NL Wild Card Standings: Mets schedule is the hardest remaining, Padres have it tough too

In recent weeks, the San Diego Padres held what felt like the longest and healthiest lead atop the NL Wild Card standings. The Atlanta Braves know all too well how dangerous it is to settle into this spot. They looked guaranteed to make the playoffs as the number one seed among Wild Card teams only to wake up on September 12 coming off a loss against the Washington Nationals one game behind the New York Mets.

That’s not the only game of musical chairs taking place. The Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks also swapped spots. The Diamondbacks now lead in the NL Wild Card standings by a half game over the Padres and 2 above the Mets. The Padres have played .500 baseball over their last 10. Could they, rather than the Diamondbacks, be the ones to falter?

The conclusion of the Padres schedule might be low-key tougher than the Mets

It’s the Mets who have the hardest remaining schedule of any MLB team at least in terms of winning percentage they go up against. This can be deceiving late in the year. Just because the teams they play stacked up a lot of their wins early in the season doesn’t mean the Mets have no shot to defeat them. Four at home against the Philadelphia Phillies isn’t as daunting as the numbers make them out to be. The final three versus the Milwaukee Brewers when they may already know their fate isn’t a gauntlet.

As for the Padres, their two perceived easy series come from three against the Chicago White Sox which drastically lowers the strength of their opponents but also three against the San Francisco Giants. They get to play the Giants this weekend which is never easy. The Battle of Saints in the NL West always has some fight in it.

Despite the Padres having a combined record below .500 to face for the rest of the season, 9 of their 15 are against teams vying for a playoff spot and/or positioning. They face the Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Houston Astros three times each. It’s the Dodgers and Diamondbacks they finish with on the road. Coming out of those nine games with a combined 5-4 record would be a big achievement.

The draw of the Diamondbacks and Braves has been their respective hitting and pitching. You won’t find a more potent offense than Arizona. Their 802 runs have outpaced everyone. The New York Yankees are second with only 734. This ability to score runs can help them overcome their pitching issues. Meanwhile, the Braves with a staff ERA of 3.50 lead all of MLB. It does the same to help aid their scuffling offense.

What about the Padres? They’re a lot more like the Mets. Their 4.01 ERA is only 4 points behind the Mets at 3.97. They’ve scored 699 times which is only 7 more than the Mets.

These two aren’t a mirror image and yet two of the easiest places to look to measure a team match almost as closely as possible. The last NL Wild Card spot could come down to who wins the series between the Mets and Braves. But it can also come down to the final series at the end of the year between the Diamondbacks and Padres. We might find ourselves rooting for Padres losses.