Mets back in familiar position following Game 2 loss to Brewers: Playing for their baseball lives
New York Mets' Pete Alonso hits a broken-bat single during the seventh inning of Game 2 of a National League wild card baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Milwaukee. Credit: AP/Morry Gash
MILWAUKEE
Six outs away from their first playoff series win in a decade, the Mets are now back on the brink of an early winter.
You could almost feel the chill late Wednesday night in the visitors clubhouse at American Family Field. Six more outs, and those lockers would’ve been covered in plastic sheeting, the Mets spraying Champagne for the second time during a hectic 48-hour span, stretched over two cities.
Instead, the plastic rolls stayed tucked by the ceiling, the booze stowed in a backroom, the celebration put on hold — just as the party stalled last weekend here in Milwaukee. Only this time, it could be permanently.
So painstakingly close to sending the Brewers on vacation, the Mets failed just enough in Wednesday night’s 5-3 loss, as reliever Phil Maton teed up pair of eighth-inning homers that flipped Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. Even with Carlos Mendoza saying he had Edwin Diaz available — the closer himself later said potentially for four outs — and after Ryne Stanek protected a 3-2 lead with an 11-pitch seventh inning, the manager sent out Maton for the fourth time in five days.
Lately, Mendoza had been winning his dice rolls, sticking with Diaz for two innings and 40 pitches to close out Monday’s epic playoff clincher in Atlanta, then letting Luis Severino ride out his early troubles to go six solid innings in Tuesday’s Game 1 victory. But Mendoza’s heater suddenly cooled Wednesday night, with Maton serving up Jackson Chourio’s tying leadoff homer in the eighth — the rookie superstar’s second of the night — and then Garrett Mitchell’s two-run blast with two outs.
“We’ve been knocked down,” Mendoza said. “And we have the ability to get back up. Here we are. Got punched today. We’ll get right back.”
The Mets have been accustomed to doing the things the hard way all season, but now they’ve set themselves up for their most difficult task to date: their first do-or-die game of the 2024 season. That’s a different vibe altogether. Come Thursday night, when Jose Quintana takes the mound for Game 3, there’s no more safety net. The Mets won’t have the six months to recover after an 0-5 start to the season, or 95 games to climb back from being 11 under .500. Or even the second game of a doubleheader to lean on, if necessary, on the final day of the regular season in Atlanta.
Nine innings, 27 outs. That’s it. And now that the Mets have let the NL Central champs off the mat, breathing life into what was once a nervously quiet ballpark, this is unquestionably the most daunting task Mendoza’s resilient crew has ever faced.
“We’ve been responding to adversity all year, and I’m really excited for this challenge tomorrow,” Pete Alonso said afterward. “This is what the playoffs are all about — two great teams going at it.”
And how Mets is this: They’re the only Wild-Card team this October to win Game 1 and not complete the sweep Wednesday night. The Royals, Tigers and Padres all closed out their respective series, leaving Thursday’s stage to the Mets and Brewers for a 7:08 p.m. ET first pitch.
Maybe the Mets are best in comeback mode, because Wednesday night, they led for seven innings, right after Francisco Alvarez’s RBI single and Francisco Lindor’s sacrifice fly put them in front, 3-1, in the second. But the Brewers eventually chipped away, creeping to within one on Blake Perkins’ sacrifice fly in the fifth. From there, Reid Garrett and Stanek got the next six outs, but it was the following three — on Maton’s watch — that ultimately doomed the Mets.
In addition to Maton’s implosion, the Mets had to regret numerous missed opportunities at the plate. They went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position, stranding four in the first two innings alone, including more frustration for Alonso.
Alonso, who could be playing his final game wearing a Mets uniform Thursday night, has been in a perpetual holding pattern for that One Big Hit. Since his last home run on Sept. 19, he entered Game 2 in a 4-for-31 (.129) skid with four singles. Still, with Montas serving him redemption on a silver platter with two on in the first inning, he literally stumbled, in comically-bad fashion.
After smacking a grounder to short, where it was stabbed by a diving Willy Adames, Alonso should’ve had a coin-flip chance of beating the double-play throw to score a run.
Instead, Alonso somehow dropped the bat directly in his running path, then slipped when he stepped on it, falling on all-fours in a (polar) bear crawl. Just to give you an idea of how rough things are going for Alonso, I can’t recall seeing such a thing in more than two decades of covering baseball. It was that bizarre, and Alonso was thrown out easily.
“It’s never happened in my career ever, but after I hit the ball, I stepped on my bat and fell,” Alonso said. “By the time I got up, the play was pretty much done. I know it’s just weird, but hey, it sucks.”
A fitting sign-off for a game the Mets should’ve won. Sure they’ve been in a similar backs-to-the wall position before, but not quite this desperate.
And not with those six outs likely keeping them awake on the eve of the do-or-die Game 3.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.