Heading into the 2021 MLB regular season, many of us felt the National League East would be a hard-fought battle from Game 1 through Game 162 — even though the New York Mets were the projected favorites. Now with the All-Star break on the horizon, we can look at this division and definitively say it’s taking on its own personality.

On the eve of Opening Day back in March, FanGraphs gave the Mets an 82.2% chance of making the playoffs and a 57.8% chance of reaching October by winning the division. The next closest NL East squad was the Atlanta Braves, with a 63.8% chance of reaching the postseason and a 30.5% chance of winning their fourth consecutive division title. A lot has happened over the last three months within the division, but despite all the setbacks and injuries New York has suffered, they’ve remained the one constant in FanGraphs’ odds.

After Wednesday’s blowout loss in Atlanta, the Mets had an 76.0% chance of making the playoffs and a 73.4% chance of doing so by winning the division. While the Washington Nationals have been hot in recent weeks, they’re the only other NL East club with a winning record at the moment, and they’re 40-38. As I was staring at MLB’s standings earlier this week — you know, as one does when there’s nothing else to do — one thing stood out to me, and it was how the entire division has performed on the road.

To put it simply, it’s not great, Bob.

Right now, this division is the only one in baseball where all the teams included have a losing record away from their respective home parks. Granted, the AL and NL Central are close because they each have just one club with a winning road record, but the NL East is the “winner” at the moment. Here’s what they’ve done as visitors so far in 2021:

— Mets: 17-24

— Nationals: 16-20

— Phillies: 15-26

— Braves: 17-20

— Marlins: 16-26

Since this stuck out to me so much, I decided to do some snooping on the interwebs. I checked out NL East team records in this situation each year going back to 2010 to see if there were any instances where nobody finished above .500 on the road for the season. While that hasn’t happened in the last 11 years, there have been five instances where just one team had a winning record as a visitor:

This kind of plays into part of the point as to why the Mets have had sole possession of first place for so long despite the countless number of injuries they’ve dealt with. Yes, New York has done a great job of maximizing the production it received from available players, but it’s also equally crazy that no other NL East team could make a move up the standings while they were vulnerable.

Although recent history says it’s unlikely all five NL East teams will finish with a losing record on the road, it doesn’t seem to be out of the range of possibilities as the calendar creeps toward September.

An observation like this provides some silver lining, too — as everyone else within the division struggles in a certain situation, one team can distinguish itself by finding a way to excel in said situation. That’s obviously a lot easier said than done, but it’s a way to keep clubs motivated as we approach the dog days of summer. After all, the Mets may have one of the larger divisional leads at the moment (two games), but only five games separate them from Washington, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, so one hot streak can make a huge difference and change a team’s seasonal trajectory.

It’ll be interesting to see how things continue to shake out in the coming months because it seems as if everyone within the division plays each other very hard. Here’s how NL East teams are performing this year upon facing one another:

— Mets: 19-17

— Nationals: 17-16

— Phillies: 20-22

— Braves: 18-21

— Marlins: 15-13

That’s some pretty even competition, as everyone is either hovering or within shouting distance of .500, and the Mets and Marlins are the only squads with a record that’s multiple games over .500 (albeit just barely). New York is already one of baseball’s best at home this season, as they sport a 24-11 record at Citi Field. How important is it for them to pick up the pace a bit when they’re away from Flushing? Just for fun, I looked at the home and away records for all nine occurrences in which the Mets reached the playoffs. All but two had a winning record on the road:

Does this mean much of anything? Maybe yes, maybe no (probably no). But it is interesting that so many of New York’s past playoff teams had a winning record on the road. It makes sense because one would imagine that to make a deep run in the postseason, a club needs to know how to take care of business away from home (although the ’73 and ’00 clubs both went to the World Series).

In a division that lacks sufficient breathing room in the standings as the second half looms, the small things will separate one or two teams from the others. From a quick glance, performing a little bit better on the road while maintaining their current performance at home would be difference-making for the Mets.