NY Mets playoff hopes end like a merciless Shakespearean tragedy

At the start of the day on Sunday, there was a mathematical 1 in 3 chance of the New York Mets going to the playoffs. Only one scenario would have extended the year. Two eliminated them. They needed to win. The Cincinnati Reds needed to lose. Anything else put a spear through them.

Set up for failure from the start, it was an impossible mountain to climb. The Reds were against a team with little to play for other than a good time for their visiting fans. The Philadelphia Phillies losing on Saturday made Sunday’s game for the Milwaukee Brewers irrelevant. They were never going to put forth their best effort.

The planets lined up against them, a predictable script unfolded in season-defining fashion.

The Mets season ends with a loss when a win would have put them into the playoffs

Sean Manaea had a hook so short it couldn’t even catch a premature newborn goldfish. Pulled in the second inning in the closest thing the Mets will play this year to a playoff game, Carlos Mendoza continued the theme he ran with throughout the final week of the regular season: urgency.

It’s a shame the Mets didn’t realize it earlier. Throughout much of 2025, they played relaxed. Manaea was pulled early in his first start out of the break against the Cincinnati Reds for Alex Carrillo who was left in too long. It’s a loss that directly led to the Mets getting eliminated, as it gave the Reds their first of 4 wins versus the Mets in the regular season thus earning the tie-breaker. Mendoza wasn’t nearly as willing to let anyone eat up innings on Sunday. Reliever after reliever entered with no one able to stifle the Marlins in the fourth inning as they scored 4 times. It got so gruesome, Edwin Diaz entered the game in the fifth inning. From there, it was anyone's guess who'd come out next.

That’s hardly the lone reason why the Mets’ season has ended. They dropped 2 out of 3 versus the Washington Nationals during their final home stand with multiple errors and disappearing acts on the bases or at the plate playing a role. The team never seemed to play like every game mattered until it truly did. By that point, it was too late.

This weekend played out like Shakespearean tragedy straight out of real life. The Mets were Julius Caesar in this scenario. The Brewers, Reds, Phillies, and Miami Marlins were the fellow senators. Of course, the Brewers chose the cruelest route by winning on Sunday after losing on Friday and Saturday to the Reds. Et tu, Pat Murphy?

The Mets had their chances Pete Alonso flying out with the bases loaded on a 116mph line drive was the reminder of what year is on our calendar; 2025 not 2024. Unfortunately, poor decision-making got the best of them. Yanking Brooks Raley for Ryne Stanek turned this tragedy into a comedy for an act.

We’ll have months to digest everything that happened with the Mets these last few months. A mindset of “just get in and anything can happen” skipped the most important step of all of just getting in.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.” is a quote from the Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar. Unfortunately, a few too many deaths did in the Mets. Once again, it was the Marlins to deliver the fatal blow.