Mets' stunning playoff ride runs out of magic in NLCS Game 6 loss to Dodgers
Mets players stand on the dugout steps after losing NLCS Game 6 against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
LOS ANGELES
When the clubhouse door swung open, shortly after the Mets’ remarkable October ended late Sunday night with a 10-5 loss to the Dodgers in NLCS Game 6, the sight was unexpected.
Instead of players slumped at their lockers, quietly despondent, with hushed tones and zipped luggage the only soundtrack, the scene was just the opposite.
All the Mets were on their feet, exchanging hugs, slapping hands, offering smiles of support and consolation. This was a group that not only played dramatic, breathtaking baseball for the past month but enjoyed every minute of the shared OMG-singing, pumpkin-embracing experience with each other.
That it ended Sunday night at Dodger Stadium, with fireworks and a sellout crowd of 52,674 celebrating their playoff exit, was painful, of course. It’s going to sting for a while. But as the Mets spoke with reddened eyes, with some even choking up during the conversations, it really drove home what these players had been telling us — not only since the playoffs began but for months before.
The 2024 Mets were indeed a special team, and their crashing conclusion after this joy ride of a season didn’t change that. Part of what elevated this giddy trek through October — one they refused to surrender until a superior Dodgers team took it from them — is the fact that it was so unexpected.
The ending came because the Mets’ tank was empty. Ace Sean Manaea couldn’t survive the third inning and the offense — aside from Mark Vientos’ fifth postseason homer — just couldn’t get a timely hit against the Dodgers’ army of relievers. The Mets stranded 12 and left the bases loaded twice.
So now the Mets return to New York for an uncertain winter, with many players headed to free agency. But the memories from reaching the doorstep of a World Series, falling just two wins short, will stick beyond Sunday night’s final clubhouse bonding session.
“On this team, the window has closed,” Brandon Nimmo said. “And that’s a frustrating thing. It’s a sad thing. It’s very hard to swallow because I love this team so much. But as far as this organization, I think it’s a good step forward. It sets a new standard.”
Manaea, one of the Mets’ key free agents, spoke with watery eyes while reflecting on the team’s achievements and subsequent breakup for the winter. After serving as the team’s de facto ace in the wake of Kodai Senga’s injury-related absences, Manaea was integral to any chance of the Mets advancing past Game 6. But after “hitting a wall” in his Game 2 start — which the Mets won — he labored through a 34-pitch first inning Sunday night and put them in a 4-1 hole before leaving with none out in the third.
Closing fast on 200 innings for the season, Manaea probably was spent. But like the rest of the Mets, he left everything on the field, and it just wasn’t enough this time.
“I’m just super-proud of everything we accomplished,” Manaea said, his voice cracking. “There’s nobody else I’d do it with. These boys grinded the whole year . . . that’s the way it goes . . . unfortunately just came up a little short. The Dodgers just had our number.”
Ultimately, Manaea couldn’t stop the Dodgers’ unlikely cleanup hitter, shortstop Tommy Edman, who smacked a two-run double in the first inning and followed up with a two-run homer that staggered him in the third. Edman was named MVP of the NLCS after recording 11 RBIs.
The Mets, who trailed 6-1 after three innings, countered with Vientos, who silenced Chavez Ravine in the fourth with a two-run blast that sailed over the centerfield wall. Vientos’ shot cut the Dodgers’ lead in half, and his fifth homer of these playoffs tied him with Mike Piazza and Edgardo Alfonzo for second on the franchise list, behind only Daniel Murphy’s seven. His 14 RBIs are a Mets single-season postseason record and put him close behind career leaders Alfonzo (17) and Gary Carter (15).
The Mets bowed out but found a legitimate budding star in Vientos this October.
“A lot of people didn’t expect us to make it here, but it sucks,” he said. “It’s not a good feeling. We wanted to keep going. We wanted to win a World Series.”
On the eve of Game 6, which would be the biggest test of his young managing career, manager Carlos Mendoza saw the Yankees — his former team — clinch their first World Series berth since the 2009 championship club.
As Mendoza was glued to those events happening 2,000 miles away in Cleveland, his mind no doubt wandered to the possibility of partying like that with the Mets, at Chavez Ravine, to set up a Subway Series.
Ultimately, though, the Mets just ran out of heroes after relying on a roster full of them for the past month. Instead, they leave L.A. as a band of brothers, left to reflect on a special season that still felt as if it ended too soon.
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.