The New York baseball pressure cooker has reached its boiling point, and David Stearns is right in the middle of it. The Mets and Cincinnati are tied for the last Wild Card spot at 82-78, but the Reds have the important tiebreaker. Stearns watched his team lose to Miami 6-2 on Friday, which perfectly sums up the end of his time as manager. The Reds celebrated a 3-1 win over Milwaukee. As a result, David Stearns’ job has been put under the microscope by a broadcaster.

Friday night in Miami was a perfect example of everything that has gone wrong with the Mets this season. Brandon Sproat’s steady pitching gave the team a 2-0 lead that they could control. But in the fifth inning, things got out of hand and turned into a defensive nightmare. A winnable game turned into a terrible 6-2 loss to the Marlins because of mental mistakes and basic breakdowns. The collapse wasn’t just about the runs given up; it was also about a team that had forgotten how to perform under pressure when it mattered most.

Joe B, a WFAN broadcaster, didn’t hold back when he gave a harsh review of the organization’s current state. “How could this happen? Because David Stearns thinks he’s smarter than everybody, right?” he declared on air. “The typical modern general manager, president of a team, young guy, Ivy League education… they got to reinvent the wheel.” When he talked about the team’s main problems, his criticism got even stronger:  “Defensively, they throw the ball around. They can’t catch the ball. They can’t throw the ball. I mean, it’s unbelievable.”

The broadcaster was upset with the way the roster was put together, which showed that Stearns was trying to save money. “He put this team together. He put the pitching together. Didn’t want to spend any money on these pitchers. He wants to go on the cheap, although he did give Francisco Lindor 34 million,” Joe B stated. His prediction proved particularly ominous: “They don’t make the playoffs, Carlos Mendoza is going to be on a hot seat… But the guy that’s got to pay the price is Stearns.”

The Mets are now facing the mathematical reality straightaway. The New York Yankees no longer control their own playoff fate because the Cincinnati Reds beat the Brewers on Friday. To get a wild-card spot, the team needs to do better than Cincinnati in the last two games of the regular season. Manager Carlos Mendoza didn’t mince words after the collapse. “We continue to make those mistakes, and it’s costing us games,” he admitted via SNY. “It’s on me, it’s on all of us. We continue to make the same mistakes, and it’s costing us games.” 

Mendoza’s admission of repeated failures is just the tip of the iceberg for a franchise-wide meltdown that has turned October dreams into a desperate fight for survival. The manager’s words ring out in a company that worked hard to win championships but now begs for scraps.

Mets’ Playoff Fate Hangs in the Balance

That harsh truth goes way beyond the Miami disaster on Friday. The New York Mets have gone from being in the running for the playoffs to being desperate scoreboard watchers. They have given up control of their October fate to Cincinnati. What used to look like a good Wild Card spot has turned into a terrible tiebreaker nightmare that shows all the flaws in this team’s structure.

Arizona’s recent loss made the playoff picture clearer, but it didn’t help New York’s growing anxiety. Only two teams are fighting for that last spot, and the Mets are on the losing end of the tiebreaker. The weekend scenarios require a team that has always fallen apart under pressure when the stakes are highest to be perfect.

The games on Saturday show very clear mathematical truths that can’t be wrong. If the Mets win and the Reds lose, they will be back in charge of the playoffs going into Sunday’s season finale. They are praying for help from outside sources if they don’t get this combination right, because their season is on the verge of falling apart.

The irony is strongest when you think about how things were last year. In 2023, the Mets knocked Cincinnati out of the playoffs, but now they really want the Reds to mess up at the end. This drop in scoreboard watching is the worst thing that could happen to David Stearns’ roster building and organizational philosophy for a team that was built to win championships and had the money to do so.