Mets Season Ends With A Thud

Most of the 2022 baseball season was promising for the New York Mets. The club hit the ground running and seized 1st place in the National League East from the get go. The six pitchers who started most of the games over the course of the season were a collective 65-35. The starters included Cy Young Award winners Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, who had some injury issues during the season, but were in top form by the end. Closer Edwin Diaz had 32 saves and a 1.31. ERA. And the Mets could hit the ball too. Jeff McNeil won the NL batting title with a .326 average. Pete Alonzo hit 40 home runs and drove in a league leading 131. Francisco Lindor, who had been a dud in his 1st year with the Mets, hit 26 homers and had a career high 107 RBIs. The Mets were 2nd in the N.L. in both batting average and on base percentage, and were tied for 3rd in runs scored.

The Mets won 101 games, but started to cool down just a little at the absolute worst time. A late season three game sweep by the Atlanta Braves meant that the defending World Series champions would own the tiebreaker (10-9 Atlanta in the season series) over the Mets in case they finished in a tie. Which is exactly what happened. The Mets led all but six days in the season, but at the end, it was Atlanta who won the N.L. East and the Mets wound up as a Wild Card.

The Mets hosted the San Diego Padres in the two of three Wild Card round. Max Scherzer was on the mound for New York in Game 1, and was uncharacteristically shelled for seven earned runs in 4 2/3 innings pitched. San Diego took Game 1 7-1. The Mets righted the ship in Game 2, looking like the Mets of most of the season, winning 7-3 behind home runs by Alonzo and Lindor.

So the series advanced to the winner take all Game 3. As in Game 1, this one was all San Diego. Juan Soto and Austin Nola drove in a pair of runs each, and starting pitcher Joe Musgrove gave up one hit (the only Mets hit in the game) in seven innings as the Padres beat the Mets 6-0 to advance to the Division Series and send the Mets home.

San Diego will now play their West Division rival Los Angeles Dodgers. All the Dodgers did was win 111 games in the regular season, and the Padres were just 5-14 against them.