The biggest regular-season series in a decade? Why Mets-Braves showdown could shake up October
The fact that there is a division title hanging in the balance as the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves meet this weekend might come as a surprise for anyone who was watching the National League East standings earlier this season. What was once a 10.5-game lead for New York in early June and still as large as seven games on Aug. 10 has turned into a down-to-the-wire battle, with both teams chasing 100 wins in one of the best division races of the wild-card era.
But while Mets fans are likely a tad stressed by this stretch run, their star first baseman begs to differ.
“This is fun — this is really, really fun, being in a race like this,” Pete Alonso said Tuesday after a Mets loss and Braves win briefly tied the teams for first place.
Luckily for baseball fans, the two teams square off for one final series this weekend in Atlanta that will start with New York a game up in the standings. Due to the unknown aftereffects of Hurricane Ian, the exact schedule could change, but an improved forecast makes it seem more likely they’ll play all three games this weekend.
Rain delayed or not, the series sets up as the biggest of the 2022 regular season, about as big as you can get in this new 12-team postseason world — and, arguably, the most important regular-season series since at least 2012 (more on that in a minute).
Watch: Mets-Braves on Sunday Night Baseball, 7 ET
Yes, both teams have clinched playoff spots, but given the ramifications of winning the division and receiving a first-round bye compared to having to use your best starters out of the gate in a best-of-three wild-card series — where anything can happen — both teams desperately want to win the division, and which one does will shape the shape the entire MLB postseason.
“The hope is to have a good series against New York this weekend,” Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. said Tuesday. “The division is on the line.”
One advantage for the Mets: They lead the season series 9-7, so they need to win only one of the three games to clinch the season series, which would give them the tiebreaker edge and the division title if the two teams finish with the same record (tiebreaker games have sadly been eliminated). Both teams have their rotations lined up, with Chris Bassitt, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer scheduled to face Max Fried, Kyle Wright and Charlie Morton, although the Braves will be without Rookie of the Year candidate Spencer Strider, who is on the injured list with a strained oblique. The Mets have also are calling up their top prospect, catcher Francisco Alvarez for the series.
Outside of eliminating the risk of having your season end three days into the playoffs, the biggest key in avoiding the wild-card series is what it does to your rotation for the next round — especially since there are fewer off days in this year’s postseason after the schedule was condensed because of the lockout. The best-of-five division series, for example, will be played over a potential six days rather than seven.
Here’s how the Braves playoff rotation lines up if they don’t win the division:
Friday, Oct. 7, WC Game 1: Max Fried
Saturday, Oct. 8, WC Game 2: Kyle Wright
Sunday, Oct. 9, WC Game 3: Charlie Morton
Then if they advance, in the division series:
Tuesday, Oct. 11, NLDS Game 1: Bryce Elder/Jake Odorizzi or Morton
Wednesday, Oct. 12, NLDS Game 2: Fried
Friday, Oct: 14, NLDS Game 3: Wright
Saturday, Oct. 15, NLDS Game 4: Morton or Elder/Odorizzi
Sunday, Oct. 16, NLDS Game 5: Game 1 starter
Now, the Braves are holding out hope that Strider can return in the postseason, although given the nature of oblique injuries, that feels a little ambitious for at least the first couple of rounds. But you can see the impact: If you have to play in the wild-card series, and are fortunate enough to move on, you’re going to end up using your No. 3 or 4 starter twice in the division series if it goes the distance. That’s an even bigger deal for Atlanta if Strider is sidelined and it’s the rookie Elder or the struggling veteran Odorizzi making that extra start instead of Fried.
The Mets have a deep rotation as well, but they would certainly prefer deGrom lined up to start twice in the division series:
Friday, Oct. 7, WC Game 1: Jacob deGrom
Saturday, Oct. 8, WC Game 2: Max Scherzer
Sunday, Oct. 9, WC Game 3: Chris Bassitt
Then in the division series:
Tuesday, Oct. 11, NLDS Game 1: Taijuan Walker/Carlos Carrasco or Bassitt
Wednesday, Oct. 12, NLDS Game 2: deGrom
Friday, Oct: 14, NLDS Game 3: Scherzer
Saturday, Oct. 15, NLDS Game 4: Bassitt or Walker/Carrasco
Sunday, Oct. 16, NLDS Game 5: Game 1 starter
The one caveat here is it’s possible the Game 2 starter could come back and start Game 5 on three days of rest. That’s rarely done these days, however, and even last postseason when Morton broke his leg in Game 1 of the World Series the Braves elected to give starts to Tucker Davidson and Dylan Lee rather than pitch anybody on short rest.
