Despite Everything, New York Mets Will Finish Behind Atlanta Braves (Again) In NL East

You know it.

The Atlanta Braves know it.

All of the baseball gods know it.

Most strikingly, the Mets know it — or at least they should, but they have to keep the headlines away from the New York tabloids regarding this question: Who will win the National League East this season?

“I hope we’re on top,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said, laughing at his locker Monday night in the visitors’ clubhouse at Truist Park in Atlanta after we huddled before the start of his team’s three-game series against the Braves.

“I hope, and I feel like it’s going to be a tight race at the end. For one, I hope it’s a tight race, because it keeps you playing the game the right way, day in and day out. It keeps you focused on finishing strong.”

Hoping for a tight race?

At the end?

Yeah, the Mets know it.

Here’s what they know: They won’t win the National League East, because the Braves will do so for the fifth consecutive season.

As for the beginning of the end for the Mets — you know, again in the division, Lindor and the others playing for baseball’s No. 6 franchise in Forbes’ team evaluations at $2.6 billion watched their lead over the Braves plunge from 10 1/2 games in late May to 1 1/2 games before Monday night’s first pitch.

Then came a momentary reprieve for the Mets during the game through Max Scherzer, their ageless wonder with the slew of pitches. He also is ranked by Forbes as the highest-paid player in the game for 2022 with total earnings of $59.3 million. Scherzer used his 37-year-old arm to sling his fastballs, sinkers, curves, sliders, cutters and changeups to perfection against the Braves.

Courtesy of Scherzer (7 innings, 1 earned run, 3 hits, 9 strikeouts and no walks for a 6-1 record and 2.15 ERA), the Mets are now 2 1/2 ahead of the Braves — with an emphasis on now — after a 4-1 victory.

The Mets still won’t win the divison.

The Braves are just better, and not only because they have five players (Max Fried, Dansby Swanson, Ronald Acuna, William Contreras and Travis d’Arnaud) headed for the NL clubhouse at next week’s All-Star Game in Los Angeles to the Mets’ four (Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Edwin Diaz and Sterling Marte).

Only the New York Yankees slam more home runs than the Braves among Major League teams.

The Mets are in the middle of the pack in that category as mostly a line-drive-hitting bunch, but they join the Braves in baseball’s top five in runs scored and top 1o in team batting average.

Pitching? It’s a draw.

Among all MLB teams, the Braves are slightly higher than the Mets in everything from ERA (5th to 9th) to quality starts (7th to 9th) to strikeouts (1st to 3rd).

You shouldn’t ignore the following, though: This was just Scherzer’s second game since returning from an oblique injury, and two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom is expected to rejoin the Mets’ starting rotation later this month after season-long shoulder issues.

The bigger problem for the Mets is that beyond those stats, the Braves own a championship gene, and they are among baseball’s most resilient teams.

Well, compared to the Mets.

Just last season, the Braves stumbled throughout the spring and the summer so much due to a combination of injuries and incompetence that they didn’t rise above .500 in the standings until August.

The Braves won the World Series anyway.

In contrast, the Mets went from leading the NL East in 2021 at the All-Star Break to finishing third in the division. Not only that, but since the Mets captured their last world championship in 1986, the Braves have won two of them.

So, you know the Mets have been cringing (again) during the last five or six weeks with the Braves streaking (again) like crazy.

“I wouldn’t say we do a lot of (scoreboard watching) this early in the season, but we see what’s going on. It’s right in front of our faces,” Lindor said, glancing up at a TV monitor nearby. “We watch MLB Network, ESPN. We watch our own highlights, and usually, the standings are in there, so yeah, yeah.”

Yeah, they know.