October or bust? Inside Juan Soto's wild first Mets season - ESPN

THE NEW YORK METS reached a milestone when they completed their final homestand of the 2025 season last weekend: 3,182,057 fans had passed through the turnstiles, setting a single-season attendance record at Citi Field.

But the homestand, as far as it mattered in the standings, was a horror show. Battling to hold on to the final wild-card playoff spot in the National League, the Mets lost two of three to the Texas Rangers, took two of three from the playoff-bound San Diego Padres, then lost control of their postseason destiny after inexplicably dropping two of three games in a slapdash performance against the lowly Washington Nationals.

The sellout crowd at Sunday's loss, in turn, serenaded the Mets with boos.

It was also rough at times for Juan Soto. Against the Nationals, the organization that first signed and developed him, he delivered two multihit games, a tying ninth-inning single, a home run, and two steals. But he also made his first error of the season, a costly mistake that allowed a run to score in Friday's extra-inning loss, and was caught stealing in Sunday's one-run defeat. It felt fitting in what has been a topsy-turvy first season as a Met for the highest-paid free agent in baseball history.

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While spirited fans — encouraged by the progress under owner Steve Cohen's watch, and fresh off the high of the team's captivating 2024 run to the NL Championship Series — filled the ballpark eager to watch a World Series contender, the club with the second-most expensive roster in the majors went from holding the best record in baseball in mid-June to floundering so badly for three-plus months that a