Not Yet Altogether Abysmal

The Mets have guaranteed they won’t win 90 games in 2021. They’ve guaranteed it quite a bit by their play in the second half, but they clinched not reaching a win total generally associated with playoff participation on Monday night by losing at Citi Field to the Cardinals, 7-0, and nailing down their 73rd loss. If the Mets win their next 17 games, the most wins they can total (barring an unforeseen play-in situation) is 89. Also, if these Mets win their next 17 games, you may not notice, what with pigs flying.

Because 90 wins are not an automatic qualifier for the playoffs, the Mets aren’t exactly out of hope for making the postseason. You and I are probably out of hope, but the numbers say go ahead and calculate if not dream. They’ve dropped to 5½ behind Atlanta in the division, though if they can close the gap to three when they reach the final weekend in Atlanta, it’s not impossible to imagine a series sweep, a one-game playoff and swine in the sky. You may remember the Mets angled their aspirations late in 1987 and 1990 on similar scenarios when those Mets, each lodged in second place in September, aimed at final sets of games in St. Louis and Pittsburgh, respectively. Just stay close enough to sweep, we told each other. The Mets were mathematically eliminated literally the day before those series started both times — and those Mets teams both won more than 90 games.

Then there’s the Wild Card, initiated in the mid-1990s as the mid-September refuge of not altogether abysmal also-rans. If you arrive at this juncture of the season with a Card in the hand, you don’t worry about what’s going on at the Busch. The Dodgers have a Wild Card in hand. They may still be able to trade it in for a less stressful ticket at the top of their division, but they’re gonna make the playoffs either way. So are the Giants, who have already clinched a spot, if not the NL West. The division title is preferable because it grants you an entire series in October, an entire series in which losing Game One doesn’t immediately push you out the door. It’s known as the League Division Series. It could be marketed as the Margin for Error.

Wild Card designation grants you exactly one game against another Wild Card designee. Win it and move on to a best-of-five. Lose it and go home. That game this year will pit some lucky not altogether abysmal also-ran the chance to test their mettle against either the Dodgers or Giants for all of nine innings. The Giants and Dodgers have each already passed 90 wins, and both are capable of hitting a hundred. Win an all-or-nothing game against one of them and you’ve earned the right to move on.

What’s left beyond the geographic boundaries of the East (which theoretically isn’t out of reach from us or Philadelphia despite Atlanta sitting 4½ clear of the mangy pack) and the Central (where Milwaukee can chill at Arnold’s Drive-In between now and the NLDS) is the second Wild Card. Let’s upper-case that since it’s now sort of our target: the Second Wild Card. Currently in what we’ll call the not altogether abysmal also-ran race, the Reds lead the Padres and Cardinals by a half-game apiece. The Padres were hyped as a contender all along. The Reds were a surprise for a while but have ensconced themselves as too legit to be dismissed since July. The Cardinals’ rise has been stealthy as hell, yet the Cardinals, as we saw Monday night, are never to be counted out. The birds on the bat on the chest are sneaky devils. They always have been. If we didn’t learn that in not good enough 92-70 1987 (or go home anyway 98-64 1985), we learned it for sure in 97-65 2006 at the hands of Adam Wainwright, Yadier Molina and the 83-78 Cardinals as they absconded in Game Seven with what we just assumed was our National League pennant.

Ah, Wainwright and Molina, a couple of terrific old-time competitors from another era. I wonder if St. Louis management has thought about bringing them in down the stretch drive to maybe make a pregame appearance, fire up the crowd, give a little pep talk to the modern players about what it was like way back fifteen years ago. It might be fun to see what those two are up to now.

Also involved in the grab for the Second Wild Card are the Phillies, 2½ in back of the Reds while we’re 3½ back in this ad hoc division. Whether divining our faint opportunities in the NL East or for the Second Wild Card, we keep discounting Philadelphia’s presence. We want to catch Atlanta. We want to catch Cincinnati/St. Louis/San Diego. Philadelphia we figure we’ll just sort of step over or around. Why wouldn’t we? We’re New York. They’re an enormous metropolitan area practically next door to ours and if it weren’t for sports many of us wouldn’t be conscious they exist because, you know, we’re much more enormous. That’s the benefit of being New York in the broad sense. The drawback of being New York in this particular playoff push, is that Philadelphia is not so much practically next door but practicably above us, north rather than south. They’re one game ahead everywhere we look. Maybe it’s better we don’t look too hard.

Alas, we have nowhere left to look but up. At passing the Phillies, then the Padres and Cardinals, then the Reds as we steam along on our hypothetical seventeen-winning streak when not distracted by flying pigs. Or pulling past the Phillies to within a three-game series sweep of the Braves. Those are your possibilities when you’ve proven statistically incapable of winning 90 out of 162 games.

Which is to say not very possible, but not yet impossible. The Mets have twice clinched playoff berths with fewer than 90 wins. We won the First Wild Card in 2016 with a spirited 87 wins (which left us no Margin for Error) and we won the NL East in 1973 with a legendary 82 wins. When we get around to invoking 1973 this time of year, it usually means things are getting desperate in the September standings. It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure pigs flew. They don’t do that very often.