The version of this game that actually played out blew past whatever price anyone posted beforehand. New York scored in five of its nine innings, piled up 16 hits and cashed in on two Miami errors, and Pérez never found the soft-contact command that's carried him for stretches this season. By the time it was over, the 9-4 final left little doubt about which club controlled the day.
Both clubs came in treading water more than surging. New York had won its last game and gone 3-2 across its last 5, taking 2 of the first 3 from San Francisco after splitting a two-game set with Tampa Bay. Miami, sitting right at .500 on the season, had also won its last game but was 2-3 over its last 5, coming off a split with Kansas City and losing 2 of 3 to the Cubs. Per a CBS Sports report ahead of the series, the Marlins were still clinging to wild-card hopes — the kind of stakes that made Monday's flop sting more than a typical September loss.
Miami's injury sheet explains some of what went wrong. Xavier Edwards was back to fielding grounders but hadn't been activated, and with Bender shut down and Fairbanks still a bullpen session away from returning, Miami didn't have its full relief group even if the game had stayed tight. New York's absences — Williams, Garrett and Cionel Pérez all out — didn't end up mattering much against an offense that scored early and often.
The Polymarket chat, running nearly double its usual season crowd for this game, lit up as New York pulled away. One poster holding the Mets wrote, "yall gonna learn bout tong today," and another, also holding New York, promised, "If they come back I will twerk on insta live," as the lead widened. By the final out, there wasn't much left for the room to argue about.