With their win on Wednesday, the Mets ended the season with a 12-7 record against the Nationals, tying the 2006 and 2008 clubs for the most wins against their division rival since they moved to Washington for the 2005 season.
As a team, they posted a .799 OPS against the Nationals, with most every non-pitcher doing well. Shoot, even Luis Guillorme put up a 1.162 OPS against the Nats. The redundant CF tandem of Keon Broxton (.607) and Juan Lagares (.563) were the exceptions.
The pitchers amassed a 4.72 ERA versus Washington, above their season mark of 4.38 but beneath their 5.16 ledger against teams over .500 this year. Noah Syndergaard (2.65) and Jake deGrom (1.88) did very well but the starter who did the best was Steven Matz, who put up a 0.82 ERA, allowing just 1 ER in 11 IP. Zack Wheeler (6.83) continued his career-long trend of poor pitching against the Nats while Jeurys Familia (8.68) allowed 9 ER in 9.1 IP.
The Mets are now 34-32 against the NL East, with three games remaining against both the Phillies and Braves, and four left against the Marlins.
No matter what else, beating the Nats feels good.
8-2 in remaining NL East games would be nice. May need 9-1.
After sweeping the Indians, the Mets were 64-60 and tied for the best non-playoff record. Since then, they’ve gone 7-8. Here’s how the other WC contenders have done in that same time frame:
Nats: 11-4
Cubs: 9-5
Phils: 8-6
Mil: 7-7
ARI: 11-4
It’s one thing for the Cubs to do well, as they swept the Mets. But when the teams you’re chasing don’t lose…
They get to play the Phillies and D’Backs and those are games they can’t lose. They win those, they jump over them in the standings. But they need the Cubs to hit a major pothole. If Chicago goes 12-12 in their final 24 games, the Mets need to go 16-7 to tie them. It’s a tall order for the Mets but one I could see them doing. But it’s tough to imagine the Cubs — with 3 against the Reds, 4 against the Padres and 6 against the Pirates — just collapsing.
we are near the end of the 27 game stretch that began when the .500 or better clubs became a big part of schedule. We now have played 24 of those games, with the three against Philly left. The present record in that stretch is 12-12. At the start of this stretch, I predicted 14-13, or a shade above .500. Taking 2/3 from Phila is reasonable, which gets the 14-13 record. The story of Jeckyll and Hyde teams is that on one hand they lure you in with saucy wins on Monday and Tuesday they cant hit, catch, or throw. Its aways some sort of “amazing” thing, good or bad.
I think it will take 90 wins to get into the tiebreaker game, and 19-5 is an extremely tall order. Those losses to the Cubbies were killers. That said, we have seen teams collapse in September first hand…2007-8…so you just never know.
Tonight’s SP for the Blue Jays is Anthony Kay.