The Mets were back in Miami this week, returning to the ballpark where their 2025 season ended with a 4-0 shutout loss to the Marlins that kept them out of the postseason. New York opened the series at 22-28, still carrying the memory of a finish that left the club watching October from home.
Miami had already beaten the Mets seven times in their 13 meetings last season, a small but painful edge for a division opponent that seemed to find New York at the worst possible moments. The Mets arrived after finally snapping into form with their first sweep of the season, a 2-2 split against the Nationals in Washington that included a 16-7 win Monday, losses of 9-6 and 8-4, and a 2-1 victory Thursday.
That swing in Washington gave the Mets a little momentum, but it also came with plenty of volatility. One of the week's oddest notes was the 10-run twelfth inning in the series, a burst that showed how quickly one game can tilt in this lineup. The club's return to Miami, though, was about more than carrying over a hot week. It was about facing the team that ended their season and doing it with the standings still tight enough to matter again.
For the Mets, the backdrop is obvious. Their final game of the 2025 season was supposed to be the last step into October, and instead it became the game that shut the door. The Reds also lost their final game that day, but New York's 4-0 defeat in Miami was the one that mattered most to its own fate.
The series in Washington offered a few reasons for optimism. Bo Bichette entered Monday with two home runs on the season and left the four-game set with three home runs, a 7-for-18 line, nine of the team's 28 runs driven in and five runs scored. Juan Soto, meanwhile, went 6-for-16 with three home runs, giving him five homers in his last eight games dating back to May 14. Carson Benge also kept showing up, leading the club with eight hits while posting a.351/.400/.459 line in May after finishing April at.189/.247/.289 with a team-worst.525 OPS among qualified hitters.
Those numbers matter because they show a team that is not only trying to move on from last season's collapse, but also trying to prove that the surge in Washington was more than a brief lift. The Mets and Marlins know each other too well for Miami to be just another stop, and the fact that New York entered the matchup at 22-28 while Miami was 22-29 only sharpened the sense that every game in this stretch could change the view from the standings. The question now is not whether the Mets remember what happened in Miami. It is whether they can finally make this trip mean something different.
