The Mets needed to win this game, point blank, period.

Due to some of the worst baseball you have ever seen over the last few months, the Mets find themselves in a dogfight with the Cincinnati Reds for the final playoff spot in the National League. The Reds own the tiebreaker over the Mets, so they need to maintain a one game lead for that aforementioned playoff spot, and everyone woke up this morning with that being true — until this afternoon.

The Reds beat the Pirates 2-1 at roughly 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, on a game saving Noelvi Marte home run robbery, because of course. So, in order to maintain their playoff spot, and the ability to control their own destiny going into the final three games of the 2025 regular season in Miami, they needed to win this game.

Well, they did.

The Mets got right to it against Shota Imanaga, in a very unique way. Following a lead off Francisco Lindor walk and a Pete Alonso double, the Mets had runners on second and third with one out, and were cooking. Then, the weirdest run scored of the season happened, and I truly do not think there is an argument to the contrary. Mark Vientos popped the ball up along the wall to the left of third base. Matt Shaw was underneath it, calling off everyone. Dansby Swanson had a beat on it from shortstop, and called everyone off. Shaw and Swanson collided, and Swanson caught it but fell out of play in the process. Because Swanson went out of play, it is considered a dead ball, both runners advanced a base, and the Mets took a 1-0 lead (and Vientos got an RBI but frankly I do not think that is correct). Seriously, watch this one if you missed it. The Mets scored the most normal run you can possibly score right after that, as Brandon Nimmo hit an RBI single to make it 2-0.

The undoubted Mets ace, Nolan McLean (imagine reading that sentence in March, by the way), took the ball for the Mets and pitched like an ace. Mostly. Until the end of his outing. But we’ll get there, don’t worry.

The bottom of the first and both sides of the second went by scoreless, with McLean working around a double in the first and striking out the side in the second. The Mets got back on the board in the third, as Lindor made it 3-0 with a home run, giving him his second 30/30 season in the last three (he just missed it last year by a single stolen base). McLean worked around a walk in the third, and was aided by a David Wright-level barehanded play by Brett Baty. Baty, who wanted to continue to be called David Wright-ian on the day, followed up his web-gem in the third with a three run opposite field home run in the fourth (off a lefty, no less!), to make it 6-0.

McLean started to falter just a little bit in the fourth and fifth, as he surrendered solo home runs in both innings, to Seiya Suzuki and Dansby Swanson, respectively, cutting the lead to 6-2. The Mets, however, were not comfortable with that, and decided to add some insurance runs. Singles by Nimmo and Baty put two on with two outs for the recently returned Tyrone Taylor, and he promptly doubled them home to make it 8-2 — and those two runs would prove to be way more important than it felt at the time.

McLean came back out for the sixth, got one out, and it went sideways on him from there. He walked Ian Happ, gave up a barely fair ground rule double to Moisés Ballesteros, and gave up a three run home run to Suzuki to turn a potential laugher into an 8-5 game in the sixth. That homer completed his game, and he had a truly bizarre one. He finished with five and a third innings pitched, just five hits, five runs, two walks, and 11 strikeouts. He was mostly dominant, but had home run issues and clearly ran out of gas in the sixth.

Ryne Stanek picked up the pieces for him in the sixth, and the rest was elementary, my dear reader. The Mets offense did not score again, and the combination of Brooks Raley, Tyler Rogers and Edwin Díaz surrendered just a single hit over the final three innings to keep the Mets in a playoff spot on September 25th.

Despite the Mets playing some truly bad baseball for a while, and losing a ton of ground over the last few months, they go into the final series of the season with a simply goal: win the games they play, and make the postseason.