NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 21: Manager Carlos Mendoza #64 of the New York Mets meets with his team on the mound after a pitching change during the fourth inning against the Washington Nationals at Citi Field on September 21, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Heather Khalifa/Getty Images)
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Forget looking at the 64th season of Mets baseball as the most Mets season of all-time. This WEEK is the most Mets week of all-time.
On Sunday the Mets finally completely blew their seemingly insurmountable lead for a playoff spot with a loss to the Nationals in which Jacob Young made two catches of the year in a four-inning span.
On Monday, incredibly, nothing happened, because the Mets were off along with everyone else in the NL wild card race.
On Tuesday, the Mets fell behind the Cubs by five runs before mounting their biggest comeback win in two years — a victory that vaulted them back into the last wild card thanks to the Reds losing to the Pirates. Yes. The Reds and Pirates are once again playing a giant role in a frantic stumble/sprint (sturint?) towards the postseason by the Mets.
On Wednesday, the vibes from Tuesday evaporated when Jonah Tong was chased after giving up five runs while recording just six outs in a lopsided loss to the Cubs. Yet the Mets remained in the third wild card spot because the Reds and Diamondbacks (the latter of whom moved within a game of the Mets on Tuesday and possess the tiebreaker, like the Reds) both somehow managed to lose 11-inning games at home. The odds of that have to be longer than any parlay you’re going to see on a pregame show tonight.
On Thursday, the Mets rode an early power outburst and 5 1/3 mostly strong innings from rookie Nolan McLean to an 8-5 win over the Cubs. The win kept the Mets a game ahead of the Reds, who avoided being swept by the Pirates with a 3-2 victory preserved when converted infielder Noelvi Marte robbed Bryan Reynolds of a game-tying homer in the ninth. Marte played his first game in the outfield July 20 against the Mets at Citi Field, because of course he did.
The Mets can only hope the Reds’ series against the Brewers this weekend goes as it did over the final weekend of 1999, when the last-place Brewers took two of three while the Mets forced a one-game playoff by sweeping the Pirates.
Then again, perhaps the Mets would rather swap opponents with the Reds. The series win over the Cubs, who will be the NL’s first or second wild card, improves the Mets to 5-1 in their last six series against teams that will enter this weekend in a playoff spot. They are 1-6 in their last seven series against teams that will enter this weekend outside of a playoff spot. Again: The most Mets week in the most Mets season of all-time.
Instead of heading to Milwaukee like a year ago this weekend, the Mets are spending the final three days of the regular season in Miami playing the Marlins, who were eliminated from contention with Thursday’s loss to the Phillies and whose predecessors were responsible for the Mets being eliminated on the final day of the 2007 and 2008 season. You know where we’re going with this.
Going from the chance to end the season by exorcising demons against the Braves to the chance to end the season by exorcising demons against the Marlins is not anyone’s idea of progress. But at least it gives the Mets at least two or three more days to stave off the existential questions that must be asked whenever this bizarre campaign ends.
Why are the Mets no closer to becoming the good boring team some of us thought they might have transformed into by mid-June, before they embarked upon their 37-53 skid — a 95-loss pace over a full season?
The Mets are just nine games over .500 since the start of the 2023 season, so how much of the everyday core outside of Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor will return next season?
None of this is what Steve Cohen envisioned when he bought the Mets and waited three seasons for David Stearns to shake loose from the Brewers. Speaking of Stearns, it’s not a great look that the Mets’ season has been extended, if not outright saved, by a spate of players he inherited from his cavalcade of flawed predecessors.
The Mets are 9-6 in games started by the McLean, Tong and Brandon Sproat, all of whom were drafted by Billy Eppler. Sproat, whose velocity has decreased in the middle innings of each of his first three promising big league starts, will be tasked with trying to provide the Mets something resembling quality starting pitching tonight.
Brett Baty, who has become an everyday-caliber player at second base and third base and whose left-on-left three-run homer was the difference Thursday night, was drafted by Brodie van Wagenen. Brandon Nimmo was Sandy Alderson’s first draft pick, for crying out loud.
Stearns’ non-Juan Soto additions since the end of last season have accounted for under 3.0 in WAR, per Baseball-Reference. The Mets do not have a reliable starter lined up to pitch potential must-win games Saturday or Sunday.
The Brewers’ continued success and the championships won this season by the Mets’ Single-A and Double-A affiliates bode well for the Stearns plan. But there’s a lot to answer for this season — even if some questions probably have no concrete answers, such as how could the vibes turn so sour when the same core returned plus Soto, who has exceeded expectations by going 40/30 in his first season with the Mets?
These are questions for the future — the scope of which will be determined soon enough. The Mets could be on the edge of clinching a berth by the end of the night, or on the edge of elimination.
By Sunday night, they’ll either avoid an all-time great collapse by vanquishing the Marlins or finish off an all-time great collapse by being vanquished by the Marlins. No matter how it turns out, there is no other way for the most Mets week and the most Mets season of all-time to conclude.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybeach/2025/09/26/plenty-of-tough-questions-loom-whenever-the-most-mets-season-ever-ends/
