NL Wild Card Standings: Mets move into third thanks to a tie-breaker win over the Padres

Every game matters and with a New York Mets win on Friday and a San Diego Padres loss, the two teams swapped spots in the NL Wild Card standings. The Atlanta Braves have won 4 in a row to keep their spot above everyone else (for now) with the Arizona Diamondbacks matching them and moving a half-game over the Mets and Padres for second place. All four teams are within 2.5 games of each other. They are, incredibly, not so far off of their division leaders either.

The Mets and Padres play each other later this month in San Diego in what will be one of their most important series of the year. The Mets won all three games against the Padres back in June in the meat of the Grimace Era. As a result, they need to come away with just one win in Southern California to lockup the first tie-breaker against the Padres.

The Mets will also face off against the Diamondbacks on the road where the two teams will meet in the desert for three. Winning this series is imperative as the clubs have traded wins and hold a tie in the first tie-breaker. Their trip to Arizona takes place after facing off against the Padres.

How the Mets look in the current NL Wild Card tie-breakers

Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, if the Padres were to sweep the Mets and the two clubs finished with identical records, it’s the intradivision record to be concerned about. How the Mets have done against NL East opponents versus how the Padres have done against teams in the NL West suddenly matter a whole lot more. If that’s all knotted up, we go to records outside of the division.

But for a moment, let’s stop and see those records at the moment. The Mets are 20-16 against NL East clubs. The Padres at 17-18 against NL West teams. This bodes well for the Mets against them. Because they can’t even tie the Diamondbacks beyond head-to-head records, it’s not even worth worrying about their 19-14 record against intradivision opponents.

While many of the softer teams the Mets face in the coming weeks are from the American League, we do get a taste of which games are most important to win. Feast on those jobbers, but don’t neglect winning against the Padres and Diamondbacks (of course) with a heavy focus on victories versus the NL East clubs.

As mighty as the NL East may look, the NL West is the deeper division this year. The Padres and Diamondbacks will conveniently finish the year off against each other in what we can only hope is a loser-go-home kind of series; or better yet, the Braves fall out of the NL Wild Card race entirely and these three other top contenders are just trying to sort out who goes where and who plays who.