Mets 11 at Cincinnati 7

Well, that was more like it. A lot of people have been talking recently about how ridiculous it is for Wes Littleton to earn a Save for pitching the final three innings of a 30-3 blowout, but I don't think it's much more ridiculous than Perez getting the W for giving up five runs in as many innings. Perez did not pitch well, but we all know that Wins are a terrible measure of how well a pitcher has pitched, right? Right.

Anyway, Mets remain five games up on the Phillies in the NL East. Somehow, despite the cluster-fuck last week, the Mets' division lead is almost exactly what it was before the 4-game sweep in Philly: five games. The remaining schedule favors the Mets, too. Strength of remaining schedules over the last 24 games (or so) for the three contenders in the NL East:

Mets - .462
Braves - .485
Phillies - .488

I expect the Braves, Mets, and Phillies to play .500 ball against each other*, with final standings in the division being determined by how well each team plays the rest of their games. The Mets will get to beat up on the Marlins and Nats, while the Braves and Phillies have to play the somewhat-respectable Brewers and Rockies, respectively; so I don't expect their relative positions to change.

Braves: your season is over, 8.5 games behind the Mets, and 3.5 behind the Phillies. You're also six games back for the Wild Card with four teams ahead of you. Atlanta's drought of division titles continues.



* These three teams each have one more series left against the other two.