David Stearns, Carlos Mendoza are on clock after Mets’ heartless flop

You can’t even say they went out with a whimper, because a whimper requires a heartbeat and the Mets flatlined this game, same as they’ve flatlined the past 3 ½ months. A whimper produces an actual sound, and across 2 hours and 49 minutes on the last day of this abomination of a season, the Mets were as quiet as a church mouse.

A whimper requires even a minimum amount of oxygen. And in what would have been their last gasp of the season … well, they couldn’t even muster a gasp. They lost 4-0 to the Marlins, who were engaged all game, fist-bumping and glad-handing, playing the part of the baseball team on the field at Miami’s loanDepot Park playing for the pleasure of a playoff spot.

Looking every bit the team that played baseball 14 ½ games better than the Mets did since the middle of June. And so for the 70th time in 70 tries this year, they lost a game when trailing after eight innings. 0-70. That’s the most perfect stat of all, reflecting a team with a heart problem, an oxygen problem and no answers — literally, none — when good teams find them somewhere at least once in a while.

“Hard to describe,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said in the quiet aftermath of a stunning baseball flop. “No words to describe what we’re going through — pain, frustration, you name it. We came in with a lot of expectations, and here we are, going home. We not only fell short, but didn’t even get to October. This is a team built not only to get into October, but deep into October.”