Anything can happen in the span of 60 games. That’s partially what makes this year’s scheduled MLB season so fascinating. And since the majority of each club’s schedule is focused within their own division, it’ll make the battle for a divisional crown even more interesting to follow.

The National League East will be worth watching because there are four teams who could finish in any of the top four spots: the Atlanta Braves, Washington Nationals, New York Mets, and Philadelphia Phillies (sorry, Marlins — although you never know this year).

As of this writing, FanGraphs is projecting these four teams to finish within three wins of each other (Phillies down at 29.3 and the Braves up at 32.7). The Mets are nestled in at third with 31.7 projected wins and current playoff odds sitting at 43.1%.

Having the third-best wins projection and third-best odds of reaching the postseason in your division isn’t ideal. However, both of those numbers are fifth-best in the NL, which would technically have them in position to snatch the final NL wild-card spot available. So barring injuries and COVID-related issues, the Mets are at least viewed to be in a unique position with the regular season on tap.

Then the schedules officially got released earlier this week.

With New York’s interleague schedule coming against the American League East, we knew the Mets would be tested early and often, as 43 of their 60 games will be played against teams who owned a winning record last season. That doesn’t include the Toronto Blue Jays, who have a chance of improving upon their .414 winning percentage from a year ago.

All things considered, its their initial stretch of 13 games to begin the season that should be telling as to what kind of year 2020 will be:

The Boston Red Sox don’t look nearly as formidable without Mookie Betts, but it’s not as if those four games will exactly be a walk in the park. With nine of these 13 contests coming against the two NL East teams currently projected to perform better than the Mets, it’s easy to see how quickly they could dig a huge hole for themselves.

The only thing Jacob deGrom, Pete Alonso, and the rest of the Mets can do is focus on winning the ballgames they play and not watch the scoreboard. If we really want to boil this down simply, just winning games is all that’s needed and the details will take care of themselves.

For all of us watching the games and the scoreboard, though, it’ll be important to keep an eye on what the NL Central is doing. If there’s one division that’d prevent the NL East from taking both wild-card spots, it’d be the Central.

This division’s makeup is similar to what the Mets are dealing with. There’s one team that likely doesn’t have much of a chance to escape the basement (the Pittsburgh Pirates) and four others who all have a case for taking the divisional crown (Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals). The playoff odds among these four clubs range from 46.8% (the Cubs) to 35.2% (Cardinals), while the projected win totals from 31.9 to 30.8.

The potential differentiator lies in the interleague games. In addition to each NL Central club getting 10 games against the Pirates, they’ll also have opportunities to get healthy against rebuilding clubs like the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but again, with just 60 games to decide the playoff configuration, it could have a significant impact.

New York does have the benefit of playing four games against the Baltimore Orioles, but those contests won’t take place until September. After this initial 13-game stretch to start the season, they do face the Marlins 10 times over a three-week span in August. The Mets posted a 13-6 record against Miami last season, and they’ll need something similar to that in 2020.

Their performance against other divisional opponents wasn’t great overall, though. A 12-7 record against Washington was solid, but it was paired with an 8-11 mark against Atlanta and a 7-12 record against Philadelphia.

It feels pretty alarmist to say the first 13 games of the Mets’ season will be a big indicator to their overall 2020 fate, but that stretch will account for just under one-quarter of their regular season schedule. Getting off to a fast start will be key toward giving them a chance at contention toward the end of August and into September.