NEW YORK -- For a long while, Steven Matz crouched on the Citi Field mound, head down, expression blank. Matz had just allowed the first grand slam of his career to Jorge Alfaro. In so doing, he balled up the last bits of the Mets’ playoff pipe dream and tossed them aside.

The Mets fought back because that’s what they do, but once their 8-4 loss to the Marlins was complete, they found themselves five games back of the Brewers for the National League’s second Wild Card spot with only six to play. Any combination of two Brewers wins or Mets losses will eliminate them, and that’s not even their only possible path to elimination. At this point, winning all of their remaining games likely won’t be enough.

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And so Matz stared down at his glove as if it held the answers or the antidote. Eventually, he lifted his eyes but remained crouched on the mound, looking off into the distance.

“I just wanted to keep us in position to where we could win, give the guys a chance,” Matz said. “I felt like with this year, we always have a chance. But that was really a big blow.”

That the Mets’ season unraveled in this fashion was hardly the fault of Matz, who is part of one of the league’s best rotations. He simply happened to make a mistake at a time when the Mets were past their capacity to absorb any more of them. The sixth inning began with three consecutive singles, including one that rolled past a diving Todd Frazier and another that Frazier did not dive to pursue. With the bases loaded, Matz threw an elevated slider to Alfaro, who crushed it to right-center field for his second home run of the night.

“Going into that sixth inning, I felt really good,” Matz said. “My stuff was a little bit flat today but I still felt pretty good out there. A couple of seeing-eye hits and then I make a bad pitch. That’s the way it goes.”

Half an inning later, Amed Rosario hit a grand slam of his own, which at least made things close. Given that scrap of life, manager Mickey Callaway turned to rookie Walker Lockett, who entered with a 6.85 ERA and just three appearances in September. Lockett allowed the only two batters he faced to reach base, Brad Brach gave both the chance to score when he was late covering first base on a potential inning-ending ground ball, and this time, the Mets never recovered.

In many ways, the game was a microcosm of the Mets’ season: big early hole, spirited fight back, not quite enough in the end. Formal elimination could occur as soon as Tuesday, when the Mets and Marlins play the second of four games at Citi Field.

“Our backs are against the wall,” Callaway said. “I think this team has performed pretty well when their backs are against the wall, so we need to step it up. We need to make another run at it. Never give up. I think that’s all this team knows how to do.”

Others offered similar sentiments, even while acknowledging that the damage may already be done. Following Monday’s loss, the Mets’ Fangraphs playoffs odds reached a season-low 0.3 percent -- less than the mathematical odds of winning six straight.

“Right now, nothing’s impossible for us,” Rosario said through an interpreter. “The emotions are still high in this clubhouse, and we still think that we can make something happen.”

“Until the number says 'E' in the column, you've got to play,” Brach added, referring to the Mets’ elimination number. “You just never know what can happen. … We can’t really control what the other teams do at this point. We’ve just got to go out and win every single day and hopefully, come Sunday, we still have a chance.”