Playing in the Wild Card Series isn’t necessarily a sentence to an early exit. The Nationals won when it was a single game in 2019 — in which they used both Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg — and ended up going all the way. (It did help that the NLCS was a four-game sweep, giving their staff a few extra days of rest heading into the World Series.)
But there’s another incentive to avoiding the wild-card series: which side of the bracket the division runner-up will end up in. The division winner will be the No. 2 seed in the National League and play the St. Louis Cardinals or the third wild-card team (most likely the Philadelphia Phillies or Milwaukee Brewers) in the NLDS. The division runner-up gets the No. 4 seed, would have to play the San Diego Padres (the likely No. 5 seed) in the wild-card round — and then the 107-win (and counting) Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS, having just used their top two starters to get there in the first place.
Winning the division also delays starting the clock on the fatigue factor for your pitching staff. While you will hear some mention that the days off between the end of the regular season and the start of the division series can hurt a team — this year, that would be five days — there is no evidence that’s the case. But giving at least your top two starters one fewer start and some extra days off? That sounds like a very good thing in today’s max-effort pitching world.
Look at what happened to the Dodgers last season: They lost that epic NL West race to the San Francisco Giants and started Scherzer in the wild-card game, which meant he couldn’t start again until Game 3 of the NLDS against San Francisco. With the Dodgers down 2-1 in the series, Walker Buehler started Game 4 on short rest and then they used Julio Urias and Scherzer in relief in Game 5.
You can debate some of Dave Roberts’ choices there, but after starting Game 2 of the NLCS against the Braves (two days after his relief appearance) and lasting just 4⅓ innings in a game the Dodgers lost, Scherzer came up with a dead arm and was unable to start Game 6 of the series — which Buehler started again on short rest and pitched poorly as the Dodgers lost and went home.
Bottom line: The less scrambling you have to do with your staff, the better — and, again, this year’s schedule makes it more difficult to do what the Dodgers tried to do last year anyway, which was use their three healthy starters and bullpen their way through the fourth spot in the rotation (or use somebody on short rest).
Which team would benefit more from the bye week, allowing some extra rest for their pitchers? I’d probably say the Mets, given the health issues deGrom and Scherzer have had this season. Plus, deGrom is coming off his worst start since 2019 with the lowly A’s tagging him for five runs in four innings. This is an extremely small sample, but note his ERAs this season:
4 days of rest: 4.15 (three starts)
5 days of rest: 3.52 (four starts)
6+ days of rest: 1.00 (three starts)
Scherzer has good ERAs at all three levels, but check out his OPS and strikeout-to-walk ratio:
4 days of rest: .602 OPS, 4.36 SO-to-BB
5 days of rest: .533 OPS, 8.33 SO-to-BB
6+ days of rest: .460 OPS, 33.0 SO-to-BB
Seems like getting them a little extra rest could be a big deal in how far the Mets go.
So we’re set up for a big series. Now back to my statement of the biggest regular-season series in a decade. I went back to the start of the wild-card game era in 2012 and checked out the tightest division races each full season (no, wild-card races don’t count) and the records heading into the final series those teams played against each other. Here are the closest comparisons.
2022 NL East
New York: 98-58
Atlanta: 97-59
Date: Sept. 30-Oct. 2
2021 NL West
San Francisco: 85-49
Los Angeles: 85-49
Date: Sept. 3-5
An epic race, but the final matchup came early in September — the two didn’t play each other in their final 25 games.
2018 NL Central
Chicago: 83-59
Milwaukee: 82-62
Date: Sept. 10-12
This was the season we ended with two division ties, as the Dodgers and Rockies both finished 91-71 in the NL West. The Brewers won their final eight games (including the tiebreaker) to finally catch the Cubs, but the two clubs last played Sept. 10-12.
2016 AL East
Boston: 85-64
Baltimore: 82-67
Date: Sept. 19-22
The Red Sox were three up on the Orioles when they started a four-game series on Sept. 19. The Red Sox took all four to essentially wrap up the division.
2015 NL Central
St. Louis: 98-58
Pittsburgh: 95-61
Date: Sept. 28-30
St. Louis and Pittsburgh did meet in the next-to-last series of the season. The Cardinals won the first game and then after a rainout they split a doubleheader, clinching the division for St. Louis.
2014 AL Central
Detroit: 84-68
Kansas City: 83-69
Date: Sept. 19-21
The Tigers took the first two games of a three-game series and held on to win the division by one game.
2013 NL Central
Pittsburgh: 81-58
St. Louis: 80-60
Date: Sept. 6-8
The Cardinals swept a three-game series and never relinquished the lead, winning the division by three games.
