Marlins Sink Mets Playoff Dreams

Well it’s official. The season is over for the 2019 New York Mets. And like they did in 2007 and 2008 the Miami Marlins played a major role in popping the Mets postseason hopes, delivering an 8-4 loss for New York on Monday night at Citi Field.

For the past two months the Mets have teased us with the hope that they could somehow find their way into one of the two National League wild card slots, but at the end of the day, it was just that … a tease.

Monday’s loss to the Marlins pushed the Mets to five games back of the Milwaukee Brewers for the final wild card spot. The Mets would need to 6-0, while the Brewers go 0-6 just to get in.

In the words of John Franco: Fudgetaboutit!!

At least the Mets season lasted longer than the New York Jets.

All that is left for the Mets this year is to finish with a winning record, and see whether Pete Alonso can break Aaron Judge’s rookie record for home runs in a season. 

With the postseason dream dashed the clock will be ticking on Manager Mickey Callaway and possibly General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen over the next seven days. 

Most likely one, if not both could be fired by seasons end.

Then again, this is the Wilpon’s we are talking about, so who’s to say they won’t keep the embattled duo together?

On this night, it was Steven Matz who fell victim to the rare power of the Marlins. Miami tagged the lefty for six runs over five innings, including a grand slam by catcher Jorge Alfaro to put the game seemingly out of reach at 6-0.

Give the Mets credit, they did comeback when Amed Rosario answered with a grand slam home run of his own to cut the Marlin lead to 6-4, but it was not enough as the Marlins bullpen combined to blank the Mets over the final three innings of the contest.

To say this game against Miami was the sole reason why the Mets didn’t make the playoffs would be an injustice. The Mets were 11 games under .500 on July 12, before putting together a miraculous July and August run as they flipped the script, turning their record around to 67-60, and putting themselves in the thick of the wild card race.

Then the bottom fell out over six days in late August when the Mets lost six in a row to the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves. Had the Mets won even a couple of those games, they could have pulled to within a game or even. Instead they remained about four or five back, and never really regained the momentum they had in late July and early August.

Of course the ills of the Mets bullpen played a major part in the struggles this year. The bullpen blew a combined 32 games this year when the Mets had a lead after the sixth inning. 32! And closer Edwin Diaz became the poster boy for those struggles with a ERA near six and seven blown saves.

The fact that the Mets were this close to putting all those problems behind them with a playoff berth is a credit to the players as much as it is to Callaway for keeping the team focused.

Will that matter to the Wilpons in a few days when they make their final decision on Callaway? We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, six games are left.