Watch out for the Mets

On SportsCenter last night Peter Gammons said that although he's still picking the Marlins to win the wild card, he thinks the Mets have a real chance to win it. He cited their starting pitching, their youth, their "energy," and some young players--David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran--who he said can carry the offense in September.

This morning on Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio, Tim Kurkjian said essentially the same thing.

The Mets' OPS in August is 100 points higher than the Nationals', and their expected winning percentage (based on their runs scored-runs allowed differential) is 72-54. In fact, the National League East would look like this if every team was performing as expected:

Team	W	L	GB
Atlanta	74	53	---
New York	72	54	1.5
Florida	67	59	6.5
Philadelphia	66	62	8.5
Washington	62	64	11.5

We obviously can't expect the Mets to win the race just because they have a good runs scored-runs allowed differential, but this data does suggest that Gammons and Kurkjian might be on to something. The Mets play each of their division rivals twice more and play St. Louis once, so their remaining schedule isn't the easiest in baseball, but we'll probably have to be talking a lot more about the Mets during the stretch drive than we have so far this season.