The faces in the crowd told the story. In the eighth inning Thursday evening, many of the 43,882 fans at Citi Field found their way out. Those left behind mostly stared straight ahead, stone-faced, seemingly in shock and disbelief, save for a moment when they let out a round of sarcastic cheers after their pitchers finally managed to eliminate Max Muncy.

The New York Mets, who had shown so much resilience and determination to reach the National League Championship Series, suffered another thorough defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who followed an 8-0 shellacking in Queens in Game 3 with a 10- 2 beatings at the same location in Game 4.

Here are three insights as the Dodgers put the Mets on the brink and were one win away from returning to the World Series for the first time since winning it all in 2020.

1. Has the Mets’ magic run out?

It’s the Mets’ tough-as-nails nature that got them here. On June 2, there were eleven games under .500. From then on, no one in baseball was better. A McDonald’s mascot became an enduring image of a rising team and a changing atmosphere. When the team started winning, “OMG” became their anthem. Not only were they good, they were fun.

Francisco Lindor ensured the glow would last into October with his game-winning homer that sent them to the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. When Pete Alonso followed in the wild-card series with the team down two runs, two outs away from elimination with a game-winning homer against one of the best closers in baseball, this seemed like a team of destiny.

Until they met the Dodgers, who defeated them by 21 runs in four games.

The Mets hit .265 with an .808 OPS with runners in scoring position during the regular season. In the NLCS, they are hitting .138 with a .541 OPS and seven RBIs in those situations. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are hitting .333 with a .942 OPS and 24 RBIs with runners in scoring position.

In Game 4, the Mets had 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position and failed to record a hit in all of those at-bats. Their most egregious foul came in the sixth inning, after Mookie Betts sent one of his four hits on the night out for a homer to extend the Dodgers’ lead to five. The Mets answered back in the bottom half of the frame by loading the bases with no outs.

And then?

Jose Iglesias struck out. Jeff McNeil sent a fly ball to center field that might have been deep enough to score Brandon Nimmo had plantar fasciitis not bothered the Mets outfielder throughout the series. He didn’t even try to score. When Jesse Winker’s promising drive to right field died just before the warning track, it was all but over.

At the beginning of September, the Mets’ chances of making the playoffs were just 29.6%. If they’re looking for some motivation, that percentage isn’t far off the odds of winning an LCS with three elimination games to go. Teams leading 3-1 have won 82% of the time.

If the Mets can somehow find a way to dig out of the hole they’ve created here, it will be their biggest trick yet in a season that has seemed magical thus far.

2. The Mets’ biggest advantage hasn’t played out.

The tone for the series was quickly set when Jack Flaherty went seven scoreless innings in the best start of his Dodgers tenure, while Kodai Senga allowed as many runs (four) as putouts in Game 1. But given Senga’s lack of innings this year, that was the only game that seemed to be in the Dodgers’ favor. The Mets would be the group with the starting pitching depth.

Sean Manaea demonstrated the same thing in Game 2, cutting through the opposing lineup as the Mets thwarted the Dodgers’ bullpen game plans, ending Los Angeles pitchers’ streak of 33 consecutive scoreless innings and momentum was reversed when the series went to New York.

They had to feel good with Luis Severino and Jose Quintana playing Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto the next two nights.

Then the Dodgers destroyed them in both matchups, walking four against Severino in Game 3 and four more against Quintana in Game 4, as a disciplined LA lineup retired both Mets starters early. It was a tough assignment for Quintana, who lives for the chase, against a team that doesn’t want to leave the attacking zone.

Buehler and Yamamoto, meanwhile, combined to strikeout 14 batters and allowed two runs in 8.1 innings.

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The Mets had not faced Yamamoto since April 19, when he allowed four runs (three earned) in six innings. He didn’t throw a single slider during that meet. In Game 4, he switched it up and threw 14, which represented a season high. The Mets smoked half of their ten swings against the pitch, accounting for four of Yamamoto’s eight strikeouts.

It was the same pitch Yamamoto used to confuse Yankees hitters the last time he was in New York, when he threw seven scoreless innings on June 7 in a game that many pointed to before the playoffs as an example of his ability to thrive with the lights at their brightest. However, it was thought that the increased use of his slider might also have contributed to the shoulder problem that sidelined him for three months not long after that start against the Yankees. But there’s no denying the pitch’s effectiveness and how it compares to the rest of his arsenal, and he clearly felt good about that Thursday night.

After Buehler had 18 swings and misses in Game 3 – his highest total of the season – Yamamoto followed with 16, his third-highest total of the year, in just 4.1 innings of work. That’s all the Dodgers needed before handing the game over to their pen, where they had the clear advantage.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza opted to save David Peterson despite Quintana’s struggles Thursday. With their season on the line, they’ll turn to that person in a do-or-die Game 5, perhaps with less on the line than Mendoza was willing to grant Quintana as his night unfolded Thursday.

3. The Dodgers’ MVPs thrived. But there’s a lot more to this ruthless line-up.

With one former MVP out of the lineup, two more played key roles. With the Dodgers giving Freddie Freeman the night off to rest his injured ankle, the rest of the Dodgers lineup picked up the slack.

“There was no excuse,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We expected to win this game tonight.”

It started from the top. Shohei Ohtani and Betts each reached base four times, with both going deep and the latter finishing a triple short in the cycle.

Ohtani entered the night 17-for-20 dating back to the end of the regular season with runners in scoring position, a record in the live-ball era. Strangely enough, it was a completely different story because there was no one on the base. He was 0-for-22 with the bases empty entering Thursday, when he immediately ended the curious skid by crushing a Quintana sinker off the bat at 110 mph for a 450-foot home on the second pitch of the game.

He reached base three more times on walks, meaning he had to throw to another MVP, who often made them pay. Betts went 4-for-6 with 4 RBIs and brought home Ohtani with a double in the fourth and a home run in the sixth.

There was no place for Mets pitchers to rest. Tommy Edman had two hits and drove in three runs, October legend Kiké Hernández added two more hits and Muncy reached base each of his first four times, running his on-base streak to an MLB postseason record of 12 consecutive plate appearances before he struckout in the eighth.

“I wasn’t even aware of that,” Muncy told Tom Verducci of FOX Sports after the game. “That’s pretty cool. The most important thing for me is that it means I get on base for my teammates.”

Up and down the lineup, the Dodgers have been working the Mets pitchers.

After allowing five walks in a Game 1 victory in the NLDS, the Padres stopped granting free passes to the Dodgers, issuing no more than three walks in a game in a subsequent matchup. Against the Mets, the Dodgers have walked at least seven times every game. At the time of Betts’ two-run double in the fourth inning, all four of their run-scoring hits had come with batters ahead in the count.

The Dodgers have 16 hits and 24 RBIs with runners in scoring position in the NLCS. The other three teams in the LCS have combined for 11 hits and 20 RBIs with runners in scoring position.

“Right now I’m still kind of enjoying it, but I’m already thinking about Peterson tomorrow,” Roberts said. “Yes, we still have some work to do.”

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the LA Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. Rowan, an LSU graduate, was born in California, raised in Texas and then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.

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