ATLANTA — Two months into the season, it looked like the New York Mets were headed for a runaway in the National League East Division.
Not so fast, said the reigning World Series champions.
Sparked by two budding stars, the Atlanta Braves suddenly found their mojo. Now they're a mere game behind the Mets heading into the biggest series of the year, a three-game set at Atlanta's Truist Park on the final weekend of the regular season.
"It's going to be fun," Braves manager Brian Snitker said. "That's kind of why you play."
This isn't quite like the classic title races Major League Baseball featured before introducing the wild card in 1994, when a team had to win its league or division to make the postseason. The Braves and Mets have both locked up playoff berths already.
But every other division title has been clinched with a week to go, leaving the NL East as a most enticing outlier — and winning the division does come with a major perk. The NL East champion will receive a bye into the division round, while the team that winds up second must play in the wild-card round, hosting a best-of-three series.
"We know how good (the Braves) are, and we've got an opportunity just like they do," Mets manager Buck Showalter said. "It's great for baseball, and it's good for our sport that we all love."
The free-spending Mets, bolstered by a dynamic rotation and sluggers Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor, are headed to the postseason for the first time since 2016.
While that goal has been checked off, considering they've been in first place all but a couple of days this season, it would be a major downer for them if Atlanta extends its run of NL East titles to four in a row. The Braves' 21 all-time division titles lead Major League Baseball, one more than the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees.
"It's an important series, and it's one where everyone is going to play hard," Mets third baseman Eduardo Escobar said though a translator.
Early on, it didn't look like much a of race. The Braves were 10 1/2 games behind the Mets on May 31, stumbling along with a record of 23-27. Since then, Atlanta has matched the Dodgers as the hottest team in baseball with a 74-32 mark, getting huge contributions from a pair of rookies.
Michael Harris II was called up from Double-A Mississippi to join the lineup on May 28, largely with the idea that he would bolster the team's defense in center field.
Turns out the 21-year-old is much more than a glove man. He is hitting .305 with 19 home runs, 64 RBIs and 20 stolen bases, making Harris the favorite for NL rookie of the year and already earning him a long-term deal.
If Harris is the best first-year player in the NL, though, he's not far ahead of Atlanta pitcher Spencer Strider. The hard-throwing right-hander with the bushy mustache began the year in the bullpen before making his first career start on May 30.
The 23-year-old has been nothing short of dazzling. In 20 starts, he is 10-4 with a 2.77 ERA and 165 strikeouts in 107 1/3 innings.
Unfortunately for the Braves, Strider won't be available for this series. He's out for the rest of the regular season with an oblique injury, though Atlanta is hopeful of getting him back for the playoffs.
Even without Strider, the pitching matchups this weekend are enticing: New York's Jacob deGrom (5-3, 2.93 ERA) against Atlanta's Max Fried (13-7, 2.50) on Friday, followed by Max Scherzer (11-4, 2.13) versus Kyle Wright (20-5, 3.18) on Saturday, and Chris Bassitt (15-8, 3.2) versus Charlie Morton (9-6, 4.29 ERA) on Sunday. All three are night games.
The weather forecast also seems much more promising than before.
Earlier this week, with Hurricane Ian about to hit Florida and head up the East Coast, the Mets proposed shifting the series opener to Thursday, an off day for both teams. The Braves declined, having played 13 straight days.
By Thursday morning, the forecast called for only a slight chance of showers in Atlanta over the weekend.
The Braves have been chasing the Mets all summer, finally catching them for the first time on Sept. 6, but this race has been a nail-biter for a while, the margin no more than three games for more than a month.
New York leads the season series 9-7, which means it can clinch the potentially important tiebreaker with one win in Atlanta. The Mets won four of five when the teams met in New York the first week of August, which many thought would finish off Atlanta's division hopes.
But the Braves are 32-13 since then, including 21-5 against teams with a record below .500. New York, meanwhile, opened the door by getting swept at home by the lowly Chicago Cubs, though the Mets bounced back to win nine of their past 12 games, including a 10-inning home victory over the Miami Marlins on Wednesday in which they rallied from a four-run deficit to win 5-4.
That game finished up shortly after the Braves lost to the host Washington Nationals in 10 innings, dropping a game behind New York.
That's OK, said Snitker, who pointed out that his team has played "a lot of big games ... high-pressure games. These guys have gotten a whole bunch of them under under their belt. I don't think there's a whole lot that's going to shake them."
These were supposed to be final three games of the regular season for both teams, but the lockout forced the schedule to go deeper into the calendar than usual. The Braves will travel to Miami for three games next week, while New York closes out at home with three against the Nationals.
No one is thinking about those games. It's all about this series.
"Two really good teams obviously going at it," Snitker said. "We'll see what happens."