Over the course of any 162-game season, there are going to be games that you win where you should have lost, and games that you lost that you should have won. That’s just the nature of the beast, and those two inevitabilities typically tend to balance each other out in a baseball season.

The 2025 Mets missed the postseason by one game. They finished tied with the Reds and, because they lost the season series 4-2, were left standing outside when the proverbial game of musical chairs ended. As a result, they were left to ponder what went wrong. It’s incredibly rare to be able to say one specific game could have made the difference, but with these Mets, it’s increasingly easy to point to a few games where, had the result flipped, they would have been in the playoffs.

It’s especially glaring because this team seemed to only experience the “lose when you could’ve won” games, and not the “win where you could have lost” games. The Mets went an astonishing 0-for-70 in games where they trailed after eight innings. They were the only team left without a ninth inning comeback in 2025. For context, the 2024 Mets won eight of those types of games, the most in baseball. David Stearns called it “inexplicable”, and it’s an apt word. On top of that, this team made a habit of taking leads early and blowing those games, either immediately or sometimes painfully slowly. This year’s Mets seemed to be an experiment of “what if we only built this team out of bad losses”. Given Edwin Díaz’s elite season, it’s almost incomprehensible that they suffered so many devastating defeats.

There’s no sense dwelling on the past, but in this instance, the offseason is still about a month away, and the wounds of the latest Mets’ collapse are still fresh, so let’s pick at the scabs. While we could have made this list 20 or 30 losses, let’s hone in on ten defeats that particularly shaped the team’s collapse. In the interest of simplicity, these losses are listed in chronological order and not in order of severity of the heartbreak. Buckle up, kids, it’s about to get really sad in here.

This wasn’t even the only bad loss for New York this series. On Friday, the Mets, who entered the game with a 19-8 record and a five-game cushion in the NL East, carried a 4-3 lead into the ninth, but with Díaz unavailable, Ryne Stanek allowed a leadoff triple to Dyan Crews and a run-scoring single to José Tena single. AJ Minter—remember him?—entered and recorded the second out, but James Wood hit a single up the middle that deflected off Jeff McNeil’s glove and rolled slowly into center. The ball died, allowing CJ Abrams to sprint home and beat Tyrone Taylor’s throw, giving New York their first bad loss of 2025—it bears mentioning that the Mets were only in that position thanks to a four-run eighth, which slightly mutes the overall sting of the game.

But back to the main event. After a 2-0 win on Saturday, the Mets jumped Mitchell Parker for a five-run first and carried a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the second and a 7-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh. The Mets looked to be in cruise control, but Tylor Megill and José Buttó combined to allow five runs in the seventh to help Washington draw to within one. The big blow was a Riley Adams three-run blast to narrow the score to 7-6. The game turned in the ninth, once again with Stanek on the hill. The Nats evened up the game on an Abrams single to plate Alex Call, but it was Pete Alonso’s error on a Luis García Jr. grounder with runners on first and second that helped Washington push across the game-winning run.

The Mets did well to get this one to extras, knotting the score at five with a three-run ninth against Dodgers closer Tanner Scott. This could have been the team’s first ninth inning comeback of 2025, but it was not meant to be. The killer was the bottom of the 12th inning—yes, the 12th inning, somewhere most games don’t often go nowadays. The Mets had second and third with one out, but Los Angeles walked Juan Soto intentionally because Luis Torrens was playing first after José Azócar pinch ran for Alonso as the free runner in the 11th. Torrens grounded into a double play as Los Angeles utilized five infielders, and the Dodgers scored two in the 13th to secure the victory. The Mets never did get their comeback, going 0-for-70 in those games.

The Mets ended up taking the next two games against the Dodgers to win the series at Citi Field, and they traveled to Los Angeles a week later for another showdown with L.A. In this four-game set, the two teams alternated wins, with both Mets losses being discouraging 6-5 affairs. The Tuesday defeat may have even been the worse one here, as Huascar Brazobán surrendered a bomb of a solo homer to Max Muncy in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game, and Freddie Freeman doubled home the game-winning run in the bottom of the tenth.

But Thursday’s game had a much more Metsian defeat. New York jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the third, but three runs from the Dodgers in the bottom of the third made it a one-run game. The Mets got an insurance run in the seventh and entered the eighth up 5-3, but the Dodgers put three runs on the board to steal this one. Reed Garrett relieved David Peterson, who gave the club seven strong innings, and gave this game back to the Dodgers. The big play here was a ground ball to Brett Baty, who had Will Smith caught dead to rights in between third and home but unfurled a terrible throw home, allowing Smith to score the tying run. To add insult to injury, old friend Michael Conforto knocked in the game-winning run with a go-ahead, two-out single.

This loss is as much symbolic as it is devastating, as it is the easily-identifiable starting point of the team’s three-plus month collapse. The Mets entered this game 45-24, 5.5 games up in the NL East, both of which represented their high water marks on the season. The Mets carried a 5-1 lead into the sixth after five solid innings from Clay Holmes, but Paul Blackburn, in his third outing since being activated from the IL, was knocked around by Tampa Bay. He only lasted 1/3 of an inning and allowed four earned runs, while Max Kranick was charged with the blown save and loss after allowing two runs in relief of Blackburn. The Mets, as they so often did after falling behind, went quietly from there.

