The Philadelphia Phillies may be playing out the string of a transition season, but don’t expect this division rival to lie down for us to waltz into the playoffs. There’s a long history of Phillies players, announcers, and fans wanting to stick it to the blue and orange. This is a bad team for sure, but also a young team with nothing to lose and plenty to prove.

Of note, this will almost certainly be the last time we’ll see Ryan Howard in a Phillies uniform. The team is certainly not going to pick up the fading slugger’s $23 million option for 2017. Some AL team will scoop him up to DH and live to regret it. Howard is the last holdover from the Phillies teams that made life hell for us six to eight years ago. Who knows if Howard’s swan song will offer his team any additional motivation, but for us, it will be nice to say good-bye to a long time nemesis.

The pitching match-ups for the three-game set at Citizens Bank Park are far from set in stone. For the Mets, it largely will be determined by the standings and outcomes in St. Louis and San Francisco. If, through Mets wins and Cardinals and Giants losses, we can clinch the top wild card spot by Saturday, then heck, we could throw the bullpen batting practice pitcher out on the hill come Sunday.

The opening game will feature righty Robert Gsellman (3-2, 2.56 ERA) against rookie right hander Alec Asher (2-0, 1.66 ERA), who beat the Mets last week. Now with our lefty power hitters all seemingly getting on track, we should be able to put up some runs against Asher, especially with so much on the line. In game two, on Saturday afternoon, we’ll likely see Bartolo Colon (14-8, 3.42 ERA) in a bid to get his 15th win at age 43. The Phillies have not yet announced their starter, but suffice it to say it won’t be prime Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee. Given days off and the wild card games, the NLDS isn’t scheduled to start until next Friday, so Colon would have enough rest to be our game one starter, should when we get there.

If the wild card spot is still undecided come Sunday, then it will be Noah Syndergaard (14-9, 2.60 ERA) taking the mound with the season on the line against Jared Eickhoff (11-14, 3.72 ERA). If anyone is prepared for the big moment, it’s Syndergaard. Hopefully, we won’t need him and will have him ready to go with extra rest for the NL wild card game on Wednesday. If that’s the case, look for a silly end of regular season game featuring all the pitchers and players with little chance of making the post season roster. Think Matt Reynolds leading off and Kevin Plawecki or Eric Campbell batting cleanup.

Knowing this crowd, most of you reading this will tune in to watch just the same. Let’s go Mets!

According to ESPN, the Mets have a 98.6% chance of making the playoffs as a Wild Card team. A quick Google search appears to show that the Wild Card play-in game is its own separate round, meaning you can have a 25-man roster for that game and, if you win, immediately turn around and adjust it for the division series. Assuming this is still the case, how will the Mets put together their roster for the Wild Card game? Here’s how I’d do it:

SP – Noah Syndergaard
RP – Jeurys Familia, Addison Reed, Fernando Salas, Jerry Blevins, Hansel Robles, Josh Smoker
C – Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, Rene Rivera
1B – Lucas Duda, James Loney
2B – Kelly Johnson, T.J. Rivera
3B – Jose Reyes, Ty Kelly
SS – Asdrubal Cabrera, Matt Reynolds
OF – Jay Bruce, Yoneis Cespedes, Michael Conforto, Curtis Granderson, Juan Lagares, Brandon Nimmo

That’s 24 players. The final roster spot needs to go to a pitcher, in case the game goes extra innings. The rotation appears to be set up for Seth Lugo to be the best-rested starter. The other choice would be Sean Gilmartin, who theoretically could go multiple innings and would also give another lefty in the bullpen. But Gilmartin’s last appearance was less than good. And if they clinch before Sunday, Gilmartin may very well get the start in that game. So, Lugo it is.

That’s just an eight-man pitching staff. You have to ask which players are going to help you win a game. You want three catchers so you can double-switch or pinch-hit and still have an emergency replacement available. There’s a backup for every position and adequate pinch hitters from each side of the plate.

And if the Mets win, you’d need to add two starting pitchers and a reliever to the squad. Kelly, Nimmo and Plawecki would appear to be the most vulnerable to being removed. Bartolo Colon and Robert Gsellman would be the two definite pitching additions. And then it would come down to Jim Henderson or Logan Verrett for the final spot. And that might depend on how much the bullpen was used in the Wild Card game.

If the pen is in good shape, Henderson would get the nod. But if the pen was used heavily, Verrett’s ability to bounce back quicker might be a bigger advantage. Let’s hope Syndergaard turns in a dominating performance in the Wild Card game and Henderson gets the final spot.

