Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
The upcoming series between the Mets and Braves has been circled on the calendar since the start of the summer when it was clear they were the two best teams in the National League East and these three games would likely be meaningful.
The Mets were carried by the offense of Eduardo Escobar and terrific work from their bullpen on Wednesday night to erase a 4-0 deficit to the Marlins to win on a walk-off single. Shortly before Escobar ended the game with an RBI single, Nationals’ young shortstop CJ Abrams beat the Braves with a walk-off single of his own.
That sets the stage for the Mets and Braves to meet for three games starting on Friday with New York holding a one-game lead in the NL East. While the series might be in Atlanta, the pitching is lined up perfectly for the Mets with Jacob deGrom on Friday, Max Scherzer on Saturday, and Chris Bassitt closing the series out on Sunday. The Braves will counter with Max Fried, Kyle Wright, and Charlie Morton in that order.
Here are the scenarios for the series:
- Mets swept – down 2 games without the tiebreaker
- Mets win 1 – tied with the tiebreaker
- Mets win 2 – up 2 & 1 is the magic number
- Mets sweep – clinch the division
The big key to remember with this series is that the Mets are currently 9-7 against the Braves this season so all they need is one more win to capture the season series and hold the tiebreaker. There’s no more playing games as the tiebreaker, it goes right to the head-to-head from the regular season.
It’s paramount that the Mets take at least one game in the series and if they do, they will really be in a good spot going into their final three games of the season at Citi Field against the Nationals.
