MIAMI — The Miami Marlins billed this weekend series against the Mets as their World Series. It’s not quite a World Series for the Mets, but it’s almost as important given the implications it carries.

They played like they were eager to pop champagne bottles at the start of the game, with leadoff man Francisco Lindor homering on the second pitch he saw from Sandy Alcantara. The Mets scored twice in the first inning to put the Fish on notice, but then a combination of bad luck, bad pitches and bad fundamentals led to a six-run rally by the Marlins.

The Mets lost 6-2 on Friday night at LoanDepot Park, and the Cincinnati Reds beat the Milwaukee Brewers to tie the Mets (82-78) for the third NL Wild Card spot. The Reds own the tiebreaker, so the Mets have to win at least one more game than Cincinnati this weekend to avoid elimination.

“We’ve got to win the next two and see what happens,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “But we did it to ourselves.”

They did it to themselves with errors and miscues, or what Keith Hernandez likes to call “bad fundies.” They’ve piled up over the last month, but they’ve become especially glaring and especially detrimental in recent weeks. The most frustrating part might be the lack of answers as to why established players continue to fumble routine plays.

They field grounders daily and they put in extra work before games — even the pitchers. They insist it’s not the pressure getting to them. Mendoza shot down the notion that the Mets are making mental errors as a result of a lack of focus.

“There’s always attention to details and there’s always a level of focus and everything,” Mendoza said. “It’s just frustrating.”

The bottom of the fifth was ugly. The Marlins (78-82) batted around, knocking right-hander Brandon Sproat out of the game and extending the inning against his replacement, left-hander Gregory Soto. Pete Alonso had two defensive miscues, Augustin Ramirez stole two bases and Connor Norby pinch-hit a three-run homer off Soto to cap the inning and put the Fish up by four runs.

The Mets left the field to boos from their own fans in a ballpark thousands of miles from their own.

Sproat gave up hard contact right from the start of the inning, but he might have had a better chance of getting out of it if Alonso had made a play at first base on leadoff hitter Jakob Marsee, or if Soto had been able to throw out Ramirez at third, but the pitcher didn’t appear to notice the runner going.

“As a left-handed pitcher, you’ve got that runner in front of you, and for [Ramirez] to take off like that, and for us not to be able to just either step off, or just not give them a free base there, it was kind of an inning changer,” Mendoza said. “Obviously the single after they took third base again, it’s a completely different inning…

“We continue to make those mistakes, and it’s costing us.”

Sproat had given up only a single hit through his first four innings, then the Marlins took three straight off of him to start the fifth. Heriberto Hernandez tripled to right with two on and none out, tying the game at 2-2.

With one out, Marsee hit a dribbler to Alonso at first, but he dropped the ball. Second baseman Jeff McNeil was there to back him up and help get the out, but had the mistake he could have tried to get Hernandez at home.

“He was going on contact, so it was a tough one, but, I mean, I’m still happy I was able to get an out in that situation,” Alonso said. “Not ideal. I mean, if I had fielded it cleanly, I would have threw it home, but I’m still happy we were able to at least get one out there in that spot. If you don’t get an out there at all, then things could, could have gotten way worse.”

It’s hard to imagine how much worse things could have been for the Mets in their third-to-last game of the season.

In his fourth big league start, Sproat (0-2) was charged with four earned runs on five hits, walking two, hitting two batters and striking out two over 4 2/3 innings.

“You’ve got to be present every single inning, and I was still present there, [but] they put a couple of hits together and it didn’t go my way,” Sproat said. “I mean, that’s baseball. That’s the game.”

Alcantara (11-12) effectively quieted the Mets after the first inning. He stranded runners in the second and third, retiring 10 straight at one point, and 15 of 16 from the third inning until the seventh when he issued a leadoff walk to Lindor. After Miami took the lead, he needed only 14 pitches to get the next six outs.

The 2023 NL Cy Young Award winner held the Mets to only six hits and two earned runs in his final start of the 2025 season, walking two and striking out three in a seven-inning gem.

The Mets went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, leaving seven on base. They’re dangerously close to being eliminated from postseason contention.

“Good thing it’s not over yet,” Alonso said. “Hopefully we can win tomorrow and we won’t have to face that reality.”

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/09/26/mets-marlins-mlb-wild-card-postseason-francisco-lindor-reds/