Oh, look — the three National League Wild Card teams at the moment are the San Diego Padres, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Mets, while the three National League division leaders remain the Philadelphia Phillies, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers.
Who is missing from this “if the playoffs began today…” picture? Correct! It’s the Atlanta Braves!
The playoffs don’t begin today, and playoff positioning is more fluid than sweet tea on a scorcher of a Saturday amid the red clay of Georgia, but let’s enjoy Atlanta’s exclusion from postseason tournament calculations, if only for twenty-four hours.
“If the playoffs began right now, the Braves wouldn’t be in them,” I informed my wife after the Mets finished off [1] the Rockies, 9-1, shortly before the six o’clock news Thursday evening.
“What a shame,” she deadpanned.
Stephanie is not exactly caught up in the daily fluctuations of the standings, but she can sort out the villains in our narrative without having to ask which one merits our contempt most. Eleven Octobers ago, first thing in the morning, I updated her on the postseason in progress, letting her know that the night before the Dodgers had eliminated the Braves. I expected no more than “that’s nice.”
Instead, she delivered, “See ya, Braves!”
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And that (2013) was a postseason we as Mets fans were merely watching, not one our team was trying to slug its way into. We didn’t have Pete Alonso going extremely deep twice as we did in our Coors Field finale. We didn’t have Mark Vientos chipping in a homer. We didn’t empty a gunny sack loaded with doubles as we did on the Rockies in the very first inning. We didn’t have Tyrone Taylor flying to and fro to track down balls before they could become mile-high trouble. We didn’t have David Peterson enjoying a gratifying Colorado homecoming. Thursday we did, and now we have floated ahead of our more-or-less archrivals for something of substance, keeping them away from what they want in the process. We have a half-game lead on the Braves for the third Wild Card spot with 47 games to go, which isn’t a prize they embroider t-shirts over, but with 47 games to go, the best place to see the Braves is behind us.
Chances are we’ll see the Braves in our nightmares as the National League derby continues. It’s too much to ask they plummet through the contending tier that lately encompasses the Cardinals, the Pirates and the Giants and find themselves sliding down toward, well, the Rockies. In fact, the Braves get to play the Rockies this weekend, while we travel — we always travel — to Seattle to take on a bona fide contender in the other league.
Can’t get too comfortable in the second week of August over positioning for October. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to enjoy the current reality for however long it’s current.