Standings in 2016

[Chad ochoseis]

Frayed Knot wrote: One thing that's helping the Mets WC odds -- aside from things like 5 more vs ATL, Minn x 3, Phil x 7, etc -- is that, starting this coming Thursday, the Cards go to SF for a four-game series (Sept 15-18)

This also implies that the Braves were mathematically eliminated last night, even though the standings still have their elimination number as 1. Either the Cardinals or the Giants are guaranteed to win at least two more games.

OE: WRONG! It's still mathematically possible for 75 wins to get a wild card. So, Braves fans - all six of you - don't lose hope yet!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Another late-season spike by the Mets. However this season turns out, I hope that the 2017 Mets don't wait until August to start scoring runs.

[ashie62]

Bobbing like a great horse race.

[Centerfield]

Status quo never felt so good.

Let's start winning and not have to rely on the kindness of strangers tonight.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The team that had the worst day yesterday was the Giants. The Mets and Cardinals, at least, crossed one game against a first-place team off their schedule without losing any ground. The Giants lost one of the "soft" games that they should have won.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Geez went to bed figuring we'd just hold serve but good morning: San Diego scored 5 times in the 9th to beat the Giants last night.

[Frayed Knot]

Unbelievable how many 9th inning leads the Giants have blown this year, and particularly lately.
Santiago Casilla was the latest to get demoted from the closer role so they trusted last night's four-run lead to Hunter Strickland. It looks by the game descriptions like he was getting mostly dinked to death but when he walked in one run and allowed another on a ground-out Bochy went to rookie lefty Steve Okert for the final out ... and that's when SD rookie lefty Ryan Schimpf hit a 1-2 pitch for a 3R HR.
Posey, Hunter, and Crawford then went down in order in the bottom 9th without getting the ball out of the infield.

We saw this Schimpf guy during our recent series with the Padres and Gary kept remarking about his power for such a small-ish guy (5' 8" / 180). Well that was his 19th HR in less than 1/2 season (236 ABs) and of his 54 hits this season (and therefore in his ML career) [u:mz6kubj7]39 of them[/u:mz6kubj7] are for extra bases!! [15 doubles, 5 triples, 19 HRs]
I mean sure the guy's not your classic rookie phenom seeing as how he's already 28 y/o, is hitting .229, and strikes out a ton (84) but he has as many doubles as he does singles and more HRs than either and that's some pretty freaky stuff right there.

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: Unbelievable how many 9th inning leads the Giants have blown this year, and particularly lately.

Just giving up on the idea that a team needs a closer can really get a manager a whole lot of freedom.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Unbelievable how many 9th inning leads the Giants have blown this year, and particularly lately. Just giving up on the idea that a team needs a closer can really get a manager a whole lot of freedom.

Yeah, but it hasn't helped Bochy lately.
In September alone they're 5-7 and lost 4 of those games on account of giving up late runs (including 3 in the 9th to lose by 1, and now 5 in the 9th to lose by 2). They even pulled out a couple of wins despite giving up late runs. In all it's pretty much been an across the board disaster for their pen even after Castilla had his closer's card taken away from him.

Team is now 20-34 since the All-Star Break. Put another way, pre-ASB they were 57-33 and on pace for 103 wins. Since then they've been playing at the rate of a team destined for 102 losses over a full season.
That's just a stunning reversal.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The team that had the worst day yesterday was the Giants. The Mets and Cardinals, at least, crossed one game against a first-place team off their schedule without losing any ground. The Giants lost one of the "soft" games that they should have won.

I'm going to put out there that the team with the worst day was, again, the Giants. I would love for the Giants to go away and to take Madison Bumgarner with them. For our lefty-laden lineup, he might be the toughest matchup not named "Kershaw".

[Edgy MD]

Kershaw in New York today, by the way, making his first ever start at the Mausoleum. It's only his second start since going on the DL in late July (the other being three innings against Miami on Friday night), so big playoff implications beyond just the two teams and their places in the standings.

[Benjamin Grimm]

If the Cardinals beat the Giants tomorrow both teams and the Mets will be in a three-way tie.

[Centerfield]

It occurs to me that I have no idea who to root for in that game. Or for the whole series for that matter. I guess at the end of it all, the Mets just have to beat the Twins.

Oh and trading water to get through this series, mission accomplished I guess.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't know who to root for today either, but I hope today's winner goes on to sweep the series.

[Guest themetfairy]

I'm rooting for all of the Cardinals/Giants games to go 15 innings, minimum!

[Lefty Specialist]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't know who to root for today either, but I hope today's winner goes on to sweep the series.

Good point, as it would probably doom the loser (provided the Mets take care of their business).

[Frayed Knot]

Gary put it well yesterday.
- if you're rooting for the best chance of the Mets making A WC spot then you root for a sweep so as to bury the losing team and keep the blue and orange afloat no matter how they do in the near future
- if you're rooting for the Mets' best chance to win the #1 WC slot then you root for a split while hoping the Mets take care of their own business

As for which team is the sweeper and which the sweepee, that's pretty much irrelevant unless you have a particular like/hate going on with one of them. The Giants are clearly the team headed in the wrong direction right now so the temptation is to root for them, but of course if they were to trash the Cards and use that to suddenly go on a roll like their 100+ win first half pace then they would no longer suck and everyone would go back to worrying about them and their even-numbered year post-season mojo again.


