There might not be a nightmare scenario for the 2025 MLB playoffs that the 81-76 New York Mets have to account for if they slip up in the coming games. On Tuesday, the Mets at least put themselves back in control of a playoff spot with a 9-7 win over a Chicago Cubs team that has already clinched a playoff spot. Nonetheless, to say that the past few weeks have been going swimmingly for the Mets would be a massive lie.
The Cincinnati Reds are hot on their tails, and with five games to go, a one-game lead is as precarious as it can get for a Mets team that doesn't own the tiebreaker over the Reds. The Mets also don't own a tiebreaker against the 80-77 Arizona Diamondbacks, which means that New York is trying to hold off two teams at the same time while trying to get into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth similar to how they qualified for the postseason last year.
There are far bigger problems that the Mets have to resolve in the present before they even look towards any nightmare scenario that may pop up in the playoffs. At the end of the day, the biggest nightmare for them remains to miss out on the postseason altogether.
Mets' nightmare scenario: finish in a three-way tie with Reds, Diamondbacks
To begin the month of September, it seemed like the Mets were safely in playoff position. The Philadelphia Phillies were running away with the division, but the Mets were nestled safely within the cushion of the Wild Card. But September has seen many collapses over the years, and New York is currently in the middle of one.
The Mets were still six games ahead of the Reds on the fourth of September. That lead has dwindled to one, and the Reds even took the lead for the third NL Wild Card spot prior to Tuesday night's ballgames.
The only saving grace for the Mets when it comes to the Reds is that Cincinnati is going to finish their season against the best team in MLB in the Milwaukee Brewers. Sure, the next two games for the Reds will be against the Pittsburgh Pirates, but they did lose on Tuesday and might end up tripping on yet another banana peel.
Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks are going to finish their 2025 campaign against the two playoff bound NL West teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. This actually puts the Mets in a favorable spot when their last three games of the season will be against the Miami Marlins, a sub-.500 team.
So for the Mets to end up with a worse record than the Reds and Diamondbacks seems rather unlikely even if it's possible.
Nevertheless, it is very possible that the Mets end up in a three-way tie with the Reds and Diamondbacks and they end up being the odd team out.
The Reds' ownership of the tiebreaker over the Mets is fairly straightforward: they won four out of six games against them in 2025 and therefore own the season series.
The Diamondbacks also own the tiebreaker at the moment, but from a more complicated rule. Since the Diamondbacks and Mets tied the season series (3-3), the team with the better division record earns the tiebreaker. Arizona is currently 26-21 against the NL West while New York is currently 24-25.
Both teams aren't done playing teams in their division, which means that this is not yet set in stone. New York has three more games against an NL East team, while the Diamondbacks have five. The worst Arizona can finish against the NL West is 26-26, while the Mets can still finish 27-25.
At the very least, the Mets own the third tiebreaker over the Diamondbacks (record against NL teams). New York is currently 57-52 against NL teams while Arizona is 55-54. But again, nothing is set in stone in this regard.
It would be extremely heartbreaking if the Mets end up with a three-way tie with the Reds and Diamondbacks; this would give Cincinnati the playoff nod since they won the season series against both the Mets and Diamondbacks.
What makes this the nightmare scenario is that the Mets could have just rendered all of this moot had they taken care of business against the Reds earlier in the year. Any outcome that ends up with the Mets outside the postseason will be considered a nightmare, but for them to fall short just because they lost two series in July and September to a Cincinnati team that seemed like it was way out of the playoff picture would be all the more devastating.
