Mets loss is a reminder of how badly they needed the NL East title

The New York Mets are one loss away from elimination. That’s it. It’s over if they lose one more time this weekend to the San Diego Padres. They need a winning streak of two in order to advance. It’s such a simple calculation in a best of three series. They didn’t even need Nathan Fielder to show up with a plan but he did anyway.

The plan didn’t go as, well, planned. Max Scherzer failed to get through the fifth. The offense provided a single run. Everything that could have gone wrong seemed to.

Mets losing their first game is a nasty reminder they needed to win the NL East

Already backed into a corner after night one of the MLB playoffs, the Mets received a nasty reminder of how much better it is to win the division. While they did get home-field advantage for this series, they didn’t get the bye.

The benefits of the bye go deeper than a weekend off. It’s time to rest, yes. It also means last chance of getting beaten by a fellow postseason club.

As superior as the Mets were to the Padres in the regular season, anything can happen in the playoffs. On Friday, three of the four road clubs won. There is a reason why each of these teams is still playing baseball. They are the top 12 of 30.

Most painful of all, the concluded the regular season with 101 wins just like the Atlanta Braves. Because Atlanta took the series between these two clubs with a 10-9 record, they won the tie-breaker. There was no potato sack race or balancing an egg on a spoon. There wasn’t even a coin flip. Rock, Paper, Scissors was out of the question—all probably a part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The Mets don’t have two more chances to correct Friday night’s loss. They have one chance. Then they have to do it again.

Everything that happened in the opener must not happen again. Bad starting pitching and zero offense is what gives you a free October.