For two days against the worst team in the National League East, Mets fans who jammed Citi Field kept waiting for the home team to secure a much-needed win.
Those fans are still waiting, and the Mets will go into the final week of the regular season in a world of uncertainty about whether they are going to make the playoffs.
Sean Manaea allowed three runs in the second inning and the team with the second-worst ERA in baseball held the Mets down as Washington took a 3-2 victory before a sellout crowd of 42,960 in the Mets’ final regular-season home game of 2025.
The loss dropped the Mets’ lead for the final NL wild-card spot to one-half game over the Reds pending Cincinnati’s game in Chicago against the Cubs. The Reds hold the tiebreaker over the Mets.
Maybe it’s just not the Mets’ year? Francisco Alvarez led off the ninth inning with a drive to center that was grabbed just over the fence by Jared Young, robbing Alvarez of what could have been a dramatic game-tying home run. It was the second amazing catch by Young in center.
Brett Baty led off the fifth with a drive to the wall in center. Young got a glove on it, had the ball dislodged when he hit the wall, and then kicked it with his right foot hackey-sack style into the air. The ball floated into his glove for an unlikely out.
The Mets will finish the regular season starting Tuesday with three games in Chicago against the Cubs and then three in Miami.
The Mets finished with a 49-32 home record. They are 37-40 on the road.
The Mets started the game by flip-flopping the piggyback pitchers. Instead of starting Clay Holmes and using Manaea in relief — as they did to great success in an 8-3 win over San Diego on Tuesday — the Mets this time started Manaea because of the great number of lefthanded hitters in the Washington lineup.
It didn’t work out as well. Manaea put the Mets in an early 3-0 hole by allowing three runs in the second inning.
The first run came home on a throwing error by Francisco Lindor, who was trying to nab Jorge Alfaro attempting to stretch a single to left into a double. The relay throw from Lindor was a tad wide and went off the glove of Jeff McNeil as Daylen Lile scored from third.
Two batters later, Nasim Nunez, who was batting .185, hit a two-run home run to left to make it 3-0.
The Mets were facing righthander Jake Irvin, who came into the game with a 5.76 ERA. Luis Torrens led off the third with a double and came home on a scary play involving Lile, the speedy leftfielder who hit the eventual game-winning two-run inside-the-park home run in the 11th inning for Washington on Saturday.
This time, Lile was chasing a fly ball toward the foul line hit by Cedric Mullins. Lile slid and initially caught the fair ball, but his slide took him into the leftfield wall left leg first. The ball slipped out of his glove and had to be retrieved by an infielder as Lile rolled around in pain.
Torrens scored from second on the RBI single. Lile eventually left the game under his own power with what the Nationals called a left knee contusion.
Holmes replaced Manaea after Pete Alonso botched a leadoff grounder for an error in the fourth. Holmes threw 3 2/3 scoreless innings.
Lindor made it 3-2 with a leadoff homer to right in the sixth. A walk to Juan Soto and single by Alonso gave the Mets two runners on with one out and knocked out Irvin.
But lefthander Mitchell Parker, who entered with a 5.85 ERA, got McNeil on a pop to short and struck out Mark Vientos on a checked swing called by first-base umpire Chris Conroy. Vientos was ejected by plate umpire John Tumpane after slamming his bat down following the strike three call.
Parker allowed a two-out single to Alonso in the eighth and then threw a wild pitch. With Alonso on second, manager Carlos Mendoza sent out Luisangel Acuna to pinch run for Alonso.
Alonso has an opt-out he is expected to use after the season to make himself a free agent for the second straight year. So that single might have been Alonso’s final at-bat as a Met at Citi Field.
With Vientos ejected, Mendoza had Alvarez on deck to bat in the designated hitter spot. That meant McNeil had to stay in against the lefty Parker. McNeil grounded out to second to end the inning.
Parker threw 3 2/3 scoreless innings for the save in his first career relief appearance after 59 starts over the last two seasons.
Notes & quotes: Tyrone Taylor (hamstring) went 1-for-5 in a rehab appearance in Triple-A Syracuse’s final game of the season. The Mets will decide whether to active Taylor on Tuesday . . .The Mets set a Citi Field attendance record of 3,184,570, breaking the old mark of 3,168,571 from the ballpark’s opening season of 2009.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.