A Pitching Collapse

In spectacular fashion, the Mets’ season ended in tragedy, as their pitching collapsed even as their hitting continued to astound their long-suffering fans.

1969, 1986, 2015 ...

The New York Mets have proven the creators of “Futurama” wrong.

No longer can the view from the Year 3000 be limited to declaring this city’s long benighted baseball team World Series Champions for 1969 and 1986.

That’s right, wiseguys: Add 2015.

And who knows, maybe more — though what Mets fan would dare tempt the fates by being so greedy?

There’s No Crying in — Wait, This Just In

It began with tears. On July 29, the Mets’ 24-year-old shortstop, Wilmer Flores, broke baseball’s cardinal rule (according to Tom Hanks) and cried on the field. This was the shift, the demarcation for what was yet to come. There were tears again in Flushing last night: joyous tears from the famously oft-heartbroken fan base. Last night the Mets defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3, and stunned the baseball world by winning the World Series in five games in front of a rhapsodic home crowd. The season was as unlikely, memorable and miraculous as the franchise’s two previous championship efforts, in 1969 and 1986. The eyes of the Mets’ third baseman and captain, David Wright, glistened as the Fox reporter Ken Rosenthal awaited for the reply to the traditional inquiry to describe what this felt like. Wright surveyed the still surging crowd and responded, “I’ve waited my whole life for this moment.”

Mets Enter Season’s Final Day, Ambulances Standing By

The Mets set a record today. Not for runs scored, or scoreless innings pitched, or any other baseball-related feat. No, the Mets set a record today for the most emergency medical technicians present at a regular-season game. In what was described by Mets officials as “merely being cautious,” there were more than 1,500 E.M.T.s at Citi Field to tend to fans who might be overcome by the stress of watching their beloved and historically beleaguered team should they again lose an insurmountable lead on the last day of the season as they had done twice before in this century. Fortunately, they were playing the Nationals, a team which, if this were a Broadway matinee, would be announced as “playing the role of the N.Y. Mets today will be the Washington Nationals.” And so the Mets will head to the playoffs for the first time since 2006, memories of Carlos Beltran gazing at Adam Wainwright’s final pitch dancing in their heads like sugar plum fairies on Christmas Eve.

A Painful End to the Season

The sports world’s largest, stickiest Band-Aid finally yanked the last painful hairs from a sellout crowd of cringing, flinching Mets fans Sunday afternoon at Citi Field, as the Washington Nationals completed their agonizing September comeback and won the National League East, defeating New York, 7-4. The post-Labor Day collapse might be called unprecedented except Mets fans can point to identical Band-Aid-shaped hairless patches from 2007 and 2008. Whether the skin of Mets fans or the arms of Mets starters suffer from soreness more can be debated all off-season, along with such pressing questions as the value of Yoenis Cespedes’s parakeet arm and golden bat. The Mets, once again, will not be in the playoffs.

Win One for Norse Mythology

Noah Syndergaard felt for his curveball grip, as Altuve, the terrifying bearer of the tying run, danced off first. Syndergaard pondered Odin’s ravens Huginn and Muninn, as his visual field condensed into Travis d’Arnaud’s glove. These hawks, pushing off the Norse god’s left and right shoulders, soaring and bending across Midgard like Pedro Martinez’s breaking balls, represented thought (Huginn) and memory (Muninn). Syndegaard knew he would need the knowledge of grips and wrist snaps from the latter, the spontaneity to blow past Gattis and knee-buckle Gomez from the former. He knew that this was on him now, because he had sensed the predatory glee in Kazmir. Despite a mistake-turned-souvenir in the second inning, the phoenixlike southpaw had figured out the Mets, and it was likely they would not score any more runs. Syndergaard didn’t trust his own chicanery farther than his stuff could take it — not against Springer’s coordination or even the harsh side of Carter’s three potential outcomes. He would need a rare mode he called ginnheilagr (mighty), which he usually called on only for one pitch per game. He would need this revelrous flow-state to be with him for the season’s handful of remaining outs. “From there,” he recalled, touching the brim of his “World Series Champion” cap, his face betraying his extreme youth, “I kind of just hoped for the best.”

Forget Whodunit; Whowunit?

An inexplicably charred baseball, 13 dead fish, a twerking mascot and a befuddled umpire grasping to comprehend what had just taken place at home plate. Police and league officials continue to investigate exactly what occurred last night to finish the Mets season in circumstances that can genuinely be called bizarre.