Among the several crucial series this week that could help decide the MLB playoff picture, arguably the biggest will take place at Citi Field, where the Philadelphia Phillies bring a commanding seven-game lead in the NL East into a three-game set against the rival New York Mets that begins on Monday night.
The Mets entered the 2025 season with sky-high expectations, expectations that they seemed on pace to meet not too long ago. But New York has run aground of late, and Philly has taken full advantage, riding a couple big trade deadline additions to a 15-7 record in August that threatens to put this division away for good. The Mets are out of runway; if they want to have any chance at recapturing the East, it's going to have to start on Monday night.
Doing that is much easier said than done, though. The Phillies are playing about as well as anyone in the NL right now, and they enter this series particularly suited to take advantage of one of New York's biggest weaknesses.
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Mets' struggles against left-handed pitching could cost them against the Phillies
The odds aren't looking great right now. These teams have been trending in different directions of late, and Philly is well-suited to exploit one of the biggest weaknesses on this Mets team: an inability to hit left-handed pitching.
New York's offense has been strong overall this year, but dig in a bit and you'll see a worrying platoon split. The Mets are slashing .251/.330/.438 against righties, with the fourth-best OPS in baseball; but that OPS drops all the way to .692 against southpaws, 15th in the Majors.
Outside of Pete Alonso (well, and Juan Soto, who hits everybody), the Mets don't have a hitter who really feasts on left-handed pitching. It's one of the areas where the regression of Mark Vientos and the injury to Francisco Alvarez hurt most. And it doesn't bode well in a series in which Philly will send two of their big three lefties to the mound.
Game | Date | Pitching matchup |
|---|---|---|
1 | Monday, Aug. 25 | LHP Cristopher Sanchez (PHI) vs. RHP Kodai Senga (NYM |
2 | Tuesday, Aug. 26 | LHP Jesus Luzardo (PHI) vs. LHP Sean Manaea (NYM) |
3 | Wednesday, Aug. 27 | RHP Taijuan Walker (PHI) vs. RHP Nolan McLean (NYM) |
Sanchez would be getting much more Cy Young buzz in a world where Paul Skenes didn't exist, and while Luzardo has been maddeningly inconsistent at times this year, he's been cooking over his last few starts. If those two shove on Monday and Tuesday, then it doesn't really matter much what star rookie McLean brings in the finale: All Philly needs to do is hold serve and the Mets will simply run out of games to try and close the gap.
This is New York's last chance to make a run for the NL East
It's now or never for the Mets. A seven-game deficit is imposing, to say the least, and on Labor Day New York will embark on a grueling road trip that takes them to Detroit, Cincinnati (which the Mets lead by just 1.5 games for the final NL Wild Card spot) and Philadelphia. Blow the chance to make up ground on your rival at home, and you can pretty much kiss the division goodbye.
And that would be ... less than ideal for this team's odds of making a playoff run, to put it lightly. The playoff picture as it stands right now has the Mets as the No. 6 seed, which would mean heading to Los Angeles for a best-of-three Wild Card series against the dangerous Dodgers in a rematch of last year's NLCS. That's a fate that every team should be desperate to avoid.