Peterson was cruising in this one, until he wasn’t. In his first start since his complete game shutout, he entered the eighth inning with the Mets leading 4-1. He preceded to walk Nick Allen and allow a single to Ronald Acuña Jr. before being replaced by Garrett. The right-hander allowed a single to Alex Verdugo before getting the next two hitters out. When it looked like the Mets would escape unphased, Marcell Ozuna cleared the bases with a double down the right field line. The Mets went on to lose in the bottom of the tenth. This ended up being the middle loss of the team’s first seven-game losing streak of the 2025 season.

The Mets were riding high heading into San Diego, having won seven straight games after sweeping the Giants at Oracle Park. At this point, they held a 1.5 game lead in the NL East—incidentally, the largest lead they would enjoy in the division for the remainder of the season. The Mets put up a four-spot in the top of the fifth to build a 5-1 lead, but Frankie Montas and Huascar Brazobán combined to allow five runs in the bottom half of the frame. The Mets, again looking for a ninth inning comeback, knotted the score at six thanks to a Ronny Mauricio one-out homer, but Gregory Soto, in his second outing with the Mets, made a critical error on a Jose Iglesias grounder that allowed Xander Bogaerts to safely reach second. Three batters later, Elias Díaz singled to bring Bogaerts home for the game-winning run.

The Mets were looking to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Brewers, while Milwaukee was looking to extend their winning streak to nine. The Mets jumped ahead against one of the Brewers’ best hurlers, Quinn Priester, scoring runs in each of the first five innings. They built a 5-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth, but Milwaukee scored three in the fourth and two in the fifth. The Mets led 6-5 into the eighth, but after Priester was removed, they failed to get a hit off the Brewers’ bullpen. And it was Ryan Helsley, who turned out to be a disastrous trade deadline acquisition, who allowed the tying run to score in the eighth, and Díaz, who relieved Helsley in the eighth, who allowed a leadoff homer to Isaac Collins in the ninth. It was the first earned run the Mets’ closer had allowed since June 2, and only the second earned run he had allowed since April 21, and it could not have come at a worse time.

The Mets were riding high heading into this game. Alonso had just broken the franchise home record with a two-homer performance the previous night, and the Mets snapped their seven-game losing streak with a resounding 13-5 victory. Following a rain delay, the Mets jumped all over old friend Carlos Carrasco, scoring six runs in the first two innings. It looked like the Mets would be cruising to a second straight victory, but Peterson, as he did so often post All-Star break, fell apart. After three shutout innings, he couldn’t escape the fourth as Atlanta pushed nine runs across the board against the lefty and Garrett. The Mets could not score a run against the parade of Atlanta relievers, who tossed seven shutout innings after Carrasco was removed (and promptly DFA’ed after the game). The Mets went on to lose on Thursday as well.

The Mets were looking to avoid a sweep in Philadelphia and put an end to their most recent five-game skid, and they got off to a good start with four runs against Jesús Luzardo in the first. It looked like the Mets were going to get the best of their division rivals, but Philadelphia retired the final 25 Mets batters, with Luzardo going eight innings. Meanwhile, the Phillies scored two in the fourth, one in the fifth, and three in the sixth to win the game. More than anything, this team showed the offense’s lack of fight and urgency when they fell behind following a quick start.

I’m going to cheat a little here, but these two losses are so intertwined and emblematic of the failures of the 2025 squad. In the end, just one extra win against the Nationals would have sent New York to the postseason, but the club failed to secure a series victory after opening the weekend with a 12-6 victory.

On Saturday, the Mets looked to mount their first ninth inning comeback as they tied the game 3-3 in the home half of the frame. However, with the bases loaded and one out—a prime spot for the club to pick up a win—Brandon Nimmo and Startling Marte struck out. A single fly ball here would have sent the Mets’ fans home happy and, most likely, the Mets into October. A leadoff inside-the-park home run in the 11th eventually pushed this game in Washington’s favor.

Then on Sunday, one awful baserunning play by Cedric Mullins and two stunning defensive gems from Nationals’ center fielder Jacob Young sunk the Mets in the final home game of 2025. The Mets fell behind 3-0 and looked to mount their comeback starting in the third inning. After Torrens led off with a double, Mullins hit a fly ball down the left field ball that Washington left fielder Daylen Lile failed to snag. Lile slid hard into the left field wall and was down for a bit. Torrens scored, but Mullins inexplicably stopped in between first and second and watched the play unfold. He was eventually awarded first base, and on the next pitch Francisco Lindor lined into a double play at first base. Had he been on second, Soto’s double two batters later would have brought him home. And then, with the score at 3-1 in the fifth, Young made a circus catch in center, hacky sacking a ball off his foot to make an eye-popping play on a Brett Baty fly out. If that wasn’t bad enough, he robbed Francisco Alvarez of what looked like a game-tying home run in the ninth. As one of the 41,000+ fans in attendance, I can attest to just how stunned the crowd was through each of these moments.