NL Wild Card Standings: NY Mets suddenly don’t look so irrelevant

The New York Mets have won three straight and while the idea of the playoffs would have Jim Mora cartoonishly repeating the word with disgust, we need to consider the possibility of a found season. It’s going to take an impressive stretch for the Mets to pull themselves up by August 3rd when the trade deadline descends. Three months is a long time to make up ground.

We can probably kiss the NL East goodbye with the Atlanta Braves (who’ve yet to play a team currently at .500 or better this year) way out in front. The NL Wild Card tells us something different.

Two straight victories over the lowly Colorado Rockies has launched the Mets a half game over them and the San Francisco Giants. As impossible as their 14-22 start seems, it trails the Milwaukee Brewers by only 5.5 for the final Wild Card spot. Of course, there are six teams between New York and Milwaukee which is always the toughest task.

The Mets aren't even closed to buried in the NL Wild Card

The Mets don’t need to rattle off 12 straight wins although that would help cancel out the 12-game losing streak. They have 126 games left. Winning two out of every three would require 84 wins more for the rest of the year. That’s asking a lot for a ball club missing so many parts and few players consistently stepping up. Add in the rotation questions and every few tough losses, we’d have to expect much less from the Mets for the remainder of the year.

Last season’s third NL Wild Card landed in the laps of the 83-win Cincinnati Reds by virtue of the tie-breaker over the Mets. The NL has been the powerhouse this year. Only the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays are above .500 in the AL. The NL has 8 clubs who’ve won more than they’ve lost.

Those things tend to get a little more even as time goes on. The balanced schedule helps here.

Rock bottom for the 2024 Mets came on May 29 when Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands. It pushed the Mets 11 games under .500 and 6 games behind a playoff spot. Between them and the 30-29 San Diego Padres were 6 teams just like it is at the start of action on Thursday.

Far better positioned right now in comparison, perhaps due to a lack of opportunities to lose games, the Mets do have several potential overachievers playing better baseball than we should expect. At 21-15, the St. Louis Cardinals are going way above their payscale. A -1 run-differential suggests they’ll fall. Can both the Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates sustain success? One or two teams in the NL Central are going to lose their luck.

There is no doubt a heavy battle ahead for the Mets. The big question is if they’re actually capable of making the math work. This means more days like the one Marcus Semien had on Wednesday, an MVP-caliber tear out of Juan Soto, and Bo Bichette being worth his $42 million and the $5 million he gets if he opts out.

Owed some late comebacks by the baseball gods, pummeling the predicted sub-.500 teams when they can and stealing games from the more talented ones is a must in order to make this more than a mathematical possibility.

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