The Mets are uniquely hurt by losing division, having to play an extra round
There are several obvious reasons why the Mets winning the division would have been a tremendous benefit to them.
They’d not only earn an automatic spot in the National League Division Series, skipping the three-game wild card series crapshoot, they’d also have the confidence and satisfaction that would have come with outlasting Atlanta. A cool new banner to hang from the Citi Field rafters would have been nice too.
Instead, the Braves played like one of the best teams of all time. The Mets were simply a good team — not a historic one — during the second half of the season, and now their season comes down to winning two of three against the formidable San Diego Padres this weekend.
On the one hand, the Mets are well-suited for that clash with San Diego. They’ll almost assuredly line up Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer for the first two games, with Chris Bassitt waiting in the wings should a Game 3 become necessary. Those are probably three of the top 20 pitchers in the National League. But should the Mets advance past the Padres — which is no guarantee at all, as the Padres took four of six in the regular season and have a fearsome rotation of their own — they run into several disadvantages created by not sewing up the NL East when they had the chance.
The first and most daunting disadvantage is having to play the Dodgers in the NLDS. It is true that the Mets won the season series against them, but it is also true that the Dodgers are quite literally one of the best teams to ever lace them up. Since Major League Baseball integrated in 1947, only four teams have ever won 110 games in a season. The 2022 Dodgers recently joined that group, and their plus-329 run differential is something that most video games would reject. Losing to the Dodgers would certainly not be a shameful way for the season to end, but it is an incredibly likely way.
Because of MLB’s new and not-improved playoff bracket, one could easily make the case that, all things considered, it would have been better for the Mets to have the Phillies’ season. Philadelphia fired its manager in June and had to fight tooth and nail just to get into the playoffs while the Mets clinched their spot over two weeks ago, but the Phillies now get to play the Cardinals — who don’t have a truly intimidating starting pitcher — and avoid the Dodgers until the NLCS.
The Mets rightfully believe they can compete with anybody (they’re a 100-win team too, after all) and there are some holes to poke in the Dodgers’ raft (no Walker Buehler, a shaky bullpen, the fact that during their run of nine straight postseasons they’ve lost their first series three times), but at the end of the day Los Angeles is still clearly the best team in baseball and the overwhelming favorite to win it all. Paired with the cross-country flights that a New York-Los Angeles matchup would require — including one right after Game 4, with no off day before a potential Game 5 — and the idea of playing the Dodgers before the NLCS become a bit more nauseating.
There’s also the huge pitching disadvantage of using deGrom, Scherzer, and perhaps Bassitt in the wild card round. Throwing deGrom and Scherzer at the Padres means probably only getting one start each from them in the hypothetical NLDS against the Dodgers, unless they pitch on short rest. Had the Mets won the division and earned a chance to spend this weekend spectating, they’d be able to pitch deGrom in Game 1 of the NLDS on Oct. 11, then bring him back on normal rest for a potential Game 5 on the 16th.
Now, with both aces needed just to secure a spot in the NLDS, the pitching rotation becomes much more complicated. In the best case scenario — eliminating the Padres in two games — the Mets could then theoretically use deGrom for Game 2 of the NLDS on Oct. 12th and bring him back for the winner-take-all Game 5 on the 16th. That would still mean one fewer rest day than normal, though, a terrifying proposition for someone with deGrom’s injury history. If that scenario ends up playing out, though, deGrom on a pitch count could lead to Scherzer getting a few innings out of the bullpen.
The other way to ensure that deGrom and Scherzer would get at least three combined starts in the NLDS is to beat the Padres in two games while using Bassitt for one of them. Let’s say deGrom vanquishes the Padres on Friday. Then, the Mets could gamble and pitch Bassitt on Saturday, allowing Scherzer to handle Games 1 and 5 of the NLDS on normal rest. That’s a huge risk, though, and Buck Showalter would never hear the end of it if Bassitt turned in a clunker. Of course, if deGrom mucks up the whole plan by losing Game 1 to the Padres, they’d definitely have to call Scherzer’s number for Game 2.
The Mets should not overthink this. They have two of the best right-handed pitchers ever, and the whole appeal of having them in the same rotation is for them to start the first two games of a postseason series. That is what they should do. But the cloud hanging over this entire weekend is puffed up by shoulda, coulda and woulda’s. The Mets made this as hard as possible on themselves, and if that cloud bursts open and they fall to the Padres, they’ll get drenched by typical Mets-ian disappointment made of their own doing.
This is a pitching-rich team uniquely hurt by the new playoff format, which would have smiled on them if they could have just won a few more games against Atlanta.
