The Mets are in the middle of a best-of-three week in search of a playoff spot, and they're in the middle of a best-of-three wild-card round series.
If you haven't noticed, we already know the identities of 11 of the 12 postseason teams, excluding the incredible performances of the Cubs, Mariners and Red Sox.
Of course, there are contests — such as whether the Yankees or Orioles will win the AL East or who will win the AL Central — but as of Saturday, 11 teams had at least an 81 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs. The only mystery involved the National League wild card.
“You hate looking at the scoreboard at the beginning of the month, but every game matters at the end,” said Phil Mutton, who has been to the playoffs in three of the past four seasons. “You don't want to get to an end-of-year series and think, 'Oh, if only we'd won one game here or one game there, things would have been different.'
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post
Look, even at this late date, the odds of making the playoffs can vary wildly between success and failure. The Diamondbacks and Padres were among 11 teams with an 80% or higher chance of making the playoffs, but that seems more shaky. Consider that the Mets entered Saturday on an eight-game winning streak that saw their playoff odds rise from 13.1% to 49.1% during that time.
The Mets are in a tie with Atlanta for the final wild card spot, four games behind the Braves, 5¹/₂ behind the Diamondbacks, 1¹/₂ games out of the second wild card spot, and three games back of the Padres for first place in the wild card standings.
The Mets can't keep this momentum going for the rest of the season as their schedule gets more difficult with one of their two remaining series against the Phillies coming up later this week, but really, this is about the momentum the top teams in the National League have had since the All-Star break and who's going to slow down and by how much.
The six teams with the best second half results in the major leagues were National League teams: Padres (31 wins, 13 losses, 75.0 win percentage), Diamondbacks (30 wins, 15 losses, 667.0 win percentage), Dodgers (28 wins, 16 losses, 636.0 win percentage), Mets (28 wins, 18 losses, 609.0 win percentage), Brewers (25 wins, 18 losses, 581.0 win percentage), and Cubs (25 wins, 18 losses, 581.0 win percentage). The Braves also had a win percentage of over 50.00 (24 wins, 22 losses), so the Mets did not have an easy time making the playoffs. Instead, the beginning of September has been like October.
“In a way, we're almost like that. [in the playoffs now]”It's not quite the same atmosphere as being in the playoffs and getting that fresh start for the first time, but every day, every game, every inning matters, and that's playoff baseball,” said Francisco Lindor, who has played in 28 games for the Mets, second only to J.D. Martinez's 33.
So, as the season winds down, all of these issues intensify. The Mets learned Saturday that Jeff McNeil has a minor fracture in his wrist that will keep him out for at least the remainder of the regular season. McNeil had returned to bolster the Mets' lineup since the Fourth of July, batting .280 with an .893 OPS.
But the Mets have given Senga Kodai another relief outing as he recovers from a calf strain. He's eligible to return from the 60-day disabled list on Sept. 25. That date comes in the middle of a three-game series in Atlanta that feels like a collision course for this year's game and the Mets' rocky history with the Braves. The Mets are hoping Senga can make three or four starts late in the regular season and maybe in a playoff series.
But as much as the Braves series awaits, the Mets have business to do here and there — and it's not the kind of business that would have been expected four to six weeks ago, when the National League Wild Card race was a close call at .500. But the hypocrites are gone, as is any conviction that this season will be like last season, when two 84-win teams (Arizona and Miami) made the playoffs.
The Braves and Mets are on an 88-win trajectory and may need as many as 90 wins to qualify.
“It's a four-team wild card bunch,” Mutton said. “It's not absolute win-or-lose every night, but it's pretty close, and any little bit of advantage we can get towards the end is really important. I hate to single out any series, but obviously we have the Atlanta series (the penultimate series of the year) coming up and it's going to be a big series for us, so it's important that we go into that series with momentum.”
