Where the Mets stand in postseason tiebreaker scenarios

The Mets' recent slump knocked them out of the National League East race, which the Philadelphia Phillies clinched with a victory on Monday, and all but eliminated their chances of escaping the third Wild Card spot since they trail the San Diego Padres by five games in the standings. The Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants remain in pursuit of New York for the final Wild Card spot.

Arizona beat the Giants 8-1 on Monday to leapfrog them and move 1.5 games back of the Mets, while dropping San Francisco to an even 2 games back. Cincinnati beat the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday as well, which also shaved their deficit to just 2 games.

With four teams jockeying for one playoff spot, the end of the season could be a wild finish. The one bummer for fans is that the league's expanded playoff system means an end to the days of a winner-take-all Game 163, resulting in the final spot coming down to a series of tiebreakers if at least two teams finish with the same record at the end of the season.

How The Mets Stack Up In Various Tiebreaker Scenarios

The first tiebreaker, which is applicable if two teams finish tied in the standings, is head-to-head record in a season series. The Mets hold this tiebreaker over the Giants, who they went 4-2 against in the regular season, but lose it to the Reds, who won four out of six meetings against them in the second half.

The Diamondbacks and Mets haven't met since the beginning of May and split their season series 3-3, with each team taking two out of three on the road. The next tiebreaker involves the best record against teams inside of your own division, with Arizona currently sitting at 24-20 against NL West foes and the Mets an even 23-23 against NL East competition.

This tiebreaker could go down to the wire as the Mets still have six division games left against Miami and Washington, while the Diamondbacks have eight more division games (two against San Francisco this week before three each with the Dodgers and Padres to wrap the season).

If the Mets and Arizona end up tied in that category as well, the next tiebreaker would be their combined record against the other two National League divisions. The Mets have a decisive edge here, going 30-26 against the rest of the NL while the Diamondbacks are just 27-32 in those games, with each having some games remaining to settle that tiebreaker (six games with San Diego and Chicago for the Mets while Arizona hosts the Phillies for three over the weekend).

The most complicated math involves three or four-team tiebreakers, which can get quite messy. The first tiebreaker involves the best record in games involving the tied teams, which results in the following scenarios (assuming Arizona and San Francisco split the remainder of this series):

While the Mets can win individual tiebreakers with the Giants or Diamondbacks (the latter contingent on good performance in their remaining division games), any scenario involving the Reds would see the Mets miss out on the postseason. Cincinnati did the best in games involving these four teams, so they would simply need to get into a multi-team tie to secure a playoff spot.

The Mets can make all of these scenarios moot by simply taking care of their own business over the next two weeks as winning each of their four remaining series would bring them up to 85 wins, requiring the teams behind them to go either 9-2 (Arizona) or 10-2 (San Francisco and Cincinnati) to force the tiebreaking scenario. Anything less than that makes the odds of a Mets' postseason appearance much more dicey.