2012 AL West
Texas: 93-66
Oakland: 91-68
Date: Oct. 1-3
Finally, a series to rival this Mets-Braves matchup — although the two clubs weren’t quite as strong. They met in Oakland for the final series of the season and the A’s took all three games to capture the division.
So there you have it. This Mets-Braves series tracks as the important regular-season series since at least 2012 — and since these teams are better than the A’s and Rangers, it feels even bigger than that one, even if both teams have another series to finish the season.
There are big names and big stars slated to pitch. It involves two of the top franchises in the sport. The implications also go beyond just New York and Atlanta — like, to Los Angeles, where the Dodgers probably aren’t too anxious to face deGrom and Scherzer in a best-of-five series. Alonso is ready. I can’t wait to see how Acuna and Austin Riley and Michael Harris II perform in these big moments. This is baseball at its regular-season best.
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Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer
The legal efforts to unionize college athletes appear to be running out of steam this month as a new Republican-led administration gets set to take over the federal agency in charge of ruling on employment cases.
A players’ advocacy group who filed charges against the NCAA, Pac-12 and USC that would have potentially opened the door for college players to form a union decided Friday to withdraw its complaint. Their case – which was first filed in February 2022 – was one of two battles against the NCAA taken up by the National Labor Relations Board in recent years. Earlier this week, an administrative law judge closed the other case, which was filed by men’s basketball players at Dartmouth.
The National College Players Association, which filed its complaint on behalf of USC athletes, said the recent changes in state law and NCAA rules that are on track to allow schools to directly pay their players starting this summer caused them to reconsider their complaint.
“[T]he NCPA believes that it is best to provide adequate time for the college sports industry to transition into this new era before football and basketball players employee status is ruled upon,” the organization’s founder Ramogi Huma wrote in the motion to withdraw.
The NCAA and its four power conferences agreed to the terms of a legal settlement this summer that will allow schools to spend up to roughly $20.5 million on direct payments to their athletes starting next academic year. The deal is scheduled to be finalized in April.
College sports leaders, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, have remained steadfast in their belief that athletes should not be considered employees of their schools during a period when college sports have moved closer to a professionalized model.
Some industry stakeholders believe that the richest schools in college sports will need to collectively bargain with athletes to put an end to the current onslaught of legal challenges facing the industry. Currently, any collective bargaining would have to happen with a formal union to provide sufficient legal protection. Some members of Congress say they are discussing the possibility of creating a special status for college sports that would allow collective bargaining without employment. However, Congressional aides familiar with ongoing negotiations told ESPN that influential Republican leaders in Congress are firmly against the idea.
The NLRB’s national board previously declined to make a ruling on whether college athletes should be employees in 2015 when a group of football players at Northwestern attempted to unionize. Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s leader during the Biden administration, signaled an interest in taking up the athletes’ fight to unionize early in her tenure. Abruzzo is not expected to remain as the NLRB’s general counsel during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Under Abruzzo, the agency’s regional offices pushed both the Dartmouth and USC cases forward in the past year. Dartmouth players got far enough to vote in favor of forming a union in March 2024, but were still in the appeals process when they decided to end their effort last month.
The only remaining legal fight over employee status in college sports is a federal lawsuit known as Johnson v. NCAA. That case claims the association is violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, which does not guarantee the right to unionize but instead would give athletes some basic employee rights such as minimum wage and overtime pay. That case is currently working its way through the legal process in the Third Circuit federal court.
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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
Louisiana State Police have issued an arrest warrant for former LSU receiver Kyren Lacy, who is accused of causing a fatal crash that killed a 78-year-old man on Dec. 17 and then fleeing the scene without rendering aid or calling authorities.
Louisiana State Police said on Friday that Lacy will be charged with negligent homicide, felony hit-and-run and reckless operation of a vehicle.
Police said they have been in contact with Lacy and his attorney to turn himself in.
According to a news release from state police, Lacy was allegedly driving a 2023 Dodge Charger on Louisiana Highway 20 and “recklessly passed multiple vehicles at a high rate of speed by crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated no-passing zone.”
“As Lacy was illegally passing the other vehicles, the driver of a northbound pickup truck abruptly braked and swerved to the right to avoid a head-on collision with the approaching Dodge,” a Louisiana State Police news release said.
“Traveling behind the pickup was a 2017 Kia Cadenza whose driver swerved left to avoid the oncoming Dodge Charger. As the Kia Cadenza took evasive action to avoid impact with the Dodge, it crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a southbound 2017 Kia Sorento.”
