Brewers are in, Mets fade again

For the first time since 1982, when it was a member of the American League and well before wild cards even existed, Milwaukee is going to the playoffs.

“It’s our time,” pitcher CC Sabathia said after beating the Cubs, 3-1, Sunday.

No such luck for the New York Mets. They lost on the field and were eliminated by Florida on the final day. Making it worse, a farewell-to-Shea Stadium followed.

“We failed. We failed as a team,” third baseman David Wright said. “There’s no pointing fingers. There’s no excuses. We as a unit didn’t get the job done.”

No telling yet about the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox. They still haven’t sorted out their AL Central scramble.

Today, Detroit visits Chicago in a makeup game. If the White Sox win, they play host to the Twins in a one-game playoff Tuesday for the AL Central title.

The Brewers and Mets went into the final day even at 89-72, facing the possibility of a wild-card tiebreaker at Shea.

After the Brewers beat the Cubs in Milwaukee, fans watched the Mets’ loss on the video board in center field. Quite an end for a team that fired manager Ned Yost with two weeks left and promoted coach Dale Sveum to run the club.

“I give all the credit to Ned,” Sveum said. “He’s one of my good friends. Just some unfortunate incidents. I love Ned from the bottom of my heart and I wish he was here right now.”

The Mets and their fans could only wonder what went wrong.

A year ago, they blew a seven-game division lead with 17 games left. This year, they wasted a 3 1/2 -game edge with 17 remaining.

Minus the 1981 split season, the Mets became the first team in history to hold 3 1/2 -game division leads in consecutive Septembers and fail to make the postseason both times.