It can’t possibly come down to a tie, can it? Just last season, the New York Mets made it to the playoffs because they won the season series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team now chasing them in the NL Wild Card. Despite being sellers, they’re mimicking what the Detroit Tigers did last season by becoming relevant after a sell-off.
They, along with the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, are within 3 games of catching the Mets. The Reds and Giants trail by a distant 3 with the Diamondbacks now at only 1.5 behind.
If things end in a tie with the Mets, here’s who’d advance based on the tie-breaker scenarios.
San Francisco Giants, 4-2 record favors Mets
The Mets won 4 of 6 against the Giants in the regular season making them the winners if San Francisco was to catch them on the final day of the season or at least keep pace. It can be considered an extra win over them.
Cincinnati Reds, 2-4 record favors Reds
On the other hand, the Reds won 4 out of 6 versus the Mets. Those two heartbreaking losses to begin the second-half are a pair to point at although the Mets didn’t do a very good job against them in September on their home field either. If the Reds and Mets tie for the final Wild Card spot, Cincinnati advances. Call it revenge for 1999.
Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-3 record leads to intradivision record
The real excitement happens when we get a repeat of last season. The team closest to the Mets right now took 3 from New York in the regular season. The Mets won the other 3. This is when things get really interesting. Head-to-head record is just the first tie-breaker. After that, we go to intradivisional record.
The Mets are 23-23 versus NL East opponents with 6 more against the Miami Marlins and Washington Nationals this season. The Diamondbacks have a marginal lead at 25-20 versus NL West clubs. After a game versus the Giants on Wednesday, they have 3 each against the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. They can make things really interesting by taking just half of those games.
The Mets can make it easy on all of us by refusing to let their playoff spot come down to a tie-breaker.