The Mets defeated the Marlins 5-2 in Miami tonight, taking the rubber game of the series.

• Seth Lugo got the start in this one, and he was very Lugo-like again. He gave up two runs on five hits with three walks and two strikeouts. He worked in and out of trouble all night, living up to his .163 BA against with RISP heading into the game. In the heat of the Wild Card race, Terry Collins was aggressive in getting him out of the game early. He pitched 5.1 innings on 82 pitches, with his only real mistake being a two-run homer in the first inning.
• The Mets leveraged the long ball for most of their scoring tonight. James Loney, who replaced the sore Lucas Duda in the lineup, hit a two-run homer in the second to tie it up at two. Jay Bruce matched that feat with a two-run homer of his own in the fifth inning, his second in as many nights.
• Curtis Granderson had himself a night, going 4-4 with four singles and a walk. He’s now reached base in eight straight at bats. Having he and Bruce (and possibly Duda) hot down the stretch and (hopefully) into the playoffs would be a huge plus.
• The Mets bullpen continues to shine of late, with Hansel Robles, Fernando Salas, Addison Reed, and Jeurys Familia tossing 3.2 innings of scoreless ball. Familia secured his 50th save of the season, putting him in an exclusive club.
• After the off day tomorrow, the Mets will start their final series of the regular season in Philadelphia with the Giants and Cardinals still breathing down their necks in the Wild Card race.

Our older readers may fondly remember the TV game show “Password”. It was very popular during the 1960s and 70s. For those who do not know how it is played basically a contestant and a celebrity (often Betty White) team up with one giving the other one word clues until the partner says the given password.

As a semi-retired optometrist here’s the exchange that has always stayed with me over the decades. This really happened.

Host Allen Ludden gives the contestant the password and we’re told at home, “The password is Optometrist”

contestant: “foot”
celebrity: “ankle”
contestant: “doctor”
celebrity: “Optometrist”

This mind numbing route to the password tells me that sometimes you can get where you want to be in the most unlikely and unpredictable manner.

The 2016 Mets had as a regular season goal the winning of the National League East division, repeating as its champion. The secondary goal was to at least make the playoffs even if it meant participating in the dreaded play-in wild card game.

We know the Mets won’t reach that primary goal but the secondary one is surely in their grasp if they do not spit the bit in the final two series of the season.

But how this team has gotten to where it is can be filed in the truth being stranger than fiction department. After all, the master plan had the four young stud starting pitchers doing the heavy lifting. Bartolo Colon was resigned with the idea that he would be the fifth starter for half a season and move to the bullpen when Zach Wheeler was finished rehabbing from his Tommy John surgery.

The plan included power from Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, Lucas Duda, and David Wright. Travis d’Arnaud, assuming he could remain healthy, would step up and be the better than average offensive catcher that the club expected.

How much of all that actually happened? Right, not much. Wright’s early injury could have been predicted but not the fates of Lucas Duda, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Stephen Matz. And who has been the iron man of the pitching staff? 43 year old Bartolo Colon the master of the 91 mph fastball which he throws over 80% of the time.

Instead the team has gotten mileage and contributions from the likes of Seth Lugo, Robert Gsellman, Gabriel Ynoa, Josh Smoker, and T.J. Rivera.

I pride myself on knowing a lot about the Mets and their organization but must confess that five months ago I could recognize only two of those names.

Meanwhile when the team went big for help it brought in Jay Bruce at the cost of a top prospect, Dilson Herrera. Suffice it to say that that swap has been a total disaster.

This brings us to one more oddity of this season. An area of ongoing debate is how good a manager is Terry Collins. If one spends any time on Twitter while the Mets games are on the lion’s share of comments are destroying Collins. His strategies are second guessed and he’s accused of being the worst bullpen manager in the game today. My personal knock on him is his willingness to utilize players that in my opinion do not even belong in the majors. Naming names: James Loney, Eric Campbell, and Sean Gilmartin.

Yet on a macro scale one has to wonder how despite all the injuries the team has incurred it can be right in the hunt for a wild card berth.

Of course, Addison Reed, Jeurys Familia, and Asdrubal Cabrera have saved the bacon all year long. Neil Walker, before his season ending injury, was also terrific.

One has to conclude that Manager Collins has kept the ship afloat despite taking on thousands of gallons of water. How bad a manager could he possibly be? Who could have gotten more out of this motley crew?

The password is “playoffs” and somehow this Mets team just might make them.