Three times in the past 18 years, the Mets have lost a playoff spot in the final game of the regular season. All three of these losses came against the Marlins, but the similarities don’t end there either.
In each of those series, the Mets won the penultimate game of the season in a shut-out fashion. Two of those three losses were one-hitters, and the other was a three-hitter. All three collapses seemed to be (potentially) fended off by a stellar pitching performance, only to have the next day not go the Mets’ way.
2007
The 2007 collapse is often thought of as the worst of the Mets’ terrible Septembers. The Mets were famously seven games up in the division with 17 games left to play, and the Mets wound up missing the playoffs by just one game. However, in the penultimate game of the season, the Mets got an absolute gem, a combined one-hitter led by John Maine that resulted in a 13-0 victory over the Marlins.
Maine was spectacular, throwing a no-hitter into the eighth inning, giving up a two-out single to future 2016 Met Alejandro de Aza to end his day. Maine had given up two walks, the first of which was to the second batter of the game Dan Uggla, which was erased on a double play one batter later. The second came in the seventh, again to Uggla, who was stranded on first after Maine retired the next two batters.
Overall, Maine went seven and two-thirds with an incredible 14 strikeouts. He was relieved by Willie Collazo, who induced a pop up to get out of the inning. Carlos Muñiz pitched a perfect ninth to close out the game.
The Mets’ baker’s dozen runs came from unlikely sources as well, with Lastings Milledge hitting a pair of home runs and backup catcher Ramon Castro banging a solo shot as well. Luis Castillo, Carlos Delgado, and Moises Alou all had multiple-RBI affairs as well.
In addition to Muñiz and Collazo, this game is an Immaculate Grid treasure trove, with David Newhan and Anderson Hernandez each getting some playing time as well.
This game set up the Mets to face the 69-win Fish with future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine on the mound for the final game of the season. It seemed like the Mets would be repeating a trip to the playoffs for just the second time in consecutive seasons in team history.
We all know how that game went.
2008
The 2008 collapse was a horse of a different color than the prior year’s because the Mets had not been dominant for most of the year. The team had spent just two days in first place before the middle of July, and had clawed their way back into contention all first half. All through the second half, they were jockeying in and out of first place, at one point being up three and a half games on September 10th.
Going into the final Saturday of the season, the Mets sent their ace, Johan Santana, to the mound to try to keep the Brewers from claiming the National League Wild Card out from under them. Santana did his part, pitching his second best game as a Met, limiting the Marlins to just three hits over a complete game shutout which saw him strike out nine and walk three, while giving up one hit apiece to Jorge Cantú, Josh Willingham, and Cody Ross.
The two Mets runs scored on a Carlos Delgado sacrifice fly and a double off the bat of second baseman Ramón Martínez in one of his seven appearances for the 2008 Mets.
In the final game of the season, Oliver Pérez started in a game that saw the Mets use seven pitchers, with Scott Schoeneweis getting the loss after delivering the go-ahead run (a solo home run by Wes Helms) in the top of the eighth. He was replaced by Luis Ayala, who promptly gave up a dinger to Uggla to extend the Marlins lead and, eventually, end the Mets’ season.
2025
The 2025 collapse happened in relative slow motion compared to the 2007 and 2008 disasters, but Game 161 provided similar false hope. In what was easily one of his best starts for the Mets, Clay Holmes pitched six scoreless, one-hit innings against the Fish, striking out two and walking three. Xavier Edwards collected the only Miami hit when he hit a third inning single. Holmes was relieved by Brooks Raley, Tyler Rogers, and Edwin Díaz, all of whom struck out one apiece in three no-hit innings, with the only blemish being a Díaz hit by pitch in the ninth.
The Mets’ offense had everything to do with Pete Alonso, who hit his 38th home run and 41st double of the year in the 5-0 victory. Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil also drove in runs in the victory.
However, the momentum would die off the next day, when Sean Manaea’s nightmare 2025 season concluded with a 4-0 loss to the Marlins. The Mets saw themselves wind up outside of the playoff picture, with the Reds -who would not have made it had the Mets collected one more victory in the prior 161 games-taking the final Wild Card spot in the National League.
