1 inning when the NY Mets season made a 180 degree turn

June 13. June 13. June 13. It’s a day that’ll stick with the 2025 New York Mets for as long as they stay stuck in the mud. Failure to make the postseason, or maybe even an early exit due to poor seeding, will have to include this date.

On June 12, this was posted:

On the morning of September 10, we had this:

A tale of two seasons, one inning seemed to define the collapse. Where were you when it happened?

The one Mets inning that seemed to rewrite their whole season

Two in the fourth in response to the Tampa Bay Rays taking a 1-0 lead and then three more in the fifth gave the Mets a 5-1 lead. Clay Holmes worked through 5 innings. At 79 pitches, Carlos Mendoza felt the need to go to his bullpen. Who’d he choose? Paul Blackburn.

In just his third game of the season, Blackburn was looking to make up for a lackluster relief appearance a few days earlier in Colorado. He went 4 innings and gave up 3 earned runs in a blowout Mets victory. His job on this night was to get them through a few frames before a real reliever might finish the duties.

It wasn’t meant to be. Three straight singles, including one that didn’t leave the infield, loaded the bases. Blackburn got Junior Caminero to pop up. Then former Mets prospect Jake Mangum singled in two.

That was it for Blackburn. Mendoza summoned Max Kranick. A ground out scored a run. Then came another on a base hit. The runner on first stole second but that didn’t matter. Kranick gave up a home run before the inning was through. He’d pitch just one more game two days later for the Mets before landing on the IL for the remainder of the year.

The Mets lost the game. Then the same thing happened the next day with an out of control 4th inning. The Rays finished off the sweep with a 9-0 win on Sunday. Then came a series against the Atlanta Braves which featured nothing but torment. The Mets lost all 3 games to them, too.

One inning at Citi Field in mid-June didn’t end the Mets season. It just seemed to kick off a different vibe.

The amazing irony is it was on June 12, 2024 when Grimace threw out his first pitch at Citi Field. We got 365 days of feeling pretty good about the team. No one thought to check the expiration date.