Mets drop 8th straight game and are losing grip on NL playoff spot

NEW YORK (AP) — Juan Soto joined some rarefied air Saturday by becoming the third player in major league history with 40 homers, 30 steals and 100 walks in a season.

Then the New York Mets moved closer to a far more dubious feat.

Wyatt Langford hit a tiebreaking single off All-Star closer Edwin Díaz with two outs in the ninth inning, and the Texas Rangers rallied past the reeling Mets for a 3-2 win.

The loss was the eighth straight for the Mets — their longest skid since 2018. It continued a precipitous fall for New York (76-73), which was a big league-best 45-24 through June 12 but is now only a half-game ahead of San Francisco for the final National League playoff berth, with Cincinnati and Arizona close behind, too.

“We’re here to achieve our ultimate goal,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We’ve got to get going here fast. That’s the bottom line. We’ve got to get the job done, period. It’s been too long.”

In the wild-card era (since 1994), only two teams have been 45-24 or better through 69 games and failed to qualify for the postseason. The 2002 Boston Red Sox and 2003 Seattle Mariners both won 93 games, yet missed out when only one wild card per league advanced to the playoffs.

“We have everything we need to go all the way,” said Soto, who signed a $765 million contract with the Mets less than two months after they made the NL Championship Series last year. “The only thing is we just keep losing games. I don’t know what else to do right now.”

Soto has been one of the few bright spots over the last eight games, a span in which he’s hitting .313 with three homers, five RBIs and four stolen bases. He is the fourth player in team history to post a 30/30 season and the fifth to hit 40 homers.

Soto, Barry Bonds (1996, 1997) and Jeff Bagwell (1997, 1999) are the only major leaguers with 40 homers, 30 steals and 100 walks in a season.

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“Really impressive, but we have bigger things in front of us that we’ve got to go out and get,” Soto said.

The Mets have spoken often over the last several weeks about their experience climbing out of holes. New York got off to a 24-35 start last year but had the best record in baseball the rest of the way before making the playoffs on the final day of the season.

“We’ve got a lot of baseball left. Two more weeks — things can happen in two more weeks,” Díaz said. “We can turn it around. We’ve done that in the past.”

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb