Mets can't overcome poor 2nd half of season, miss playoffs with season-ending loss at Miami

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MIAMI (AP) — The New York Mets entered Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Miami Marlins with a singular goal: win.

That was the only thing manager Carlos Mendoza’s fading team could still control in its bid to reach the postseason. But those hopes dissipated in one decisive inning.

New York could not overcome a four-run fourth by the Marlins, and the Mets were eliminated from the playoff field with a 4-0 loss.

“There’s no word to describe what we’re going through,” Mendoza said afterward. “Pain, frustration — you name it. We had a lot of expectations, and here we are going home. Not only did we fall short, we didn’t even get into October.”

The Mets missed the postseason a year after reaching the National League Championship Series and after holding the best record in the majors on June 12 — a stunning collapse for the star-studded club with a major league-high $322.6 million payroll on opening day.

“This is a team that’s built to not only get to October but to play deep into October," Mendoza said, adding the club will work this offseason to find the answers to why a team full of talent fell well short of expectations.

“That’s a question that we’re going to have to answer," he said. “All year long I kept saying, ‘We have the talent, we have the talent.'”

New York’s loss meant the Cincinnati Reds earned the final NL wild card despite falling to the Milwaukee Brewers 4-2 on Sunday.

The Reds and Mets entered the day with the same record, but because Cincinnati owned the head-to-head tiebreaker — the Reds won four of six meetings with New York this season — they're heading to the playoffs for the first time since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

“You know, if you win and they win, it still stings, don’t get me wrong,” said Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo. “But it does sting even more knowing that it was within your grasp. All you had to do was win that last game. So yeah, that one was a nice little cherry on top for the sting. And it definitely hurts.”

Mendoza reiterated during the series in Miami that the Mets put themselves in that position with their poor second half.

New York had the best record in the majors at 45-24 — a season-high 21 games over .500 — after beating Washington 4-3 at home on June 12.

But starter Kodai Senga injured his hamstring in that game, which seemed to mark a turning point. The Mets lost their next seven games and 10 of 11. Unable to overcome a series of pitching woes, they went 38-55 the rest of the way.

“I feel like when we were playing our best baseball, everything was hitting on all cylinders,” slugger Pete Alonso said. “On the really, really good teams that I have been a part of, we’ve been able to patch holes, where it’s like we would be able to pick each other up. ... We didn’t really do a good job of kind of like cutting down deficits and eliminating bounce-back runs and kind of covering each other’s miscues.”

After the game, Alonso said he will opt out of his contract with the Mets this offseason and and test free agency again.

The collapse was an all-too-familiar outcome for many Mets fans, who endured similar endings in 2007 and 2008.

In 2007, New York failed to hold a seven-game division lead with 17 games left in the season, and in 2008, they wasted a 3 1/2-game advantage with 17 games remaining. Their playoff fate then was also pushed to the last game of the season, when losses to the Marlins ended their hopes.

It was also a reversal from last season, when the Mets got into the postseason as a wild card on a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Arizona Diamondbacks. New York then knocked Milwaukee out of the playoffs with a thrilling comeback in the decisive Game 3 of their NL Wild Card Series.

Before a sellout crowd Sunday of 34,660 that included Ivanka Trump and plenty of New York fans, the Mets were in position to mount a comeback in the fifth when they loaded the bases with two outs on three walks. But then Alonso lined out to left field, and that was New York's best threat.

With runners on first and second in the eighth, Francisco Alvarez struck out to end the inning and snapped the bat over his knee in frustration as many Mets fans headed for the exits.

Mendoza ultimately took the blame for how a season full of inconsistent play ended.

“Since day one that I’ve been on this chair, you’re on the hot seat," he said. "It’s as simple as that. When you’re managing a team that has a lot of expectations and go home, questions like these are going to come up. It’s part of it. Like I said, I’m responsible and I have to be better.”

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AP MLB: https://www.apnews.com/hub/MLB