OK, maybe the Phillies should be a tiny bit scared of the Mets ahead of their NLDS matchup

Every now and then, during the course of baseball history, comes along a team that is so counterintuitive, so inexplicable, so weird, that you have no choice but to fear them. The Mets officially reached that status in the ninth inning on Thursday night. They were down 2-0 and down to their last three outs against a closer widely mentioned as baseball’s best. They were coming off a seventh inning in which they’d allowed a pair of solo home runs to seemingly suck away the last of the magic. But the scariest teams are the ones for whom the magic never runs out.

With two men on base and one out in the top of the ninth, Pete Alonso stepped to the plate and worked a 3-1 count and then the most meme-able slugger in the game sent a pitch from Devin Williams screaming toward the top of the right field wall. The Mets tacked on another run. Game, set, match.

Mets 4, Brewers 2.

Phillies-Mets, Game 1, Saturday evening.

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They are a strange team but a familiar opponent. And also a sensible one. Deep beneath the ridiculousness, beneath the OMG videos and the Francisco Lindor MVP nonsense and the Polar Bear’s peroxide hair, the Mets have cobbled together a lineup full of professional hitters with the kind of experience that tends to play well in the postseason. They have cobbled together a rotation full of tricky veterans who have a habit of thriving against lineups with better name recognition. They have cobbled it together out of the ashes of the largest and most inefficiently distributed payroll in the majors, with more than $100 million currently being paid to players who will not be in uniform this postseason. Money doesn’t buy everything, but it does buy you some bonus swings at the ol’ piñata.

Where Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer once stood, there is now Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, and Jose Quintana, all of whom pitched in wild-card series and will presumably be unavailable for Game 1. There is a closer in Edwin Díaz, who will enter the National League Division Series having thrown 105 pitches in four days, including 39 in Game 3 on Thursday.

The Mets are scary precisely because of what they are not: a team with something to lose. The most dangerous teams in October are those that have gotten hot at the right time. Many of them do not end up making it into the postseason. The Mets are here, and they are winners of 22 of their last 32. A series like the one they just won in Milwaukee can leave a team running on fumes. But, then, some fumes hit different than others.

It is up to the Phillies to stop the nonsense. There are those who will draw a comparison between the Mets of 2024 and the Phillies of the past two postseasons. There are some parallels there. Enough to be wary. But there is also one fundamental difference. It lies in the guy the Phillies will send to the mound for Game 1.

The Mets do not have Zack Wheeler. They do not have anything that comes even close to approximating him. There is no weapon in postseason baseball quite like a bona fide ace. That the Phillies have one is their foremost competitive advantage. They must not squander it. Lose Game 1, and all bets are off.

What the Mets do have is a rotation that is uniquely suited to withstanding the rigors of a three-game wild-card series with only two days of rest before the start of a five-game division series. When you do not have an ace, you do not have to worry about who is starting Game 1. That is good news for the Mets, because they don’t have many options.

After Alonso hit his go-ahead three-run home run in the top of the ninth inning, the presumption was that the Phillies would be facing David Peterson, who had held them to one run in seven innings in the middle of September. Then came the bottom of the ninth, and Peterson came out to the mound to face the Brewers. He only threw eight pitches in recording the save. So he may yet be the choice. Otherwise, the only remaining starter is Tylor Megill, a 28-year-old with good rate stats but a middling 4.04 ERA in 78 regular season innings.

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The Phillies need to pounce, and they need to pounce hard. They have Wheeler in Game 1, and in a potential Game 5. They have a bullpen that has all of the rest it should need. Man-for-man, they have an overwhelming advantage.

But the Mets have that weirdness. In October, that plays.