NL Wild Card Standings: What SF Giants must do to make Mets' lives miserable

The SF Giants missed a great opportunity to make up some ground in the NL Wild Card race over the weekend. They dropped two games against the Dodgers in which they had their aces lined up but they can still cause the New York Mets problems if they turn things around quickly.

New York finally snapped its eight-game losing streak on Sunday thanks to a walk-off home run from Pete Alonso. The Mets were playing so badly that it seemed like they were almost becoming a non-factor and that the Cincinnati Reds should be the team the Giants were worried about. As things currently stand, New York has a 1.5 game lead over the Giants in the NL Wild Card race.

How the SF Giants can cause trouble for the Mets the rest of this season

New York is off on Monday, but after that they have 12 games remaining on the season. It is not an easy schedule as they will have to play six games against two playoff teams in the San Diego Padres and the Chicago Cubs while the other six are against the Washington Nationals and the Miami Marlins.

The Giants do not have a cake walk either. They have three games with the Arizona Diamondbacks starting on Monday followed by a four-game series in Los Angeles against the Dodgers. Their last two series will see them face the St. Louis Cardinals and the Colorado Rockies.

Going purely off records, the Giants do have a slightly easier schedule but the Diamondbacks are still alive in the Wild Card race so they are going to give the Giants everything they have.

Let's say New York goes 6-6 the rest of the way and finishes the season with a record of 83-79. That would mean the Giants would have to go 9-4 the rest of the way to finish with a record of 84-78 because New York has the tiebreaker over them.

Maybe the Giants could hope for trying to take two games a piece against Arizona, Los Angeles, and St. Louis before sweeping Colorado to end the season to get to nine wins. Of course, there are no guarantees on what New York will do and if they finish the season on a heater then it really does not matter what the Giants do.

They are going to need a little help from the Mets which they have already received an abundance of. But the Giants have to feel like they need at least nine or ten wins coming down the stretch to put ample pressure on New York. It will not be easy, but if the Giants want to make the playoffs they need to play really good baseball in these final weeks.

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