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Look - I even said on here after they won the division (something I never saw as a realistic option in Spring Training, much less in June when they had John goddamn Mayberry Jr batting cleanup) that anything they did in the playoffs was gravy. I felt that way even moreso after the thrilling NLDS win, and felt it even more after the NLCS.
I knew the Royals would be fucking hard to beat, and they'd need to play crisp, mistake-free baseball to do so. I went into the World Series knowing it would suck to come close and lose but, at the end of the day, there'd be no shame in losing to this Royals team.
But to lose in THAT fashion? They were 2 outs away from winning Game 1 and Familia threw his worst pitch of the postseason. 5 outs away from winning Game 4 and Murphy decided to pull a Murph. 1 out away from winning Game 5 and Duda literally threw it away.
8 fucking outs is all that separated the Mets from a title. The Royals absolutely deserve to be champions for managing to stage a comeback. But knowing the Mets completely melted down in the late innings in 3 of their losses is a bitter pill to swallow, especially since 4 and 5 were completely preventable if they had even league average defenders. Moreover, as someone who has dealt with "LOLMETS!" comments since 2007, it really sucked that the team had to lose in that fashion and give people a chance to crap on them even after going through all of that to repair their image.
Even if I was viewing the WS as house money, the reality is pennants are never a sure thing. I believe this team will contend for a playoff spot for the next few years but even if they make it, the playoffs are a crapshoot. How many times has the prohibitive playoff favorite been knocked out in the division series round? Getting to the fall classic is hard.
If the Mets don't get back to that point while they have this pitching staff intact, it's completely fair for Mets fans to point to 2015 as "the one that got away"...maybe even moreso than 2006.
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