Called strike three. Seven earned runs in a third-of-an-inning. A long fly ball that dies at the track to seal a stadium’s fate. A throw home from the first baseman that sails over the catcher’s head. A scrub pops a three-run homer. An ear shines.
Some events that have signaled the end of a season or postseason fester deeply in the Metsian soul and don’t require much elaboration. Others get lost quickly only to come back around and bite you in your baseball consciousness when you weren’t expecting them. To the blogging-era knives that slit the heart out of the last hopes of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2016, and 2022, I’d add those two fucking losses to the fucking Washington Nationals that essentially doomed 2025.
They don’t fit as neatly as their predecessors within the confines of this cheerful category as there were two of them, and they didn’t emanate at the very conclusion of the year on which they left their blots, but for me, those two fucking losses to the fucking Washington Nationals that essentially doomed 2025 — across the final two home games last September — encompassed a comparable infamy.
The 2025 Mets completed their plunge into the abyss in Miami a week later. They’d been plummeting since mid-June. Any one or two losses seem insignificant against the bigger backdrop of going 38-55. Those two fucking losses to the fucking Washington Nationals weren’t even the last two of 2025. The Mets had a road trip ahead of them and lost three of six to certify their exit from postseason consideration.
But, man, those two fucking losses to the fucking Washington Nationals. I get a headache just thinking about them, which may be why I’ve mostly avoided thinking about them. I had a headache throughout the second of them, and when I recall incidents that included a headache, I instinctively court pain.
Oh well. That’s what store-brand acetaminophen is for.
In brief (because I’d rather not develop a migraine), the Mets lost to the Washington Nationals on Saturday afternoon, September 20, 2025, 5-3 in eleven innings. Daylen Lile hit a ball to deepest center that flummoxed Cedric Mullins. It became the decisive inside-the-park two-run homer. There was an eleventh inning because the Mets left the bases loaded with one, then two outs in the bottom of the ninth after tying the score at three.
That [1] abortion of a debacle of a disaster wasn’t even the game that attacked my sinuses. On Sunday, September 21, Closing Day at Citi Field, I was on hand to witness Jacob Young make not one but two ridiculously idiotic catches in roughly the same vicinity where Mullins drifted into wilderness. One was rather simple, a leap at the fence to rob Francisco Alvarez of a game-tying home run in the ninth. If that sounds a tad understated for such a dramatic grab, it’s because the earlier catch was something I’d never seen before and hope to never see again, not even if the Channel 4 news goes to the trouble of reviving the Albert Achievement Awards. That was on the ball Brett Baty walloped in the fifth. It bounced out of Young’s glove as the glove crashed against the wall, then off of his right foot, up in the air, and back into his glove, all while the center fielder sought to balance himself. From high in left field Promenade, I judged it surely had touched the fence or the ground or something.
It did not. Nor would the Mets touch, in any meaningful fashion, the two Washington pitchers and their ERAs of over 5 as the day progressed. Mets lost, 3-2. I went home, opened a bottle of name-brand ibuprofen, shook out several pills, and eased my pain slightly.
I tried to bury those results and their impact on the Mets missing out on the playoffs by a tiebreaker as the imploded season became the offseason. Again, 55 losses in 93 games. Each one was conceivably the killer. Each one was conceivably the reason the team we knew and didn’t exactly love but at least we knew who they were was dismantled over the winter. Each one was conceivably the reason we’ve been presented with a roster defined by its lack of definition.
But I’m pretty sure it was those two fucking losses to the fucking Washington Nationals, a near certainty I hadn’t settled on until Tuesday night, when the Mets creamed this year’s version of the Washington Nationals, 8-0, either indicating the beginning of a massive turnaround or an increase in several individual players’ trade value [2]. Bo Bichette [3] led off with a home run off Zack Littell on the very first pitch of the home first. Then things got eerily quiet, as Littell did to the rest of the Mets what every pitcher usually does to all of the Mets. Clay Holmes [4], piggyback reliever from that second fucking loss to the fucking Washington Nationals in September, was his usual sharp self. Really, he has been rock steady since that deceptively sunny [5] Sunday.
The bottom of the fourth Tuesday loomed as more of the usual 2026 nonsense. We had the bases loaded with one out (one hit, two walks) when Marcus Semien [6] bounced to third. It was a tricky enough hop for Jorbit Vivas to field, but it appeared he’d pluck it, throw it home, and get one out. Maybe a 5-2-3 double play would ensue. It wouldn’t have been surprising. Instead the bouncer bounced past the third baseman altogether, skittering into left. Two Mets came home. Our 1-0 lead was now 3-0. Carson Benge [7] connected for a liner up the middle and brought home two more. Bichette delivered a sac fly a couple of batters later. Then Juan Soto [8], despite the aches and pains that are limiting him to batting only and getting him mentioned amid the injury report, cracked a beautiful opposite field homer with one on. The Mets held an 8-0 lead.
I kept waiting for a technicality or ineptitude to reverse the score, but no, this was real. The Mets were doing the romping. The Mets were doing the shutting out. Homes went six smooth innings. Tobias Myers [9] was almost perfect for two. Craig Kimbrel [10] came alive to strike out the side in the ninth. Lile and Young combined to go 0-for-7, which made for a pleasing grace note. It was an honest-to-goodness Mets laugher [11].
Except I couldn’t laugh all that heartily. Oh, NOW you decide to beat the fucking Washington Nationals? Where was this seven months ago? Never mind that a whole bunch of you here tonight weren’t here then. Why weren’t you when you could have done our Wild Card chase that shouldn’t have been necessary after we started 45-24 some good?
Enough easily triggered recriminations. We won a game in the present. On to the next one and whatever sullen spirits it summons.