The Mets' exciting season simply can't end at Citi Field

What Bill Parcells said 35 years ago still applies: In professional sports, there are no medals if you try. There are no consolation prizes.

“Show me a good loser,” George Steinbrenner liked to say, “and I’ll show you a loser.”

Yes. All of this is fair. All of this is fine. And unless you have the rosiest rose-colored glasses possible, by now you've probably already gone through the baseball version of the five stages of grief, from denial to acceptance.

The Dodgers are so good and have played their best for most of this National League Championship Series. The Mets aren't that good and had to do their best to keep the Dodgers in their sights and they weren't close. Crazy things happen in sports. This would be verifiable.

So that has to be the hope now: that the Mets can give you one last cramp of summer in the sun late Friday afternoon. That they can stave off the inevitable and continue this wonderful journey for two more days. It will take something like an act of God to beat the Dodgers three times, 10-2, right after the loss they suffered in that game.

Lost three times in a row, 1:3? Order a miracle.

But one in a row?

The Mets can win one in a row. It's baseball. The White Sox defeated the Guardians five times this year. They beat the Yankees once. They only won 35 more games all year, but they managed to win six against the top two teams in their league. Of course, the Mets can beat the Dodgers on Friday afternoon, no matter how big the gap was between them the last two nights.

And that would be correct. That would be appropriate. The fans who will fill Citi Field for the third straight day and fifth time in the last eight days deserve it. That goes for the Mets, too, who have reminded everyone what a sonic delight their home stadium can be in October and who should do everything they can to ensure this is a one-of-a-kind event and not a blip, as is all too often the case is.

“We've had our backs against the wall before, and now we're doing it again, and we're going to do our best to enrich the story and create more magic,” said Brandon Nimmo, who is the one-man microcosm of The Mets are struggling right now, barely able to run, but run hard enough to beat a double play that scored the Mets' final run. “It won’t be easy, but nothing we did was, so it’s a fitting end to the story.”

They both deserve another day in the sun, a few more “My Girl” sing-alongs whenever Francisco Lindor takes the stage (as well as a few more “M! V! P!” chants to accompany those attacks to underline). . They still need a few big swings from young third baseman Mark Vientos, who has chosen October as the most opportune time to reach for his star.

And they're certainly owed a few more plate appearances – and, why not, maybe a rocket or two – from Pete Alonso, since there's no telling what will happen between him and the Mets in the next few months.

Most of the time, it would feel wrong to end this magic carpet ride with a sweep at home. We get it: The Dodgers didn't win those 98 games in a raffle. Not coincidentally, they bounced back from the loss to the Padres. They are good. They're damn good. They have the sport's most electric offensive player, Shohei Ohtani, leading the way, and they have Mookie Betts – just a step or three behind him – at second.

They have an assembly line of live weapons in the bullpen. They have grinders lined up behind their stars, one by one, and they refuse to hit balls that drift even an inch out of the strike zone. The core has been softened and hardened by many of our own disappointments in October and looks much stronger for it.

There's a reason Steve Cohen is desperately trying to build his own model of Dodger Way and put a “Mets” logo on it. The Dodgers are who the Mets want to be. And this year, the Mets took some big steps in that direction. But this series was no fluke, and the fourth defeat that inevitably looms will not be a catastrophe.

But the Mets can make the Dodgers work for it. You can give Citi Field one more day in the sun and give everyone one more happy look back. At least you can fly the Dodgers 3,000 miles to earn your champagne and then try your luck at old Dodger Stadium.

We thought all along that if they sneaked into the playoffs, they would be a tough opponent, these Mets. The Brewers found this out the hard way. So did the Phillies. It only feels right that if the Dodgers want to take their victory lap, they should do so on Pacific Time. After all, it's always sunny out there.

Not here. The Mets have one last day in the sun on Friday. You might as well make the most of it.