New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns says the team's sprint over the final three months of the regular season played a role in their loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series.

Speaking to reporters at his end-of-season press conference, Stearns explained that the Mets "ran out of gas" because of what they asked from their players after a slow start to the season:

"I think we probably ran out of gas a little bit. We had pushed our guys really hard from June 1 on because we needed to. Every single game in the regular season mattered and then clearly every single game in the postseason mattered. And that's part of it. We also ran into a really, really talented Dodgers team that was playing about as good a baseball as you could play."

There were long stretches of this season when the idea of the Mets making the playoffs, let alone coming within two wins of getting to the World Series, seemed laughable.

They were 11 games under .500 (24-35) after a 5-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 2. The only NL teams with a worse record at that point were the Colorado Rockies (21-37) and Miami Marlins (21-39).

New York went an MLB-best 65-38 from that point on and earned the No. 6 seed in the NL playoffs. The positive momentum carried into the postseason with a thrilling Game 3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the wild card series and a victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLDS.

Just when it looked like the Mets might be a team of destiny, they ran into the buzzsaw that is the Dodgers. All six games in the NLCS were blowouts for the winning team.

The Dodgers' 46 runs were the most by any team in a single postseason series history. The previous record of 44 runs was done by the 1996 Atlanta Braves in the NLCS and 2002 San Francisco Giants in the World Series when they both played seven games.

This year's NLCS only lasted six games. Luis Severino threw 198.2 innings between the regular season and playoffs, more than he had in the previous two years combined (191.1).

Kodai Senga only pitched one game in the regular season due to injuries. He looked rough in three playoff outings, allowing seven runs on six hits and seven walks in five innings.

There just weren't enough arms available for the Mets to have a shot at shutting down the Dodgers for an entire series. The lineup did its best to keep up, but the Dodgers never slowed down once they found their groove after a 7-3 loss in Game 2.

Despite the disappointing end to the season, the Mets still put together their best year since reaching the World Series in 2015. Since they looked like a team that might challenge for the worst record in the NL after the first two months, this was a very successful season for the franchise.