in, and the less-than-stellar situation his predecessors caused made anyone the right guy for the job. But now, after almost two years at the helm of the Mets, Rojas’s job security is becoming questionable at best.

With a collective managerial record below .500 in his tenure in New York, Rojas is running out of time to prove he can manage, at any level. The son of coaching legend Felipe Alou, Rojas didn’t seem to get much of his father’s genetics when it came to in-game management or even lineup construction.

The 2021 season has been particularly disastrous, especially as of late. The Mets had a 13 game stretch where they played two series each with the Dodgers and Giants, first at Citi Field and then out in California. The Mets went 2-11 in those games, losing nine of those games by just one run.

Losing one game by one run is tough luck. Losing nine one-run games in a thirteen-game stretch is a colossal collapse of leadership rarely seen at the major-league level.

With all of Queens calling for his resignation and removal as Mets manager, Rojas is running out of time to make a positive impact. So dire is Rojas’s circumstance that really only one thing can save his job: take the Mets to the postseason.

Now you might be saying, “hey, that’s pretty obvious. If you make it to the postseason, you should keep your job.” To which I say, yes, you would be correct. The last time the Mets made it to the playoffs, Connor Gillaspie blasted a Jeurys Familia fastball into the bullpen to send the Giants to the NLDS. That was back in 2016. The year before that, the Mets were in the World Series. Since 2016, the Mets have failed to reach the .500 mark. Although Rojas has brought them to the brink of the playoffs, they have faltered as the season reaches winning time. It’s a tough, tough look.

For Rojas, there are only two options now: it’s October or Unemployment.