Mets face six-game road trip to save playoff hopes
With six games left, New York must string together wins against a Cubs club that has clinched and a hot Marlins squad to keep October plans alive.
New York Mets' playoff hopes heading into the final six games of the regular season hung by a thread Tuesday as they opened a six-game road trip that could determine whether they reach October. They start in Chicago against the Cubs, who have already clinched a postseason berth, then wrap up the schedule in Miami against the Marlins, who had won six in a row and 10 of 11. The Mets, who had been in playoff position every day this season since April 5, woke up outside the NL wild-card picture as Cincinnati overtook them with six games remaining. On the road, the Mets have struggled to an 31-44 mark, and they closed their most recent trip with six straight losses. “There’s work in front of us,” Pete Alonso said after Sunday’s defeat by Washington. “We’ve got to go do it and go leave it all out there the last six games.”
New York's momentum from a 45-24 start that was one of the best in baseball had all but evaporated by late September. Since June 13, the Mets are 35-52, the 27th-best record in the majors, just ahead of the Nationals. The stretch wiped out much of the early-season lead and the sense that they were in control of a wild-card path. They did win four of five against Texas, San Diego and Washington at times, but losses to the Reds and Phillies in Philadelphia, and a pair of setbacks to the Nationals at Citi Field, knocked them off the pace. A stretch of home losses to the last-place Nationals proved irreplaceable, leaving the Mets with little margin for error in the final six games. The Reds, Giants and Padres remained in the mix as the Mets slipped from the top of the wild-card pile, eight months after launching a season that began with high expectations.
As last year’s unlikely run to the NLCS, which followed another frenzied finish to the regular season, fades into memory, the Mets have less than a week remaining to try to repeat October magic and avoid what could be among the worst collapses in baseball history. “It’s do or die at this point,” Sean Manaea said. “So we’ve got to figure it out. If anyone can do it, it’s us.”
With the road ahead, the Mets plan to lean on a mix of veteran leadership and youth. Tuesday’s opener in Chicago features left-hander David Peterson on the mound, with the possibility that the club will turn to rookies Jonah Tong and Nolan McLean in Chicago, and Brandon Sproat in Miami. The messages from the clubhouse, meanwhile, have centered on staying positive and treating the next six games as a playoff push rather than a continuation of a slide. Brandon Nimmo, speaking after Sunday’s loss, tried to frame the moment in a constructive light: “We can turn it on in an instant. We’re gonna get good baseball [against the Cubs]. We should enjoy it because not everybody gets to be in this position. Try to look at it a little more positively, as we’re playing for the playoffs rather than we just lost a game Sunday.”
Alonso added a similar note of resolve, acknowledging the urgency but insisting the team must stay focused on the work ahead: “There’s work in front of us. We’ve got to go do it and go leave it all out there the last six games.” The Mets this season have shown flashes of their early form, but sustaining that level over six pressure-packed games remains the central challenge.
The scenario is stark: win the six remaining games and the Mets would likely reverse their tumble into the outside-of-contention landscape; lose and the season ends with questions about what went wrong and how to rebuild for 2026. The Cubs, already with clinched status, present a platform for a potential upset attempt, while the Marlins’ recent surge adds another layer of pressure to every New York at-bat. This combination of opponent familiarity, momentum shifts, and a tight playoff race has revived a sense of urgency around a club that, at its best, could still remind the league why it opened the season as a legitimate contender. The next six days will test whether that early-season conviction can be recaptured or whether this season will become defined by a rapid fall from a banner start. Creating a path back to October will require the Mets to execute more consistently on offense, to tighten defense in high-leverage moments, and to maximize the pitching depth they built with this year’s roster. If the team can do that, the closing six-game stretch might still yield a postseason return that would echo last year’s dramatic late-season finish.