Police alleged that Lacy, 24, drove around the crash scene and fled “without stopping to render aid, call emergency services, or report his involvement in the crash.”
Herman Hall, 78, of Thibodaux, Louisiana, who was a passenger in the Kia Sorrento, later died from injuries suffered in the crash, according to state police.
The drivers of the Cadenza and Sorento also sustained moderate injuries, according to police.
Lacy played two seasons at Louisiana before transferring to LSU in 2022. This past season, he had 58 catches for 866 yards with nine touchdowns and declared for the NFL draft on Dec. 19, two days after the crash.
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Tears welled in Drew Allar‘s eyes and began to fall down the Penn State quarterback’s face as he spoke about a game that was in his grasp, until it wasn’t.
Allar, who showed clear improvement during his second year as Penn State’s starting quarterback, struggled for much of Thursday’s 27-24 loss to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl. But after helping Penn State take the lead midway through the fourth quarter, he had a chance to lead a game-winning drive as the offense took possession with 47 seconds to play and the score tied at 24-24.
Then, on first down from the Penn State 28-yard line, Allar looked downfield for wide receiver Omari Evans but badly misfired, and Notre Dame’s Christian Gray dove to intercept the ball. The Irish then picked up a key first down, setting up Mitch Jeter‘s 41-yard field goal attempt, which he converted with seven seconds left.
“I was going through my progression, got to the backside, and honestly, I was just trying to dirt it at his feet,” Allar said. “I should have just thrown it away when I felt the first two progressions not open, because of the situation we were in.”
Allar, who completed 71.6% of his passes during the regular season and helped Penn State reach the Big Ten title game, connected on only 12 of 23 attempts Thursday for 135 yards. Penn State converted 3 of 11 third-down chances and didn’t complete any passes to its wide receivers. Thursday marked the only game in the past 20 seasons that Penn State failed to complete a pass to a wide receiver.
Notre Dame entered the game fifth nationally in third-down conversion defense at a shade under 30%, while Penn State was 15th nationally in third-down conversions at 47%. On third-and-goal late in the first quarter, Allar’s pass to running back Nicholas Singleton went a bit behind him, bouncing off his hands to prevent a likely touchdown.
“I thought we had a really good plan,” Allar said. “I thought [offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki] and the offensive staff had a really good plan for normal downs, third down and red zone, but I missed a couple throws on it, so it comes down to just execution. Credit to Notre Dame for making it tough, for sure, but I think if we just execute those moments that we would have put ourselves in a better position. It starts with me hitting some of those throws.”
Despite winning a team-record 13 games, including the first two CFP victories in school history, Penn State squandered two leads to fall just short of advancing to the national title game. Coach James Franklin, who dropped to 1-15 against AP top-five opponents, pointed to Penn State’s third-down struggles on both sides of the ball — Notre Dame converted 11 of 17 opportunities — and the final minutes of the first half and start of the second half as the biggest factors in the outcome.
“He’s hurting right now, should be hurting, we’re all hurting, this ain’t easy,” Franklin said of Allar. “He’ll handle it great. He’ll be hurting tonight and he’ll be hurting tomorrow and he’ll hurt a little bit less than the next day and so on and so forth. But he’s a committed guy that’s going to do it the right way.”
Kotelnicki said the team embraced a “playing to win” mindset and wanted to remain aggressive in the final minute. After Singleton rushed for 13 yards on the first play, Penn State tried to use tempo on the ill-fated pass.
“He’s going to put that on himself, and he doesn’t have to,” Kotelnicki said. “I’ve got to be better for him and our offense to make sure that whatever we’re doing, whatever play we’re calling, that our people have a chance to separate and put him in a position where he can feel more comfortable. So I simply say to him, ‘That ain’t you. That’s not on you. You don’t need to take that on your shoulders and feel the blame for that.'”
Allar’s interception marked his first of the CFP and just his eighth all season. He struggled with accuracy during four postseason games — the Big Ten championship and three CFP contests — hitting on only 58 of 109 (53.2%) of his attempts, while throwing six touchdown passes and three interceptions.
The 6-foot-5, 238-pound junior announced last month that he intended to return to Penn State for the 2025 season rather than enter the NFL draft.
“We didn’t win the game, so it wasn’t good enough, I think it’s plain and simple,” Allar said. “So I’ll learn from it, just do everything in my power to get better from it and just grow from it.”
Franklin called Allar’s growth “significant” from 2023, his first year as Penn State’s starter.
“He said it, and it may not feel like it right now, but he’ll learn from this, and he’ll be better for it, and so will we,” Franklin said.
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