http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/sports/baseball/new-york-mets-playoffs-miami-marlins.html 2016-09-28 03:09:19 Mets Still Scrambling for One-Game Shot at a Longer Postseason After months of having to address one injury after another, the Mets led the National League wild-card race before their game Tuesday and retained strong hopes of hosting the wild-card game. === MIAMI — The news was so routine for these Another day, another surgery announcement for a budding ace. Yet the Mets led the National League wild-card race before their game here Tuesday with the Miami Marlins, having won 23 of their last 35 games. In one week, there is a very real chance the Mets will host the N.L. wild-card game at Citi Field. This is something of a miracle, owing in equal parts to resourcefulness, fortitude, schedule and the inescapable conclusion that the N.L. does not really have five good teams. But the rules say that the two non-division winners with the best records must meet in a wild-card game next Wednesday. The Mets are relishing the chance to be there. “I’ll tell you what: This is how you want to come to the ballpark,” Manager Terry Collins said. “You want to come to the ballpark with a smile on your face and play for something. We’re playing for something. That’s all you can ask.” Noah Syndergaard is lined up to pitch the wild-card game, unless the Mets need him to clinch a spot on Sunday in Philadelphia. Syndergaard was knocked around by the Atlanta Braves last week, and then had strep throat. Before that, though, he had a 2.24 E.R.A. in 11 starts since the All-Star Game. (He was scheduled to start again on Tuesday.) Syndergaard is the Mets’ best hope for wild-card survival, like Madison Bumgarner for the 2014 San Francisco Giants or Jake Arrieta for the Chicago Cubs last fall. “We like the prospect of having Noah on the mound, no matter who we’re facing,” said Neil Walker, the injured second baseman, who played in the last three N.L. wild-card games for Pittsburgh. “We faced an almost unhittable Arrieta and an almost unhittable Bumgarner, and there’s not much you can do when the guy goes eight or nine. But those are special players that can do it, and I think he’s right up there.” Walker’s Pirates hosted the wild-card game each time. In an earlier playoff format (used from 1995 to 2011), they would have advanced directly to a division series. Instead they faced the one-game elimination round, beating Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto in 2013 before the two losses, both by shutout. “Having gone through it three times, I think the hardest thing to do is not get yourself caught up in the enormity of a one-game baseball system,” Walker said. “Because the more you think about it, you’re going: ‘This just doesn’t make sense. You’re gonna put what we’ve worked for the entire season on one game?’ So as strange as it sounds, in a way, sometimes you put more pressure on yourself with every pitch, with every at-bat.” The Mets faced a winner-take-all game in a division series last October, eliminating the Los Angeles Dodgers behind Jacob deGrom, Syndergaard and Jeurys Familia. But that game still had a more familiar feeling, coming at the end of a series, after four other games. The teams knew each other and had recent data points to use. The immediacy of the wild-card game is different. It is exciting — but, as Walker said, contrary to the way the rest of the season is played. Expanding to a best-of-three format would be foolish, though, because division winners would be waiting too long to start their playoffs. Anyway, there is a simple way to avoid one-and-done: Win your division. The Mets lost all hope of that when the Washington Nationals clinched last weekend, but hope disappeared long before. A defending pennant winner should strive for more than a wild card, but for the Mets, it would be an extraordinary achievement. Losing Walker and David Wright for the season would have been challenging enough, but losing deGrom, Matz and Matt Harvey — with no reinforcements through trades — seemed to be a sure sign that 2016 was doomed. Who knew Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman would save the season? Neither had ever pitched in the majors through June. Through mid-August, neither had made a start. Yet combined, they have made 13 starts and gone 6-3 with a 2.70 E.R.A., helping the Mets win nine times. They would most likely form half of the Mets’ rotation in a playoff series. Both came to the Mets in the 2011 draft, the first under General Manager Sandy Alderson. Gsellman was taken in the 13th round, Lugo in the 34th. Maybe they will falter with time, or maybe the Mets have more depth than we knew. The rookies have handled big-city, pennant-race pressure with ease. “That’s one of the things you kind of train yourself for in the minor leagues,” Lugo said. “You talk about that for years, guys in the minor leagues or the major leagues — the biggest difference is mentality. There’s guys in the minor leagues with tons of skills, some as good or better than major leaguers. But it’s the mentality that separates people.” However this season ends for the Mets, their mentality seems just fine. They have done more with less, and deserve the chance for this final playoff push.