NL Wild Card Standings: Mets vs. Braves could come down to 1 run in 1 game

The Mets and Braves are tied in the NL Wild Card standings and as close as it gets in another place.

Cincinnati Reds v New York Mets
Cincinnati Reds v New York Mets / Jim McIsaac/GettyImages

It feels like the New York Mets have been carried in the month of September by their pitching staff. Even on days when they do score runs, it’s coming late against bullpens or in one blitzkrieg early on against a starter who lost his mojo. They enter Wednesday tied with the Atlanta Braves for the third Wild Card spot yet again. Atlanta won their game on Tuesday. The Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres added victories of their own, too.

The Mets and Braves have had much different results this month. Atlanta is 5-4 with the Mets much better at 7-2. A difference of 2 games seems minimal. Based on some other elements of these two teams, a single run could be what ends up winning a Wild Card spot.

The Mets and Braves are getting different results despite similar run totals in September

No team has allowed fewer runs in September than the Mets. With 21 allowed in their 9 games, they have been anti-NFL and pro-MLS with the way they’ve limited runs from scoring. The Braves have been almost as good, though. They’re one of several teams who have given up 22 runs. And yet the difference between the Mets and Braves are 2 whole victories. The Braves must be scoring much less.

That’s not the simple explanation here. The Mets, whose 37 runs scored in September ranks 14th in MLB (tied with the Padres), comes in only 2 ahead of the Braves at 35. One more run allowed by Atlanta, two fewer given up, and they’ve seen the Mets catch up to them numerous times.

The Braves pitching staff has a much better ERA at 1.38 due to all of the runs they’ve given up that have been unearned, 9! The Mets, who seem to always win when they go into extra innings and haven’t been giving up a whole lot of runs due to bad defense have allowed only a single unearned run this month. 

Either way, we have two teams scoring just as much as the other and surrendering runs on equal footing. Those three games in Atlanta are going to matter a lot. Could the season truly ride on the results from one of those games? Could the difference end up being a single run scored?

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