You’ve Got to Believe, How the Mets Can Win Their Division
The New York Mets, fresh off taking two games from the Philadelphia Phillies, were powered by their recently hot infield. They are now only five games back of their Northeast rivals. As luck would have it, that’s the exact number of games left between the two. This sets the stage for tonight, where if the Mets finish off the sweep, they’d clinch the tiebreaker. While it certainly isn’t impossible for the Mets to still win the division if they lose tonight, the road just gets a lot more arduous.
As far as the game tonight, it wouldn’t be an understatement to say the Mets should be favored tonight with rookie spin rate savant Nolan McLean taking the hill. Where he would be facing an old Mets friend turned foe, Taijuan Walker. If the Amazin’s find a way to win tonight, they would only be four games back instead of six. Keeping the division manageable is going to be the key until they enter that four-game series with the Phillies later on in the season on September 8th. If they start to play less than five back and the tiebreaker is in hand, anything can happen. For example, if they’re four back and win the series, they’d leave Philadelphia only down two. Then at that point, it’s just a sprint to the end.
With thirty games left on the schedule, five are against the Phils, and 16 are against teams around or below .500, including 10 against the lowly division rival Marlins and Nationals. If the Mets go 4-1 against Philly and 11-5 against the beatable teams, all they need to do is hold water against the tougher teams on their schedule, like the Cubs and the Padres, going 4-5. That would have them end the year with 91 wins. Now, 90 and above should be the target, which would require going at least 19-11 over the remaining 30 games, which is totally doable.
However, all of this becomes a lot more complicated if they don’t win at least three of five against the Phillies. Which would leave them five back with 25 games left. So even if Philly plays .500 around 13-12, the Mets would have to go 18-7 to make up the ground. That’s not impossible, but improbable. The path to the division becomes a lot clearer if they take four of five; a sweep would hurtle them into striking distance. The Mets can not count on the Phillies throwing away this division and only winning 88 games. They are going to have to beat them and take care of business against their other weaker opponents.
Ninty wins really is that magic number because, even if the Phillies throw away the division and the Mets sneak in with 88 or 89 wins. That would most likely relegate them to the third seed in the playoffs, even though they won the division. The primary point in winning the division is to clinch one of the two top seeds to get a bye for the first round of the playoffs. It would be nice to celebrate a win over Philly and hang a banner, but it would all be a moot point if they don’t finish with the second seed. For that to happen, they need to beat the Phillies and take care of business to finish with 90-plus wins.
