As Mets show fatigue in NLCS, time could be ticking on their magical season

NEW YORK — When Francisco Lindor led off the bottom of the seventh inning, reality reduced Citi Field’s a cappella rendition of “My Girl” to a faint mumble.

It sounded appropriate, given all the fun that was had over the last handful of months juxtapositioned against what’s at stake now and how things have looked.

Time’s almost up on the New York Mets’ season.

The Mets face elimination after another lackluster performance in the National League Championship Series. They lost 10-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday night in a game in which they appeared thoroughly overmatched. Again. They trail the Dodgers in the series, 3-1.

Worse than those numbers, because teams have mounted comebacks facing such deficits, the Mets look like they have run out of gas.

“Sean (Manaea) said it the other day,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said when asked if his rotation had hit a proverbial wall.

Here’s what Manaea said Monday after his start when asked about his final inning: “I just hit a wall. I mean, I don’t know, I just hit a wall. I’m obviously not trying to do that. I really have no other excuse than that.”

So Mendoza went on …

“We ask a lot of these guys,” he said. “And we’re facing a good team. You’ve got to give those guys credit. That’s a deep lineup. That’s a good lineup. And whether those guys are feeling it or not we haven’t executed and we haven’t got length from them.”

The issue can be spotted elsewhere because there’s no one reason why the Mets have been outscored 30-9 in the NLCS, but the rotation is as good a place as any to start.

New York relied heavily on strong starting pitching during the final months of the regular season, but it came with a catch. The more the Mets’ veteran rotation, coming off injuries and shorter workloads a year ago, supplied quality outings, the more the fear grew that there’d be a tax to pay. Unfortunately, for the Mets, that due date popped up in mid-October.

The Mets’ path to winning in the postseason included camouflaging their shallow bullpen by trusting their starters to pitch deeper into games than most pitchers from other teams would in October. It hasn’t worked against the Dodgers, a lineup loaded with stars and an overall carrying tool of plate discipline.

Game 4 starter Jose Quintana, 35 years old and more than 100 innings over his total from when he was a year younger, never had much of a chance. The Dodgers negated his style of working the edges, leading to four walks, five hits and five runs in just 3 1/3 innings. By the time the scoring book closed on Quintana, the Mets faced a 5-2 deficit.

Earlier in the week, Mendoza relayed that rest days were an important part of the calculus when ordering his rotation for the NLCS — even though his starters were getting extra rest.

“I think it comes down to where they are physically,” Mendoza said. “Those three guys (Quintana, Manaea and Luis Severino), they are in territory right now that they haven’t been.”

Through four games, no Mets starter has recorded an out in the sixth inning. Meanwhile, on the Dodgers’ side, only Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty accomplished the feat, pitching seven innings. But that’s part of the difference between the Mets and the Dodgers. Los Angeles can win in other ways, including leaning on several leverage arms looming in its bullpen.

When Quintana’s outing ended, the Mets turned to reliever José Buttó. Once a mainstay in the late innings, shaky performance has relegated Buttó to lower-stress situations in the playoffs. Buttó allowed two inherited runners to score. It’s his first season as a consistent contributor on the major-league roster. Also, he began the season as a starter. Out of gas?

For Game 5, the Mets will start lefty David Peterson. As The Athletic previously reported, he always loomed as an option over Kodai Senga, as long as the Mets didn’t end up using him out of the bullpen first.

Peterson stands out as the Mets’ best option, but he hasn’t started a game since Sept. 29 and has pitched as a multi-inning reliever since, topping out at three innings on Oct. 5.

“We’ve gone through a lot this year,” Peterson said, “and it’s made us who we are at this point.”

Lindor added, “If you have no belief, you shouldn’t be here. You gotta believe. You gotta fight for what you want. You gotta fight for it.”

From New York’s perspective, the season is not yet over. The Mets talked about adding a new chapter to a wild plot containing pages on OMG and Grimace. On Friday, The Temptations will perform “My Girl” after singing the national anthem. Yes, that’s another real sentence about the 2024 Mets. They hope to author a few more improbable ones.

Inside the clubhouse, there was a common theme as players pulled from the past. The Mets were down to their last out in Milwaukee, multiple players pointed out. That was in the Wild Card Series, though. It didn’t entail winning three in a row. It was only a couple of weeks ago, but it feels like much longer. Plenty has happened since.

And it hasn’t been just the Mets’ rotation that has seemingly run out of gas in this series. Position players like Jose Iglesias and Francisco Alvarez haven’t done much, either. Brandon Nimmo is dealing with plantar fasciitis, and, to his credit, continues to hustle on every groundball.

The Mets have overcome plenty of challenges. Players walked the line of inspiring hope while acknowledging the weight of this particular task. The Mets shouldn’t be counted out completely, but their long-held concerns over how they navigated previous tests may finally be catching up to them.

(Top photo of Mets in the dugout: Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)