MIAMI — As a hotbed of New York transplants, South Florida tends to draw more than its share of Mets fans when the team comes to loanDepot park. Friday evening, with nothing less than a trip to the postseason on the line, those natives of Queens and Manhattan and Westchester and New Jersey showed up in droves.
They spent much of the night booing the team they had come to see.
Once again, the Mets took an early lead only to go silent in the middle innings, ultimately losing their advantage on the Marlins’ six-run rally in the fifth. That contained all the hallmarks of this stretch run for the Mets: subpar pitching, defensive issues, mental mistakes and the like. And it kept alive the possibility that the Mets could miss the playoffs altogether.
Their 6-2 loss allowed the Reds to tie them in the National League Wild Card standings, effectively putting the Mets in a one-game hole with two to play, because Cincinnati owns the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Mets cannot make the playoffs without winning more of their final two games than the Reds do.
“We put ourselves in this position,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We’ve got to win the next two and see what happens, but we did it ourselves.”
For the first four innings in Miami, the Mets were in control. Francisco Lindor hit a leadoff homer as the Mets jumped out to a 2-0 lead off 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara.
But the Mets squandered multiple opportunities to tack on runs, giving the Marlins a chance to strike in the fifth. Facing rookie starter Brandon Sproat, the Marlins rallied on three consecutive hits to open the inning. The second of those was a Troy Johnston single that glanced off a diving Pete Alonso’s glove. The third was a Heriberto Hernández game-tying triple.
Even then, the Mets were not done making mistakes. Miami’s next run came on a Jakob Marsee groundout that might have ended differently had Alonso fielded it cleanly. Agustín Ramírez later stole both second and third base without a throw, setting up a Xavier Edwards RBI single and a Connor Norby game-breaking two-run homer.
“It’s on me. It’s on all of us,” Mendoza said. “Because we continue to make the same mistakes, and it’s costing us games.”
For the Mets, such defensive issues are nothing new. Entering the night, they ranked 22nd in the Majors with -15 Outs Above Average. (For context, the Cardinals lead the Majors with +34.) Lately, though, their miscues seem to be coming in more significant spots. Mendoza was particularly aggrieved by the stolen bases against Gregory Soto and Luis Torrens, saying the Marlins must have had a tip on their pitcher.
“Giving them a free base there is kind of an inning-changer,” the manager said.
So it has come down to this. On Saturday and Sunday, New York will face Eury Pérez and Edward Cabrera, two solid pitchers whom the Mets knocked around at Citi Field last month. The Mets will counter with Clay Holmes and quite literally their entire pitching staff. Should things advance to a must-win Game 162, everyone other than Nolan McLean is likely to be available.
But luck will matter, too. When a season comes down to just two games, variance is real. Anything can happen. And the Marlins, despite being eliminated earlier this week, have no intentions of rolling over.
“Win. Win. Knock them out,” Norby said of Miami’s incentive. “That’s a division rival. We’ve played well against them all year, and, yeah, we want to play spoiler. We did it last year when I was here. We did it in Texas. We’re trying to do it right now. And the goal doesn’t ever change. Doesn’t matter when that ‘E’ hit our name, whatever, eliminated us last night, but it doesn’t matter. Winning is always the number one goal.”
At a minimum, the Marlins have already accomplished this: The Mets no longer fully control their fate. They could win both of their remaining games and still miss the playoffs — a very real concern that, right now, their players would rather not consider.
“Good thing it’s not over yet, so we’ll figure that out later on,” Alonso said. “But hopefully, we can win tomorrow, and we don’t have to face that reality.”