The other thing is that I still haven't given up on dragging the Dodgers back into this thing. Yeah they're now 5 up on the SFGs but those two play each other six more times, including the final three, and it never hurts to have one more team in the mix and have it so we just have to catch either/or of the West teams. So if the Giants are going to get hot somehow, it would help if they did it at the Dodgers expense and for whoever else the Dodgers are playing (now that the Yanx are out of the way) to bop them over the head now and then also ... although the Dadgers head to Arizona this weekend so maybe that's mostly wishful thinking. Even the Giants recently beat up on the Snakes.

[TransMonk]

538.com is now giving the Mets an 85% chance of making the playoffs. San Fran is at 64%, St. Louis at 48% and the Marlins hanging around at 3%.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-mlb-predictions/

[Benjamin Grimm]

By "making the playoffs" do they mean getting to that one-game Wild Card playoff, or do they mean advancing to the NLDS? (I'm assuming it's the former.)

Playing that Wild Card game and losing it would not be at all satisfying. It would technically make 2016 the Mets ninth postseason, but in such a minimal way that it would feel worthy of an asterisk.

I was much more excited about last year's race to the division title than I am this year. I haven't bothered figuring out the Mets' NHOP even once!

[TransMonk]

It means making it to the Wild Card play-in game.

The Mets making it to that game and losing would be below my pre-season expectations for the 2016 club. But, I was literally a couple losses from completely writing them off due to injuries back in mid-August. Win or lose, I would consider simply making it to that play-in game a success given the obstacles this team has had to overcome.

Obviously, I still prefer they win the World Series.

[Centerfield]

For me, if the Mets are pouring champagne on each other even once in a season, it's a pretty good season.

I know expectations were high coming in, but the injuries just killed them. If their post-season is only 1 game, so be it.

Besides, the Mets tend to do well once they get in. By my count, only once have they lost to their first opponent (88 Dodgers). And even that went 7 games.

1969: WS Champions
1973: NL Champs
1986: WS Champions
1988: Lost NLCS
1999: Won WC tiebreaker, beat Arizona in NLDS
2000: NL Champs
2006: Won NLDS vs. LA
2015: NL Champs

[Benjamin Grimm]

That's right, 1988 was the Mets shortest postseason, with seven games. (The second-shortest was 1969, eight games, but I'd categorize that one as pretty successful.)

[Centerfield]

Also, I was thinking, how sweet would it be to beat Washington this year. You have to be at least a little nervous if you're a Washington fan right?

deGrom and Matz are hurt, but if they come back, along with Duda, suddenly this is a pretty good team. Noah, Jake, Matz and Colon. Lugo and Gsellman go to the pen. Lineup has speed at the top, a good tablesetter in Asdrubal, then followed by Cespedes, Duda, Bruce and Granderson. (Assuming Bruce ever arrives)

[Benjamin Grimm]

Duda is especially interesting. If in fact he does come back, will he have enough time to show that he merits a spot on a postseason roster?

[Centerfield]

As of today, our lead for the second wild card is no longer a fraction.

Let the celebration begin!

(No really, I find I am actually pretty happy about this.)

[TransMonk]

Now that the Giants took the first game, I'm rooting for them for the rest of the weekend against the Cards (with the Mets taking care of business against the Twinkies being the primary objective, of course).

The Giants still have 6 with LA (and they are within striking distance in the NL West) which makes their remaining schedule tougher than the Cards'. St. Louis will still have three more with the Cubs, but with the Chicago having clinched, I'm not relying on them being at full force the remainder of the way as they rest and set up their team for October.

As of now, I kind of want to the Cards as many games back as possible going into next week.

[Centerfield]

TransMonk wrote: Now that the Giants took the first game, I'm rooting for them for the rest of the weekend against the Cards (with the Mets taking care of business against the Twinkies being the primary objective, of course). The Giants still have 6 with LA (and they are within striking distance in the NL West) which makes their remaining schedule tougher than the Cards'. St. Louis will still have three more with the Cubs, but with the Chicago having clinched, I'm not relying on them being at full force the remainder of the way as they rest and set up their team for October. As of now, I kind of want to the Cards as many games back as possible going into next week.

Yup. This is exactly how we should be thinking.

Still, there is not one bone in my body that feels right rooting for the Giants.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Half of my bones want to root for the Cardinals and half want to root for the Giants. (All in the interests of the Mets, of course.) I'm hoping that my skeleton gets fully synchronized within the next couple of days.

And I too am glad that we no longer have to worry about those pesky half games in the standings. In some strange way that I can't really define, they can be hard to relate to.

[TransMonk]

Some of the half games will return next week with the Cards playing next Thursday while the Mets are off and the Mets playing on Monday the 26th while the Giants are off.

Everything won't fully synchronize without half games until after the games of Thursday the 29th are played (barring rainouts).

[Frayed Knot]

Also not insignificant is that the Dodgers lost last night to Arizona.
So not only are they just 4 games up on the Giants but those two teams have Six head-to-head games remaining [Mon thru Wed, and again the final series of the season] which could put us in a situation similar to the current one where we automatically gain on one team or the other with each game we win.

We'll still need a couple more stumbles from the ex-Brooklynites, but they're not out of reach for either us or the Giants.