Mets have one last chance to take advantage of September schedule ahead of Braves showdown

Mets travel to face a weak Oakland team, while Atlanta plays four against Philadelphia

9/22/2022, 12:30 AM
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The showdown series in Atlanta next week looms larger by the day, after the Mets and Braves both lost on Wednesday to stay one game apart in the NL East standings -- though you can make a case it’s even tighter than that since the teams are tied in the loss column.

However, the Mets have what is essentially one last chance to both take advantage of their softer September schedule and give themselves some margin for error going into Atlanta, as they travel to Oakland for three games while the Braves go to Philadelphia for four beginning Thursday.

Yes, it has a chance to be quite the pivotal weekend, for some key reasons:

  • The A’s are awful, 40 games under .500 as of Wednesday, and perhaps even more so at home, where their 24-48 record is the worst in the American League.
  • The Mets have Chris Bassitt, Jacob deGrom, and Max Scherzer lined up to pitch against an offense that averages three runs a game at home, the lowest such number in the majors.
  • The Braves have a few concerns at the moment, with Spencer Strider pushed back and out of the Phillies’ series due to tightness in his oblique while their 3-4 hitters, Austin Riley and Matt Olson, have been fighting slumps as of late. Olson is hitting just .108 in September and Riley is hitting .160 over his last 13 games.

Whether any of that matters, who really knows. As we’ve seen, the soft schedule hasn’t worked out the way the Mets were hoping, as they’ve stumbled in the last couple of weeks against the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs and because, well, baseball is baseball.

After all, there were the Mets in Milwaukee on Wednesday, riding high after emotional wins in the first two games of the series, only to come out flat in the series finale, held to four hits by six different Brewers pitchers in the 6-0 loss.

You just never know. Just when it looked like Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor were getting hot, which is always the key for this offense, the Mets were shut out for the eighth time this season.

It happens. The Brewers are fighting for their Wild Card lives so give them credit, maybe it was easier for them to fire up the engines for the day game after a night game.

Or, again, it’s baseball. You think it’s hard to explain that sweep by the Cubs at Citi Field last week? Try figuring out how the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers went 1-5 this season against the Pittsburgh Pirates and got swept at home by them in a three-game series.

That’s why it can be tricky playing the schedule game, but this upcoming series against the A’s does represent a great opportunity for the Mets, especially since the Braves should have their hands full with the Phillies, who are in the third NL wild card spot, fighting to hold off the Brewers.

After this weekend there’s no schedule advantage left, with the Mets and Braves both having a series left with the Nationals and Miami Marlins, in addition to their own three-game matchup next weekend.

So if the Mets, let’s say, were to sweep the A’s while the Braves were splitting with the Phillies, they would have a 2 ½ game lead with eight games to play. That would be especially significant considering they need to win only one of the games against the Braves to assure themselves of winning the season series and giving them the tie-breaker for the division title.

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A sweep in Oakland really shouldn’t be expecting too much, considering the matchup of Bassitt, deGrom, and Scherzer against a feeble offense.

In addition, the Mets’ bullpen will be in good shape, with Edwin Diaz and the other high-leverage relievers well rested. For that matter, you can make a case this is the best bullpen they’ve had all season, with David Peterson out there now as a second lefty to Joely Rodriguez, who has raised his stock with impressive recent appearances, as well as the returns from injury of Drew Smith and Tylor Megill.

It didn’t go so well for Smith on Wednesday in his first appearance in three months, as he hung a slider to give up a game-breaking grand slam to Mike Brosseau in the seventh inning. But he did have an impressive fastball and Showalter trusted him enough to bring him into a crucial spot.

Megill, meanwhile, rebounded from his own rough return to the big leagues on Monday, when he gave up a two-run home run on a hanging slider of his own, pitching a scoreless inning on Wednesday, showing the big fastball that makes him potentially an important late-inning alternative to Seth Lugo or Adam Ottavino.

Of course, the Mets will need some good news on Brandon Nimmo, who talked after the game as if the precaution he took coming out in the first inning with left quad tightness will pay off and perhaps have him available as soon as Friday night.

With Starling Marte still out due to his broken finger, losing Nimmo for any significant time right now would be a big blow.

In any case, this weekend sets up as a final opportunity for the Mets to cash in on the soft schedule that I, for one, thought would allow them to pull away from the Braves down the stretch. It’s too late for that but not too late to create some breathing room going into Atlanta.

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